Dark City may be the holy grail of film noir lovers in print form, although there are many publications now devoted to this genre/style. The delights of Dark City are many and varied, the ultimate labor of love by film historian Eddie Mueller. His association with all things noir is extensive going back to his studies at the San Francisco Art Institute during the late 1970s with underground filmmaker George Kuchar. Mueller is also the founder of the Film Noir Foundation which has restored at least thirty-six of these noir films (both Hollywood and foreign productions) since 2005.
Mueller is also known for hosting the “Noir Alley” special programming segment on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) channel on premium cable. He has also authored six non-fiction titles about film noir, femme fatales in cinema, outlaw films, collaborated on a biography with 1950s movie star Tab Hunter, and released a revised edition of Dark City in 2021. One of the best aspects of Mueller’s book in the original form is how he categorized the noir films being discussed into eleven subcategories.
In the first segment “Welcome To Dark City” the initial attractions of urban life, the place to pursue dreams, get ahead, and find excitement are swallowed up by its sprawling vastness, the entrenched corruption of its big business and politics, the grit, the grime, and the crime. City That Never Sleeps (1953) may be the title which best encapsulates the fears and dangers of life in the big city in general, but in this particular story of the desperate characters inhabiting a dingy Chicago neighborhood – including a cop experiencing a moral quandary, a corrupt businessman (is there any other kind?) and an assortment of other crooks, losers, etc.
Mueller’s Dark City takes his readers through the dark but thrilling journey to the wrong-side-of-the-tracks to meet up with all sorts of shady characters in the largely black & white twilight world of crime and punishment. The first stop takes us to “Sinister Heights” where the fat cats live it up in the penthouse suites high above the grimy streets below. That’s where all the little people toil to maintain the corporate gangsters, slimy politicians, and their assorted hangers-on in those fancy digs, where dishonesty and cutthroat deals are the order of the day – and night.
Force Of Evil (1948) may be the film which best represents “Sinister Heights” in Mueller’s estimation. He describes this level of criminality as: “…crooks are shaved, shined and high-toned. They’ve learned how to fold their rackets into the straining seams of the capitalist economy.” (Pg. 22) Unlike the brash, violent gangsters of 1930s cinema, the noir crime bosses worked smoothly behind the scenes to have corporate bigwigs, mayors and police chiefs under their grip. The Force Of Evil criminals typified the Wall Street sleaze bags running a racket that attempts to force smaller banks into a larger combine controlled by them.
However, it cannot escape notice that the movie studios like MGM which produced reel lives in Force Of Evil were in fact, in bed with organized criminals themselves in real life – an unsavory situation where gangsters took over craft and stagehand unions which on the surface seemed to provide financial benefits for Hollywood’s film crews, but still provided big kickbacks to gangsters! At least that shakedown was finally busted after a Federal investigation in 1941 sent the gangsters reeling and many ended up in jail. Still, ripping the lid off scandals like this barely scratches the surface of the crime cauldron that is “Sinister Heights.”
Next, we take a spin over to “The Precinct” where law enforcement is up against the wall, straining to keep the criminal element from crashing over them like a tidal wave. In this part of Dark City the FBI is hard at work using the latest technology to thwart and capture Communist subversives in The House on 92nd Street (1945). This was the first film to take a semi-documentary approach to tell a serious, vital, and absorbing story to fascinate audiences with how the FBI protects the security interests of the United States. Moving on to the realm of burned-out cops we find ourselves On Dangerous Ground (1951) where too many years and too much seen as a beat cop has finally taken its toll on Jim Wilson (played by film noir and Dark City stalwart Robert Ryan) who becomes part of the problem rather than the solution as his rage and uncontrolled violence threatens to topple his career.
Situations like this become even more drastic when Detective Mark Dixon (played by another Dark City regular, Dana Andrews) becomes so messed up performing his job duties that he beats a suspect to death in Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950). Dixon hates criminals so much that he tries to pin the murder on yet another criminal. By the mid-1950s many noirs such as Sidewalk were not hesitant to show this darker, unflattering side of law enforcement where the police are not always models of “to protect and to serve” virtue.
In any case, these two films and many others of the period such as Detective Story (1951), The Big Heat (1953), Shield For Murder (1954), and Rogue Cop (1954) etc. are sobering illustrations of how of law enforcement takes a turn for the worst, inseparable from the criminals they are up against. “The Precinct” also presages the challenges and stresses of law enforcement in our present time, as the police are increasingly under the glare of negative publicity in the wake of such high-profile scandals as the George Floyd murder. This pivotal event spawned a wave of protests and riots which have resulted in creating more exposures of police corruption and misconduct, with many officers leaving forces across the country. Sadly, it creates a more difficult atmosphere to operate for the good cops who remain.
Our journey through Dark City continues on to “Hate Street”, the preserve of the amateur criminals where the dark side takes on a more domestic appearance. More often than not, women are the main antagonists of these “murder noirs” with Double Indemnity (1944) being the prime example among them. As Mueller concisely stated in Dark City: “Double Indemnity marked the first time a Hollywood film explicitly explored the means, motives, and opportunities of committing murder.” (Pg.56) This was pretty hot stuff in 1944, marking the start of scheming narratives about seemingly normal, middle-class people taking appalling actions to satisfy greedy ambitions.
In Double Indemnity sexy, bored housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) lures a smitten insurance salesman, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) down the path of destruction by plotting to murder her husband and fool the life insurance company into paying out “double” for an “accidental” death. These roles were quite the departure for both Stanwyck and MacMurray who had previously been known for portraying more upright characters.
Then again, the noir features offered an abundance of opportunities for performers to portray captivating villains, to play against type, but who still get their comeuppance before the final fade-out. These roles are often more enthralling than getting stuck in the rut of playing one-dimensional goody-two shoes types anyway. As we leave Double Indemnity behind and continue our way down Hate Street, we hardly find sanctuaries of domestic bliss in Mildred Pierce (1945) or The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) either. Joan Crawford won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar in the former for her steely portrayal of a single mother and self-made woman who becomes a successful restauranteur.
Unfortunately for Mildred, financial and social success does not equal contentment or happiness as one of her daughters dies of pneumonia and the other daughter becomes a scheming, heartless tramp who carries on an illicit affair with Mildred’s second husband – who also plots to destroy Mildred’s hard-won business enterprises. Of course, all this treachery results in typical noir-style mayhem and murder. While Mildred Pierce is a superior noir in both themes and atmosphere, it’s also one of the greatest soap operas of the 1940s and is considered to be the signature role of her long and impressive career which spanned forty-five years.
Our next address on “Hate Street” is the small-time road house of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). However, Cora Smith (Lana Turner) and her doddering middle-aged husband (played by Cecil Kellaway) never turn this dusty, rural cafe into anything approaching what Joan Crawford achieved in Mildred Pierce. The bewitching, curvy, over-sexed Cora mesmerizes handsome, virile drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) passing through town, into murdering her husband so they can be together and build up the cafe, and make lots of money so Cora “can be somebody” special.
Of course, in most noir narratives like Postman it would never do to have the femme fatale and her flunky get off scot-free to enjoy their I’ll-gotten gains. All it takes is some blackmail, a slick district attorney, and a slimy lawyer thrown into the mix – then Cora and Frank’s doom is sealed. We should expect nothing less in the shadowy world of Dark City. Without being a spoiler, (see the movie!) we’re moving on, since there are many other tantalizing tales of wickedness to discover along “Hate Street”. Another knockout is The Damned Don’t Cry (1950) with that totally fitting noir-type title. In this rags-to-riches (and rags to bitches!) tale, Ethel Whitehead (Joan Crawford) is able to flee the wrong-side-of-the-oil-field-tracks, work her way up the socioeconomic ladder as a dress model and eventually is transformed into the fabulous society matron Lorna Hanson Forbes.
However, this being the everlasting Dark City, Lorna gets too involved with all the wrong characters: crime syndicate bosses and thug enforcers which eventually cause the demise of her grandly crafted facade and send her back to the bleak side of town. We still have two more stops left on “Hate Street”. The first one is at the creepy, oppressive mansion inhabited by Barbara Stanwyck in The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers (1946) Ms. Stanwyck (our treacherous trollop from Double Indemnity) reincarnates in the title role of Martha to carry on yet more scheming and plotting to lure men down the road to oblivion. Martha Ivers is a salacious tale of deception, power struggles, and murder as Stanwyck is enmeshed into a love quadrangle with her jealous but ineffectual husband Walter (Kirk Douglas), Sam (Van Heflin) an old flame returning to town after the war, and Toni (Lizabeth Scott) a mysterious ex-con passing through Iverstown.
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers much like Mildred Pierce and many other noir tales clearly illustrate that an over abundance of money, power, and social position do not cure the ills of jealousy, inflated egos, simmering resentments, or emotional instability. Iverstown itself gets little attention from its name-sake socialite and merely serves as a dreary industrial backdrop typical of the noir landscape. In any case, we finally arrive at the fashionable address of successful and wealthy playwright Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford) in the highly suspenseful thriller Sudden Fear (1952).
As in Mildred Pierce, Myra/Crawford learns that her new husband is a faithless dead beat, but this time around he’s not just an alcoholic leach and adulterer. Now, the louse weighing her down is an actor (that she had previously rejected for the lead in her new play) and he’s planning to murder her – with his new girlfriend! Myra accidentally finds out about their nefarious plot and concocts a scheme of her own to get them first. Sudden Fear is right on target as a superior noir and melodrama, a stylish thriller with nail biting chase scenes through the dark, gritty alleys and side streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, making good use of actual night-time locations.
All of these films are vital parts of the noir canon for those newly interested in this major part of Hollywood film history. In Part 2 we will continue to the next area of Dark City. We’ll be off to “Shamus Heights” – the preserve of the hard-boiled detectives!
