Out of the Past is one of the best noir films ever. If you’re interested in Jacques Tourneur, check this Robert Mitchum flick out.
I did the same thing to a guy once.
but this was also a guy who talked about The Third Man for 15 minutes under the assumption that Carol Reed was a woman. So he had these things coming.
Out of the Past = awesome.
Tourneur is a great director who managed to make a rather spectacular career for himself, operating mostly in the margins of Hollywood. Besides the Lewton collaborations and “Night of the Demon” there’s his great film noir “Out of the Past” and a number of other teriffic items including “Canyon Passage,” “The Flame and the Arrow,” “Anne of the Indies,” “Experiment Perilous” and “Stars in My Crown.”
I Walked With a Zombie is one of my favorite B-movies. He was able to create so much visual beauty out of next to nothing. Tourneur’s output needs more attention.
It happens that I finaly found “Night of the Demon” two days ago, on region 2 DVD ( I live in France) , this is a Tourneur masterpiece, and one of the best film ever about demonology ( J.Tourneur believes in it ), it’s one of my favourite from this auteur and artist with “I Walked With A Zombie”, “Out of the Past” and “Anne of the Indies”. It’s very sad that nobody interviewd him (except B.Tavernier In his book “Amis Américains”) about his career…I would have liked to know what he could say about “Night…..”
The opening sequence in the Stonhenge site, with the off voice narator is just splendid.
Just got back from Nightfall, and boy. I was blown away. Tourneur had a visual sense that few other directors could touch.
I am to understand you were able to see Nightfall in a theater? If so, I am seriously jealous. Tourneur is one of my favorite directors and Nightfall is one of his most underestimated works. It gets lumped in with “film noirs” and pretty much ignored compared to some of Tourneur’s other films, and even more so when compared to other “noirs”. Which in someways is appropriate since Nightfall seems to be an almost point by point refutation of many of the concepts of French critics developed when inventing the genre. At the beginning of the movie it seems like it will follow the rules invented for the genre, cynical and paranoid hero, dark urban landscape, no one that can be trusted and a beautiful woman who could turn on him at any minute, but piece by piece these things are changed, the hero regains his optimism and trust, the urban landscape is left for the countryside, an insurance investigator believes in the hero and helps him as does the woman he didn’t think he could trust and instead of ending in the dark it ends at daybreak in a white, white field of snow.
Nightfall, much more than Out of the Past, fits Tourneur’s worldview as it appears in his other films. Tourneur’s film are compassionate and understanding to their characters, so I could imagine that being associated with some of the notions of noir would bother him. He was not one for “bad” women, cynicism, or pessimism. His films could be tragic or have a darkness about them, but there weren’t many characters that didn’t have their point of view fairly represented, people could be selfish and misguided, but not one dimensional, events had causes and people had their reasons for acting. There is a complexity of action in Tourneur’s films that very few directors can match or even seem to understand. He was definitely one of the greats.
“Nightfall’ has a teriffic wordless opening. Numerosu characters cross paths just before the plot proper unfolds. Beautifully done.
Stars in My Crown is another of his films that I love.
Greg – I did get to see Nightfall on 35 at the local cinematheque. Every year they do a film noir festival, and this time around that was included on a double bill with Nightmare Alley. Great stuff.
“nightmare alley”. now theres a classic noir that needs to get some more attention.
Nightmare Alley too? Damn, now I’m doubly jealous. Another excellent film and Tyrone Power really deserves some credit for doing it even though it supposedly hurt his career.
Have you, or anyone else here, seen The Leopard Man? It’s one of the other Tourneur films that I don’t think enough people take seriously enough. It tends to be the ignored one of the Lewton series and it really doesn’t deserve that fate at all.
“Nightmare Alley” is Edmund Goulding, not Tourneur.
Yes, I don’t think anyone was saying otherwise, I know I wasn’t in any case. If I caused confusion sorry, but my reference to The Leopard Man was due to the topic of the thread, not Nightmare Alley which is excellent but only related through Joshua W’s comment. Believe me, I know my Tourneur’s.
>>a guy who talked about The Third Man for 15 minutes under the assumption that Carol Reed was a woman<<
I trust you either euthenized him or suggested he read the novels of Evelyn Waugh…
>>Have you, or anyone else here, seen The Leopard Man? It’s one of the other Tourneur films that I don’t think enough people take seriously enough.<<
I think some people are disappointed that, despite its title, it does not feature a man who transforms into a leopard. But that scene in the cemetery is very effective and there’s something almost surreal about that sounstage-bound religious procession.
An even more ignored Tourneur title (and a doozy of a film, imo) is EXPERIMENT PERILOUS … it’s more than the GASLIGHT knock-off that some claim.
Yeah, I understand the expectation problem, but the movie is constructed so well, and in such an unusual way that I keep trying to get people to watch it. I love the way the camera follows Clo-Clo as it will inevitably be her journey that brings us to the answer of the mystery, but drops off when it comes to the little girl who puts the “horror” part of the movie in motion. It’s such a lovely fluid work, so logical and well thought out, but so different than I Walked with a Zombie which immediately preceded it.
I get something more from each of the Tourneur/Lewton films everytime I watch them, they were a great team.
I completely agree about Experiment Perilous, I just wish I hadn’t loaned my tape of it out years ago so I could watch it again. I find Tourneur’s films often have a strange fascination with doctors and doctor’s bags. They have a different significance than in most other films I’ve seen, but the connotation doesn’t seem exactly stable. It’s one of the things I am most interested in going back to take a look at if I could get my hands on another copy of the film, well, that and Hedy Lamarr. I could look at her happily for hours.
I also like Berlin Express, although not quite as much as the other films we’ve mentioned.
>>I just wish I hadn’t loaned my tape of it out years ago so I could watch it again.<<
My copy was on Beta … bye-bye when that died & any chance of replacing it would’ve cose me a grand at least.
TCM shows it once in a blue moon … but usually while I’m at work or something …
One day I’ll get to DVDR it.
I suspect it’s probably too much to hope for a good DVD box set of his works to come out anytime soon, but, damn, if that lame Paul Newman set with the Silver Chalice in it sold I would hope Tourneur could sell a few copies too.
Maurice Gianesin
Like the incredible “BOOB” that I am, I have stuck my foot in my mouth again. This time I was at Barnes & Nobles and we were talking about Val Lewton films. I told the clerk I had the gift boxed set with about nine films and the bio pic. He was wonderring if I had ever seen any of the films of Jacques Tourneur. I said, “no” and the clerk smiled. He recommended Night of the Demon, which I have not seen, and took his word on it’s quality. It was great. I truly enjoyed it, even though it was not of the same caliber as Val Lewton. I got a hold of a computer and did a little research. It seems that Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur were synonomous. He helped Val Lewton on many of his films. And I told the clerk I have never seen a Jacques Tourneur film. Dumb Da Dumb Dumb. Dumb Da Dumb Dumb Dumb.