The Lincoln Library Film Society presents ” JaNOIRy: British Film Noir” starting with the Blue Lamp on Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. All screenings are in the Lincoln Public Library’s Tarbell Room (for more information, call 781-259-8465 or email Lincolnlibraryfilmsociety@gmail.com).
Each January, the group shines a (dark) spotlight on the shadowy world of film noir—dark, hard-edged crime thrillers made mainly in the 1940s and 50s—and this month you’ll see how the British did it. Those who attended last year’s program of Scandinavian noir may have some idea what we’re in for: desperate criminals, cynical detectives, and smart-talking femmes fatale from the depths of the post-war urban wasteland.
Oftentimes cheaply produced and formulaic, the film noir elevated low-key lighting to a high art, with black dominating the black-and-white cinematography. Never a distinct genre (at least, not at the time it was active), such films are today identified as sharing similar atmospheres, design, and themes. Noirish elements made their way into spy thrillers, “kitchen sink” dramas, and even musicals from Great Britain in the 1930s through the early 1960s. While British noir is seldom as violent or as existential as its American counterparts—the 1940 version of Gaslight springs to mind—a few, such as Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1950), are examples of the stereotypically hard-boiled cheapie. Although less differentiated in their own rite, they nonetheless form an intriguing chapter in the story of British cinema, a corner that stayed dark well after the blackouts ended.
The Blue Lamp — January 7
UK / 1950 / English /81 minutes
An early appearance of the pair that would become synonymous with British noir, director Basil Dearden and star Dirk Bogarde (the latter very young here), The Blue Lamp is an innovative fusion of the pseudo-documentary style with police drama. While the film takes a rather uncritical look at London’s police force, its examination of the “new breed” of post-war criminals prefigures the social realism of Tony Richardson and Lindsay Anderson films. Bogarde plays a young ruffian who goes on the run after murdering a bobby. It takes a combined effort of local gangsters and decent folk to eventually bring him down. Produced at Ealing Studios, the film also became the basis for the immensely popular spin-off television series, Dixon of Dock Green.
Obsession — January 14
UK / 1949 / English / 93 minutes
“Hidden love! Hidden hate! Hidden fear!” shouts one poster for the film released in the UK as The Hidden Room. One of a handful of films made in Britain by blacklisted American director Edward Dmytryk (one of the infamous “Hollywood ten”), Obsession unspools a “perfect murder” scenario in which genteel psychiatrist Clive Riordan, pushed too far by his wife’s many affairs, kidnaps her latest admirer and locks the man in an underground bunker. The film follows both the scrupulous methodology of the vengeful husband and the efforts of Scotland Yard to track down the missing man before it is too late.
Tread Softly Stranger — January 21
UK / 1958 / English / 87 minutes
Set in a rough-and-tumble Yorkshire steel town, this love triangle draws on the “kitchen-sink” melodrama and has the heated dynamics of John Osborne’s chamber theatre. Diana Dors (England’s answer to Marilyn Monroe) plays Calico, a nightclub hostess whose boyfriend, Dave, has stolen a large sum of money from his employers. To cover their debts, she talks Dave and his hard-gambling brother Johnny into pulling off a disastrous robbery, which results in the death of a night watchman. While commonly dismissed as a standard potboiler, the film captures a Northern ambiance remarkably well, down to the clammy tenement where the hapless trio lives.
The Long Memory — January 28
UK / 1953 / English / 89 minutes
With shooting locations on the bleak marshes and grimy streets of Kent, English cinematographer Harry Waxman shrouds the scenes of The Long Memory with mist and heavy shadows. John Mills’ perennial victim-hero persona, here a character named Davidson, is a man on a mission to root out the group who framed him for murder twelve years earlier, one of whom is his former fiancée, Fay. Setting out to prove his innocence, he is hounded by both Police Inspector Lowther (now Fay’s husband) and Boyd, the smuggler he is supposed to have killed. The windswept marshes take on gothic proportions, and the barge in which Davidson holes up is a suitably atmospheric set.