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Rating: 
Summary: DARK NIGHTS. COOL FILMS. NOIR AT ITS BEST
Review: A dark night. A rain-drenched sidewalk. A streetlight flickering on the pavement. Murky shadows, creepy shapes. A gunshot. A beautiful woman chased down the street by a man whose body is encased in a trenchcoat and whose face is obscured by a fedora. Relax. Loosen up. Enjoy. You haven't witnessed a crime, but are witness to the America's newest nostalgia craze: Film Noir. Shadows, Lies and Private Eyes: The Film Noir Collection is a set of five flicks overflowing with dames, gats and double-crosses, and packaged with bonuses including audio commentaries, trailers, interviews and other assorted gimcracks and gewgaws.
Gun Crazy, which film noir expert Eddie Muller refers to as "a noir Bonnie and Clyde," stars Peggy Cummins and John Dall. (To noir buffs, these two are major stars. To all others ...who?) The blatant sexuality of Dall's love for guns and Cummins love for ... well ... killing people is extraordinary for 1949, and today, the creepy carnality is still disturbing.
The masterpiece The Asphalt Jungle (1950) walks the line between gangster and noir, but with a young Marilyn Monroe and a studly Sterling Hayden, John Houston's tale of dishonor among thieves torches the screen with lust and violence.
The Set-Up, directed by Robert Wise way, way before The Sound of Music and starring Robert Ryan, is the personal favorite of both the director and the star. Filmed in real time, it's a 72 minutes tale of life before, during and after the boxing match that defines a fighter's life. It's all here --- the smoke-filled rooms, the bloodthirsty fans, the savagery in the ring, the delusional dreams of boxing's palooka world.
Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer heat up Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947). With Mitchum spouting lines like "Then build my gallows high, baby," this archetypal noir has a hoodwinked detective in Mitchum and a scary hood in Kirk Douglas. The Warner collection rounds out with Edward Dmytryk's Murder, My Sweet (1944), as quintessential film noir as you can get. Based on Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely, the flick stars Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe. The search for the treacherous Velma through the indigent void called Los Angeles powers this black excursion into near oblivion. As Powell/Marlowe says: "I'm just a small businessman in a very messy business."
So go, sweetheart. Enjoy. Get the lowdown on all the cats and kittens, molls and johns, and bad guys, hustlers and con-men who hawk their hearts on the streets of broken dreams called film noir. By the way, is that a gun in your pocket, or do you just like watching movies like these?
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Summary: What a deal!
Review: Five terrific noir films in pretty good to excellent transfers, all in keep-cases (thanks, Warner) with wonderful period cover art, and commentaries too! I had not see three of the five films in the box - I bought it for "Asphalt Jungle" and "Gun Crazy," but all are worth watching and re-watching. And at $35 this is an amazing bargain.
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Summary: 5 Great Movies on DVD
Review: For many years film noir fans have been waiting for some of these titles to appear on VHS and only dreaming of them being released on DVD. These are five must-own films for any fan of classic film noir. Much of the American cinema of the last 35 years owes a debts to these films and filmmakers. Most notable: * The great robbery tracking shot in the back of a station wagon in Gun Crazy * The minute by minute account of a man coming to terms with his life in The Set-Up * The great atmosphere and direction in Asphalt Jungle * The unique perspective of Murder My Sweet * Out of the Past - two words, Robert Mitchum and at his best All fine films. Lets hope we see many more from Warner Bros, Universal and MGM.
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Summary: 5 DEFINITIVE NOIR CLASSICS AT AN UNBEATABLE PRICE!
Review: I managed to find an early copy of this boxed set yesterday afternoon, and stayed up until the wee small hours watching ALL the films. What a SENSATIONAL collection. The transfers are all new and sparkling. They look and sound terrific. Probably some dweeb on here may find a speckle or (I love this B.S.) an "age related artifact". but the truth is I've never seen any of these films presented so beautifully, and anyone who picks up this collection is in for a treat. GUN CRAZY and OUT OF THE PAST are my two favorite film noirs. Period. They really define the genre. They are amazing, unique films from under-appreciated directors, Joseph H. Lewis and Jacques Tourneur. Amazing performances, great writing and superb direction. The commentaries here are all quite fascinating, mostly from noir experts and scholars, but on THE SET-UP, Robert Wise himself is there to reflect on his own direction, aided by wise and insightful comments from none other than Martin Scorsese. The box is nicely designed, but inside are five gorgeous keepcases with original poster art from each film. They look sensational. ...and at Amazon's bargain price, this comes out to about $7 a film. (I paid slightly more from a local retailer who put it out a little early, and it was more than worth it for me!). This is phenomenal film history, presented with class and panache, and at an irresistible price. Once again Warner Brothers home video sets the standard for how to present classic films on DVD, leaving all the other companies in the dust!
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Summary: STUNNING BOX SET OF VINTAGE FILM NOIR!
Review: The mid to late 1940s produced a string of classic film noir motion pictures that effectively paved the road to more cynicism and realism in the movies. Now, Warner Brothers Home Entertainment effectively brings together five of the most riveting examples of the genre in one compelling box set. What follows is a brief plot outline of each of the five films included.
GUN CRAZY: Sigmund Freud would have a field day with Bart Tare (John Dall), the gun crazy marksman who just can't live without always having a firearm in his possession. Feeling more than a little inadequate, shall we say, Bart soon teams up with Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) a woman for who the moniker - girls gone wild - must have been invented. Laurie's high life fuels both their rabid passions for each other and a life of crime. The film is one of those cautionary tales that attempts to chart what happens to individuals to whom life does not follow the straight and narrow trajectory. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE: is an artfully gritty jewel heist caper gone horribly wrong. Director, John Huston employs both an economy of plot and depth of his characters to flesh out the story. Sam Jaffe is Doc, the criminal mastermind with a weakness for hoop earrings and tight skirts. Louis Calhern is the middle aged, penniless fencer, Ennrich, and sugar daddy to Marilyn Monroe. There is nothing cartoonish or cliché about Sterling Hayden's particularly powerful Dix Handley, the tense enforcer of the group.
Jacque Tourneur's OUT OF THE PAST stars Robert Mitchum as sleepy-eyed Jeff Bailey, the ultra-cool, ultra savvy former P.I. hiding out from his former life as a gas station owner. But the past catches up with Bailey in the embodiment of Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) enters the picture as the atypical femme fatale, whose bite is more venomous than the poisonous web of destruction and deceit that she manages to ensnare everyone in. In "MURDER, MY SWEET Dick Powell is detective Philip Marlowe - hired by an ex-con (Mike Mazurki) to hunt down his old flame. But the plot spins out of control when a murder leads to Marlowe's engagement by a manipulative woman (Claire Trevor), to recover her missing jewels. Finally, there's the forgotten gem, THE SET-UP, a taut and exciting 71 minute masterpiece that pulls no punches when it comes to exposing the seedy underworld racket of professional boxing. The sadly forgotten Robert Ryan stars as Stoker, a once optimistic, once handsome pugilist who falls prey to two unscrupulous fight promoters who make a deal with an underworld kingpin to throw the fight. The wrinkle: nobody tells Ryan that he's got to lose, hence he's driven to win. THE TRANSFERS: In keeping with Warner's current trend of not doing all that is humanly possible to completely restore and remaster classic movies on DVD, the cumulative quality of these film is just above average. The gray scale for each is nicely balanced with deep solid blacks and relatively clean whites. There's a considerable amount of film grain and a lot of age related artifacts for a visual presentations that, while a considerable improvement over previously issued VHS tapes, are still below par for what might have been if more digital wizardry had been applied. There's also a considerable amount of fine detail shimmering, particularly in OUT OF THE PAST as well as pixelization and edge enhancement. Though the picture quality of all films in this box set can be solidly rendered, over all the quality for each is inconsistently rendered. The audio is mono but nicely balanced.
EXTRAS: The real disappointment here is in the extra features which amounts to little more than a string of audio commentaries by film noir authors. But the commentaries aren't very informative. James Ursini's commentary - for example - boils down to the obvious with him telling the viewer throughout every scene how dark and starkly contrasted scenes are a hallmark of film noir. Drew Casper doesn't even introduce himself or his credentials for his audio commentary on THE ASPHALT JUNGLE until a good fifteen minutes into his rambling viewpoint. There are theatrical trailers too but hey, for a box set it would have been nice to have a retrospective of the history of film noir, don't you think?
BOTTOM LINE: These films are a definite must for anyone's home library. Their lack of consistent quality not withstanding, I recommend this box set.
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