Fritz Lang at Fleming

To make a relationship work, you need to have things in common with your companion, otherwise you don’t have anything to talk about and you don’t need to be together. Sharon and I share film in common. Luckily, we both like film noir. Otherwise, we have lots of conflicting tastes. You could not guess correctly, if you tried who likes what.

So we signed up for a film series at the Fleming Museum. A lecture by a UVM professor accompanies the movie. Opening night was to feature a noir fashion contest, but no one dressed. They had a trivia contest. Three questions, three gifts. I got the third question right: name a noir actor (maybe from Double Indemnity) who had a successful TV series. There were a two. I got Fred. Coudda said Barbara. They gave the prize, free makeup to a woman who answered late, because she was a she and I was a he. Like I don’t have a wife or a model?

The first movie  in the series was The Big Heat (1953) by Fritz Lang. Gloria Graham, Glen Ford, Lee Marvin, Marlon Brando’s sister and a couple of regular noir extra or bit part players appeared. The lecturer, in her opening remarks, spoke a little about noir, showed some clips from, Double Indenmity (1944), and didn’t reach her prepared remarks on Lang. She advised she would return after the moivie and discuss Lang and the roles played by women in the flick, which is not my favorite topic for deconstructing works of art.

The movie was terrific. Camera work brilliant, straight forward, contrasty. Music, settings, clothes, just like they are supposed to be. I picked the wrong person to fall, another of the movies strong points, which was a bummer. You see, in noir, you usually know from the beginning that a person who fights against the system ususally loses. Here, the cop who bucked the corrupt government in his city survives and gets his job back. He loses his wife, however, when a bomb placed in his car meant for him goes off when she starts it to pursue some wifely duties (just because I don’t like the women’s thing doesn’t mean I don’t process the clues). Aside from him, Glen Ford, being a homicide cop whose detective skills resulted in several people going to death row to be executed, his determination to investigate and arrest the scum made him a worthy copper—early Dirty Harry. And seeing Lee Marvin, aka Cat Ballou, added to my film knowledge.

On to Montreal, where, on Friday, we saw Metropolis (1927). Very different, yet very much the same. Not ready to think about it too much. More into heists, noir, and movies made during my lifetime, right now.

Author: duckshots

Lapsed lawyer. Reader. Photographer. Jewish. Strongly attached to loving, caring, wife-Sharon. Working at remaining relevant. Hoping that my body and mind outlive my dreams. Maybe something I blog will make some sense.

7 thoughts on “Fritz Lang at Fleming”

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