At last we reach the final trio of films on our 36-title list of 1955 films noirs. What a ride it has been! A revisit to a few old favorites, a discovery of new delights . . . and a whole lot of titles that, out of kindness, I will simply say fit into a decidedly mixed bag! The last three reviews are below, and – wouldn’t you know it? – there’s one final film that managed to scramble my draft list!!

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House of Bamboo

Samuel Fuller was one of the most unconventional dabblers in genre filmmaking in Hollywood history. I’ve only encountered a few of his films, including the excellent (and bizarre) western Forty Guns (1957), and the brilliant noir thriller Pick-up on South Street (1953).

There is much to admire about House of Bamboo, chiefly its look. It was only the third film to be shot on location in Japan after WWII, and the first in color. Its wide-screen photography is breathtaking, and it features fine performances by Japanese actors Yoshiko Yamaguchi and the great Sessue Hawakawa (although his role was dubbed before release.) 

The plot concerns a gang of disillusioned American soldiers who have remained in Japan to rob and pillage. Their leader is Sandy Dawson, played by noir legend Robert Ryan, who was only 36 when he made this film but seems older. (Maybe the wide-screen stretched him out!!) His co-star is Robert Stack, playing a guy with ulterior motives who joins Dawson’s gang and falls in love with a dead member’s Japanese wife (Yamaguchi). 

To be honest, the film’s high-gloss look did not gibe with its noir antecedents, and I grew restless. Evidently, the Japanese audiences did as well, finding the film’s depiction of their country irritatingly stereotypical.  I did find one interesting story in, of all places, Wikipedia: DeForest Kelley, Star Trek’s Dr. “Bones” McCoy, plays another of Dawson’s gang members who comes into his own, plot-wise, toward the end of the movie. For most of the early part he’s just . . . there. But when the film was first shown on TV, there was no way to show it in wide-screen, so they had to resort to the “pan-and-scan” method, which meant that viewers never saw the entire picture. And, wouldn’t you know it? Kelley was mostly cut out of the first half of the picture because his character kept appearing off to the side of the shot. Thus, a lot of Star Trek fans were amazed when they saw the film playing retrospectively in theatres and discovered he had such a large role!

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I Died a Thousand Times

Bank robber Roy “Mad Dog” Earle is paroled early, thanks to some bribery shenanigans from crime boss Big Mac, who wants Roy to lead a gang in the robbery of a luxury hotel nestled in the High Sierras. Roy encounters lust, love, treachery, incompetence and a really cute dog before he meets his fate at the top of the mountain.

Sound familiar? That’s because it’s the plot for High Sierra, a terrific little crime drama starring Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, written by John Huston and directed by Raoul Walsh . . . only it’s from 1941. If you’ve never watched it, you must. And after you’re done, it’s up to you as to whether you want to watch a scene-by-scene remake (only it’s nine minutes longer!) with a cast that’s perfectly . . . fine but can’t come close to the cast from the original. Oh, and it’s shot in CinemaScope and Warnercolor if you are one of those strange birds who finds themselves averse to black and white films. 

So, sure, Jack Palance and Shelley Winters are okay. The dog is really cute. But I, for one, had absolutely no interest in a faithful color remake of a much better film. And I say this without prejudice: one of my favorite movies of all time, 1941’s The Maltese Falcon, is a faithful remake of the 1931 film of the same name – and yet it’s sooooo much better!

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Violent Saturday

High Sierra meets Peyton Place in this enjoyable hybrid directed by Richard Fleischer, who must forever be honored/forgiven for Soylent Green! Bradenville is an Arizona mining town full of intrigue: the mine’s manager (Richard Egan) has an unfaithful wife (Margaret Hayes) and is attracted to the mines’ new nurse (Virginia Leith). Fellow executive Shelley Martin (Victor Mature) spent the war managing an airplane factory, which causes his young son to call him a coward. The bank manager is a peeping tom and the librarian (Sylvia Sidney) is so desperate for funds that she resorts to stealing. Into this soap opera comes a trio of bank robbers: leader Stephen McNally, a smart goon, played by the always fine J. Carrol Naish, and Lee Marvin, who made seven films 1955 and seemed to corner the market on sadistic, stupid criminals. 

And it’s filmed in widescreen CinemaScope!!

I preferred the first half of the film: each townsperson’s story unfolds as McNally, Marvin and Naish intermingle with the crowd, making phone calls, casing joints, getting the whole robbery set up. Once the crime starts, events unfold in an unsurprising fashion: some are injured, some (conveniently) killed, and the climax occurs on an Amish farm, owned by a weirdly cast Ernest Borgnine. 

In the end, I’m not sure that any of the lessons learned are ones you would care to teach your own children. Comely nurses are very forgiving of men who stand outside their window watching them strip. If you cheat on your husband, it doesn’t matter if you repent or he forgives you – you must die!!! The main lesson is that there is bad violence and good violence – even the Amish dad learns that nasty little lesson. And, of course, Mature, whose son is ashamed of him because instead of fighting, he built airplanes that helped win the war, earns his boy’s undying love by . . . well, causing a lot of dying in others. 

This is a noir as if Douglas Sirk had made a noir – and I enjoyed every minute of it!

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The rankings?

• 1^st place – Violent Saturday, because it’s a fun mash-mash of genres with an all-star cast having a good time.
• 2^nd place – House of Bamboo, because its smart look and location shooting go a ways to mitigate the “same old same old” feeling the plot engenders.
• 3^rd place – I Died a Thousand Times because, like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho or the 1974 and 1989 remakes of Ten Little Indians, this is completely unnecessary.

Stay tuned to find out what happens when Nick Cardillo, Sergio Angelini and I, each armed with our own ranked lists, set out to draft the Top Thirteen Films Noirs of 1955! It all plays out next weekend for us, which means you have around ten days to watch all the films and make your own predictions of which ones will make the draft. 

Here’s the entire list to get you started . . . now get started!!