Reeling Backward: "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" (1948)

Film noir is to movies what the blues is to music -- it looks/sounds great, but the storytelling isn't always terribly ambitious.

(To the offended blues fans -- I've always felt the wonderful soulful sounds would be better used if accompanied by more than a dozen or so words in the lyrics, rearranged slightly.)

"Kiss the Blood Off My Hands," despite that memorably grisly title, is more or less a forgotten entry in the film noir genre, despite starring heavyweights Burt Lancaster and Joan Fontaine. Perhaps because it's set in London and all the actors except Lancaster speak in British tones, ranging from Fontaine's erudite high-class lilt to the clanging Cockney of the more common folks.

The story isn't terribly meaty, and director Norman Foster doesn't seem to have a good bite on the material. He was a journeyman most known for the "Mr. Moto" series. But it's a fantastic-looking film with some first-rate work by director of photography Russell Metty, full of shadows, slanting light and tilted angles.

It's now out in a gorgeous reissue on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber that shows off its cinematography to wonderful effect.

Metty is one of those quiet legends who worked with many giants of cinema, including Orson Welles on "Touch of Evil," Howard Hawks on "Bringing Up Baby," Steven Spielberg on an episode of "Columbo," John Huston on "Misfits" and Stanley Kubrick on "Spartacus," working steadily from the 1930s to the 1970s.

He won an Oscar for "Spartacus," though he clashed with Kubrick constantly over his slow pace, lighting choices and micromanagement approach to the camera.

Burt Lancaster stars as Bill Saunders, a Canadian (by way of Detroit) ex-soldier who was a POW in a German camp for two years, is still hanging around Europe and in many ways he never really left World War II behind. As the narration sets up, Bill is one of those lost souls who is deeply impacted by the horrors of war and has never truly healed.

The interesting thing is that Bill really is a villain by the contemporary standards of Hollywood movie-making. As the story opens he kills a bartender by accident and then flees from those trying to apprehend him. In the course of the rest of the story he threatens several other people, steals, robs, schemes, pummels a policeman and imprisons Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine), a humble nurse whose flat he breaks into while on the lam.

There are several scenes that indicate Bill is always just a second away from giving into rage and violence. Jane eventually recognizes this after a budding romance develops between them, and shuns him for a time, mostly owing to finally his actions catch up to him and doing six months in prison.

We wonder if his penchant for brutality will ever turn her way. It seems inevitable, though in the convention of a classic Hollywood film she is the angelic muse who bends his will toward goodness.

At 79 minutes, "Kiss" is based on a book by Gerald Butler, screenplay by Leonardo Bercovici with adaptation by Ben Maddow and Walter Bernstein, with additional dialogue by Hugh Gray. (If you're wondering how to parse what those credits mean and how they reflect each person's contribution, I haven't the faintest.)

The romance is pretty cut-and-dried: after Bill breaks into Jane's apartment and threatens her into remaining silent, he steals a cigarette lighter that belonged to her beau, a soldier who was killed in the war. This is a ruse to give him an excuse to see her again to return it, and he follows her about incessantly, pestering her for attention.

It's only when he suffers a panic attack in the zoo -- flashes from his long imprisonment -- that she starts to feel affection for him. Later on as various threats start to surround them, they talk about running away to somewhere, anywhere, with a ship to Lisbon as their first stop.

Having gotten a job as a truck driver at Jane's hospital delivering penicillin and other sought-after medical supplies, his initial plan is to trade a load of stolen drugs -- hilariously labeled "DRUGS" on the wooden boxes -- to pay their passage.

Lancaster and Fontaine both seem very invested in their roles, though there's a notable contrast in the acting styles. She seems rather restrained in the British way and struggles with her better instincts. Lancaster had a thing for playing men ruled by their passions, an early man/boy screen idol.

Aside from the photography, the best thing about the movie is Robert Newton as Harry Carter, a sort of dandy con artist who spends half the movie trying to enlist Bill as his partner. Harry was present when Bill accidentally killed the bartender and uses that as subtle -- and later not so subtle -- extortion to get him to participate in various schemes.

Bill eventually gives in and agrees to let Harry and his henchman steal the hospital truck, with the proviso that they beat him up to make it look convincing and that he takes no cut from the job. But then Jane decides at the last minute to accompany him on the trip -- her first real outreach to him after their split -- and Bill has to fight off Harry and company off instead.

Harry's big scene is where he drops in on Jane unannounced professing to be a friend of Bill's, and he gradually turns from ingratiating fop to nefarious kingpin all in one scene, the camera leering at him in fish-eye lens closeup as he threatens her. She gets the better of him with some sewing scissors, fearing killed him, and it's up to Bill to clean up the mess.

There's another terrific scene near the end where Jane, hiding out in Bill's apartment, starts to feel her mind unravel. Metty appears to use a dolly shot -- rare in those days, especially for indoor scenes -- with a distorted lens following her as she walks, the angles morphing like a tilt-a-whirl. Brilliant.

"Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" ends on the barest of hat tips to morality codes of the day. With Harry dead, a truck full of drugs in their possession and no police on their immediate trail, Bill and Jane decide at the last minute -- quite literally, the last minute of the film -- to instead turn themselves in and face the consequences for their actions.

Bill had already gotten away with manslaughter, and doesn't seem to have much qualms about his other acts, which include beating and robbing a rich man in a tuxedo in a darkened alley. So it registers as a cheap conversion tacked onto the movie.

It would be easy to imagine if this film was made in the 1970s instead of the '40s that Bill would be a complete anti-hero who relishes inflicting pain and Jane is the upstanding woman who falls, literally, for his bad boy ways.

Overall I think I'd rather see that movie than this one, though the gorgeous black-and-white photography is the main reason to give "Kiss" a look.

Reeling Backward: "Jamaica Inn" (1939)

Though it's largely a forgotten film, "Jamaica Inn" is notable for a number of reasons. It was a huge commercial (thought not critical) hit, marking the heyday of star and producer Charles Laughton, who gives a daffy, twinkly performance as an off-kilter nobleman/crime lord.

It was also the first major screen role for Maureen O'Hara, who was discovered by Laughton and signed to an exclusive contract that defined the early part of her career. She'd already made a big splash as a teenage stage star, and they would next go on to star together in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," making O'Hara an international sensation. She and Laughton enjoyed a convivial father/daughter relationship that lasted until his death in 1962.

The film was the last British production for director Alfred Hitchcock, who chafed under Laughton's lordly yoke, including demands for many retakes and closeups, and departed for Hollywood thereafter.

"Jamaica Inn" essentially marks the last time Hitch worked as a hired gun instead of the shot-caller. He reportedly deplored the final film, and many Hitchcock observers consider it his worst.

It was also the first of three times Hitchcock adapted a novel by Daphne du Maurier, the other two being "Rebecca" and "The Birds," two of his biggest successes. Though du Maurier was reportedly irked by the many changes the movie made to the book, including transforming the villain from a clergyman to a justice of the peace.

(Though that was owing to the British censors, who deemed no man of the cloth could be depicted as evil.)

Despite its low reputation, I largely enjoyed the picture. It's hauntingly beautiful, replete with gorgeous black-and-white compositions by cinematographers Bernard Knowles and Harry Stradling, including lots of slanted light and shadows that shows the influence of German Expressionism.

What to say of Laughton's performance as Sir Humphrey Pengallan? It's like a ride on a motorcycle lashed to a runaway rocket: you either strap in and go along for the trip, or you don't.

Sir Humphrey is a high-living squire in the remote Cornish coast who's also the local justice of the peace, i.e. something like a cross between an Old West sheriff and judge. What nobody knows is that Sir Humphrey is also running a gang of cutthroats operating out of the titular establishment, who deliberately douse the beacon lights on the ocean cliff to lure merchant ships into crashing, making off with the cargo and murdering all the seamen.

With his mincing walk -- Laughton played waltzes in his head to get the flow just right -- juggernaut pomposity and fake caterpillar eyebrows wandering a full two inches above his real ones, Laughton's Sir Humphrey comes across as a psychedelic combination of Baron Harkonnen from "Dune" and Hannibal Lecter's swishier cousin.

Laughton himself reportedly envisioned the role as an extension of his Oscar-winning one from "The Private Life of Henry VIII" a few years earlier. As producer, he was in a position to make that vision real.

Sir Humphrey's house is an immense Versailles-like palace, with lavish banquets and a parade of noble guests. His extravagant outfits are a miracle of rotund ostentatiousness, a cornucopia of shiny buttons, double-breasted vests and dickeys, topped off in later scenes by a leering black tophat.

Sir Humphrey's schemes start to go awry with the arrival of O'Hara's Mary, a young orphan girl just arrived from Ireland. Her aunt, Patience (Marie Ney), lives at the Jamaica Inn with her brutish husband Joss Merlyn (Leslie Banks), the ringleader of the "land pirates" wrecking the ships. He's secretly beholden to Sir Humphrey, who provides information about the richest passing ships from his position and social engagements.

Joss is portrayed as drunken lout, but the utterly devoted Patience has loads of... well, you get it. She sticks to him until the end (which is also her own)

Joss would like to throw Marie out on her head right away, or possibly rape her, but there are other matters to attend to. Marie witnesses Joss and his gang attempt to hang a mouthy new recruit, Jem Trehearne (Robert Newton). She cuts him down and rescues him, and then they're both on the lam.

Turns out Trehearne is really an undercover officer of the court sent to investigate the spate of shipwrecks. He and Marie take refuge at Sir Humphrey's, unaware of his involvement, leading to an inevitable showdown in which Sir Humphrey double-crosses... pretty much everybody.

Growing increasingly kooky, Sir Humphrey tries to make a getaway to France with Mary as his captive and intended sex slave. Things end with him plummeting to his death after a deliberate leap from the topmost rigging of a ship -- the high man finally brought low, aboard the same type of conveyance he targeted to fill his insatiable greed.

The only other cast member who makes any kind of deep impression is Emlyn Williams as Harry the Pedlar, Joss' suspicious number two. Young, thin as a whippet and dressed like a downmarket dandy -- always wearing a cockeyed tophat of his own -- Harry has a terrifying penchant for whistling to let his intended victims know of their fate.

In many ways, he's like a shrunk-down, funhouse mirror reflection of Sir Humphrey.

You'd definitely have to rank "Jamaica Inn" as a minor work in the Hitchcock oeuvre. But it's not nearly as bad many have regarded it, and stands as a waypoint for many important careers.

Reeling Backward: "The Desert Rats" (1953)

"The Desert Rats" is a quasi/sorta sequel to "The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommell" with James Mason reprising his role as the famed German military tactician. I didn't care for the first film, as described in a previous column, but the follow-up is quite a ripping good war picture, as the old-timers are wont to say. (They are also wont to use antediluvian terms, like "wont" and "antediluvian.")

Instead of being a sympathetic, heroic figure, this time Rommel has a supporting role as the arrogant German commander, speaking mostly German and inspiring terror in all those around him. The focus, rather, is on the Australian troops who defied him during the long siege of Tobruk, a turning point in the World War II African front.

The film was directed by Robert Wise, one of Hollywood's most successful genre-hopping directors, and it was just Richard Burton's second American film, released when he was age 27. Burton was one of those actors who always seemed older than he really was -- when I first started watching the film I thought it was made in the mid-1960s, when in fact it came out in '53.

It's not that he appeared prematurely aged, despite his life of hard drinking and smoking; rather, his manly bearing and clipped line readings tended to make him seem more authoritarian and older.

Burton and Mason share one great scene together, where both men are wounded and being treated in a German medical tent, after Burton's character has been captured. Both actors taunt and sneer at each other, a mano-a-mano combat of words by two bloodied but proud men. It's also practically a contest to see which thespian can display better diction.

As far as historic fidelity goes, "The Desert Rats" is a total wipeout. Start out with the fact that the title got its nickname from an entirely different British outfit. In the film the Australian 9th Division holds the seaside base of Tobruk against Rommel for over eight months, allowing time for a newly-formed Allied army to forum up in Egypt and head west to oppose him. The real Aussies began referring to themselves as "the rats of Tobruk" in defiance of German propaganda that labeled them so.

Virtually everything that is depicted, from the personnel to the military tactics, was a fabrication by screenwriter Richard Murphy. The key sequence in which the British commanders allow Rommel's Panzers to penetrate their outer defenses as a trap is a concoction, as is the daring commando raid undertaken to blow up a German ammunition dump. And in actuality, the Australians were withdrawn after five months and the latter portion of the defense held by British troops.

In the best Hollywood tradition, Murphy, having taken a real, dramatic event and made up virtually everything about it for his script, was rewarded with an Oscar nomination.

And he deserved it. "The Desert Rats" is a war adventure, not a historical drama, and its allegiance is to its own semblance of truth, not a factual one.

Burton plays "Tammy" MacRoberts, aka Mac, a British infantryman captain who's given lead of an Australian outfit when their commander buys it. Over the course of the long siege, he is promoted to major and then a field promotion to lieutenant colonel, and placed in charge of several battalions.

The Aussies are naturally distrustful of having a British officer command them, and the resentment grows to near-mutiny level when Mac orders the Australian lieutenant (Charles Tingwell) court-martialed for leaving his post during a barrage to rescue a fellow officer. After getting a talking-to by both an Australian confidante and the British general, he agrees to withdraw the charges.

Eventually, Mac garners the respect of his troops and does them proud. His main access point in this endeavor is Tom Bartlett (Robert Newton), a middle-aged private who turns out to be an old schoolmaster of Mac's. He is deferential to his old teacher, repeatedly referring to him as "sir" despite their wide distance in rank and showing favoritism toward Bartlett in terms of cushy assignments.

Bartlett is an interesting character to have dropped into the middle of a film like this, and despite a fine performance by Newton -- best remembered for playing Long John Silver in Disney's Treasure Island" -- the character never really quite fits in. A self-confessed drunk, failure and coward, Bartlett moved to Australia to start a new life and enlisted while intoxicated when war broke out.

Near the end Bartlett volunteers for the most dangerous assignment there is, manning the forward sentry post where soldiers last about four hours before being killed. In movies of this sort, it's virtually a requirement that a character such as his die a noble death, but here Bartlett survives and is cheered by his fellow soldiers, becoming the unofficial mascot of their defiance.

As a footnote, I'd like to point out that "Rats" is one of those testosterone-laden movies in which no women have speaking roles, or are even seen. At one point we see a photograph of Mac's wife, as he comments that he's only seen her for a week since they got married in 1939 (the events take place in '41) and he's never met his son.

Wise and Murphy keep the action focused on the men and the military strategy, rather than making the mistake so many war pictures do of bringing in a bunch of mushy romance and secondary plots to distract us. At a crisp 86 minutes, "The Desert Rats" is all business.

Reeling Backward: "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)

Poor "Around the World in 80 Days." If it wasn't so burdened by that mantle of having won a Best Picture Academy Award, I think people would regard it much more fondly. Instead they'd see a fun, light piece of extravagant entertainment -- pure spectacle for its own sake.

When "World" does get mentioned these days, it's usually not too far from the words "worst Best Picture winner ever" or something to that effect. And indeed, while watching the picture I was rarely able to push that distinction out of my mind. It's a thoroughly engaging, fun movie with massive production values and featuring a host of movie stars in cameo roles -- many of them blink-and-you'll-miss-it fast, such as the piano player in an Old West saloon turning around to reveal Frank Sinatra's wordless profile.

But Best Picture? There's simply nothing about "World" that announces itself as Best Picture material. Its other competitors from 1956 were "The King and I," "The Ten Commandments," "Giant" and "Friendly Persuasion" -- not exactly an outstanding cinematic year, by most reckonings. Perhaps only 1952 beats it out for the weakest Academy Awards field ever, when "The Greatest Show on Earth" took the top prize.

"World" also won Oscars for cinematography and editing (both deserved) as well as screenplay and musical score. It was based on the Jules Verne book, with many changes and embellishments -- e.g., the sequence of the two men riding over the Alps in an air balloon, perhaps the most iconic image from the movie, is a total fabrication.

It tells the tale of straitlaced British adventurer Phileas Fogg, played by David Niven, who accepts a challenge from fellow members of the snooty Reform Club to travel around the world in 80 days, with 20,000 pounds wagered. In 1872, this is considered an astonishing feat. But Fogg, a stand-in for the futurist Verne himself, muses that it will be accomplished in 80 hours eventually.

Just a few days earlier, some bold criminal stole a fortune from the Bank of England, with Fogg the prime suspect. Certainly the way he throws money around on his trip -- purchasing and then discarding the balloon, an elephant and even a steamship -- suggests something nefarious. He spends far more than he could hope to win from his wager.

Thus Fix (Robert Newton in his final role), a police inspector, shadows Fogg most of the trip, perpetually waiting on a warrant to arrive in the right place so he can apprehend his supposed culprit. Of course, he could just hold him for questioning until the warrant arrives, but then we wouldn't have a movie.

Also coming along for half the trip is Shirley MacLaine as Indian (!) Princess Aouda, whom Fogg rescues from a ritual sacrifice ceremony. Aouda says and does astonishingly little for most of the trip, finally casting some doe eyes at Fogg near the end and, in what must have been shockingly funny in 1956, asking him to marry her. The porcelain-skinned MacLaine, slightly decorated with dusky makeup, is most unconvincing as a native denizen of the Near East.

Also along for the trip is Passepartout, Fogg's valet whom he just hired earlier the same day he sets off on his excursion. A former circus gymnast and jack-of-all-trades, Passepartout has an array of skills that come in handy throughout the trip, including playing at bullfighter for a reluctant benefactor. Fogg has run through his serving men at an astonishing pace because of their failure to meet his persnickety standards, but Passepartout is the unlikely one who measures up.

A mild-mannered ladies' man with patched trousers, mustachio tips and a bowler hat reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp, Passepartout is played by Mexican superstar Cantinflas, considered by man (including Chaplin) the greatest international clown of his era. Hollywood had been begging Cantinflas to make a movie with them for years, and he had always refused until "World," when he was in his mid-40s. He would make only a few more American pictures before returning to Mexican cinema.

Passepartout actually dominates the story for a good chunk of the narrative, playing the comedic protagonist while Fogg operates as the straight man. In fact, Niven received top billing only in English-speaking countries, while Cantinflas was billed as the lead everywhere else in the globe. (The casting would follow a similar theme for the film's underwhelming 2004 remake, with Jackie Chan as Passepartout and the relatively unknown Steve Coogan as Fogg.)

My favorite part was when Fogg is making the final leg of his journey across the Atlantic and the steamship runs out of coal. Niven buys the ship from the captain, and proceeds to have the crew tear apart every inch of the vessel that is flammable and toss it into the boiler. By the end they're riding on a floating barge with an engine room and a pair of wheel paddles, and not much else.

Directed by Michael Anderson with a screenplay adaptation by James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman, "Around the World in 80 Days" is light, carefree entertainment, filled with plenty of laughs and fun. All the cameos by stars end up seeming rather pointless, but there's no denying it's an engaging flick, even at a hair over three hours long.

Watching it got me to thinking about this year's Best Picture race. "Argo" had been considered an early front-runner for that award, but a growing backlash seemed to conclude that it was too unserious to be named Best Picture. Or, more accurately, that its story theme did not have the prerequisite "heaviness" to earn that distinction.

"Argo" is indeed a dramatic film, but it has plenty of moments of levity, with Alan Arkin's character as the nexus for the frivolity. The overall tone is of a crime caper -- a deadly serious one to be sure, but one in which we know the good guys get out of Iran safely.

"Lincoln" and "Zero Dark Thirty" are both more classic versions of a Best Picture pedigree -- historical dramas based on real figures, with a heavy spritz of Hollywood fact-fudging.

It's instructive that comedies have earned so few Best Picture nominations, let alone wins. "Annie Hall" and "Shakespeare in Love" are the only two to take the Academy Award in the past half-century, and both have plenty of serious moments that render them more of a dramatic-comedy blend.

In that sense I suppose we should be more appreciative of "Around the World in 80 Days," since it represented a genre that has not gotten its due respect from the Academy.

3 stars out of four