The Killer Has Asthma! - Blake Edwards' "Experiment in Terror" (1962)

Blake Edwards died last night. I get the whole Breakfast at Tiffany's and Pink Panther thing. Loved Peter Gunn. I'll watch Victor Victoria, or even Micki & Maude on the right kind of day. But I think Blake hit a high note with Experiment in Terror. It's a shadow-binge late noir thriller about a bank teller in San Francisco that is taken hostage in her own home by a wheezing strangler who tries to coerce her into robbing her employer. Big emphasis on sound design and the Mancini soundtrack was perfect. Who knew asthma could be so creepy?

Personally I Think He Was Out On A 69 Call

I'm planning on watching The D.I. soon and I ran across this (each links to giagundo versions):





a touch of kismet after meeting James Ellroy (who has employed and appreciated Jack Webb at different times in his career) last week.

I love the use of clipped sentences a la Jack's show, and the old Confidential Magazine modus opperandi of giving real addresses and license plate numbers. No wonder they got in trouble.

Anyway, I also found this weird quintessentially Jack Webb trailer for the DI where he uses more of his stylistically low budgetude to intro the film - without any actual clips:

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Lumet is relentless, both in his career and his direction. This is two hours of, "Why did I do this?!?!? Not the characters, ME." There's poetry buried deep in the dialogue by first timer Kelly Masterson. That guy who cheated on Uma does a great job, and looks like a first class hapless dope through most of the film. Philip Seymour (did-you-know-I'm-in-every-movie?)Hoffman's pink carcass in the beginning acts as an allegory for his overall persona - florid and heaving, not sanguine, yet remaining in the act, yet remaining as relentlessly as Lumet;'s presence until the end..

Crossfire

Halfway through so far, exquisite noir beautifully directed by blacklisted Edward Dmytryk. Strong anti racist message. Gloria Grahame very youthfully tarty. The mise en scene and lighting are genius. Robert Young plays the antipode of Marcus Welby. Robert Ryan - psychotic.

Plays March 14th on US TCM. Click here to set a reminder via email to watch it. (on the right)



Okay - Finished it:
It was ...... clean. The economy of script and commensurate direction made it work. Nowadays there'd be a 20 minute fist fight between either Robert Young or Mitchum and Robert Ryan, with Robert Ryan ending up getting impaled on a Star of David on top of a synagogue after being knocked off a taller building by a crane operated by Gloria Grahame, who saves Mitchum/Young at the last minute.

Oh yeah and all that mise en scene stuff still goes. Dmytryk is like Michael Curtiz. Exquisite.

I'm in a Cloris Leachman mood.

I couldn't find any clips from "Kiss Me Deadly," but Phyllis was pretty hot. I saw her hiking once, she had little arm weights and looked great. (Wait! I found it. Cloris wasn't tagged!) One hell of a movie opening: