Tweet The most over the top noir/melodrama ever?

I recently watched "Sudden Fear" the 1952 melodrama with Joan Crawford and Jack Palance. I can't recall a more "over the top" melodrama-- at times with beautiful imagery-- at other times with outright funny dialogue and plotting.

Crawford is a playwright who has Palance fired from her new play because he is too ugly. She and Palance later become lovers and marry. He wants her money, she discovers that he is plotting to kill her, and lays her own plot against him.

Jack looms over the this grim film like a comic Dracula. (I almost expected that Abbott and Costello would show up in the final reel.) He finally kills at midnight--and how--but its not who you expect.

This entertaining film must be a hoot in any repertoiry theater showing.

[Danny Burk]

You might edit your post as a "spoiler" for those who haven't seen it.

You would probably have to call this one a melodramatic noir western, [b]Johnny Guitar [/b](1954). This is weird concoction from the hand of Nicholas Ray. The thing that always surprises me are the garish, high school production sets used in the movie. Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge appear to be on mood altering drugs, while Joan Crawford, Ward Bond, and Scott Brady seem within there respective acting ranges. Then there is a bizarre little turn from Ben Cooper as (I love this name) Turkey Ralston, the gun crazy kid. With a character name like that maybe it should have been shown on The Western Channel for Thanksgiving, gobble, gobble. The melodrama starts with the introduction of the title character, "My name's Johnny Guitar…..anybody wanna change it ?", and just merrily bounces from situation to situation like Douglas Sirk wrote the script. A better title might have been [b]Una Cana Al Aire[/b], but Charley Chase already had that one. The characters in this one sure acted like their hair was on fire, along with everything else. If you are recovering from minor surgery or a root canal, and have been given a sufficient amount of pain meds, give this a look. No one will question why you're watching it.

I remember a hilarious over-the-top moment in Preminger's WHIRLPOOL, when the villain Richard Conte actually hypnotizes himself (why I can't remember). A lot of melodrama also occurs in THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS and the Technicolor-Noir (if there is such a thing) LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, where Gene Tierney goes psycho. I also felt that Ulmer's RUTHLESS was quite sirk-ish. And there is of course THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

There's HOUSE OF NUMBERS starring Jack Palance as twins. The good Jack works with bad Jack's wife to try and bust bad Jack out of San Quentin.

Speaking of twins, THE DARK MIRROR starring Olivia de Haviland in a dual role is also pretty good.

Sometimes when I feel the need for a laugh, instead of a comedy I choose The Fountainhead (1949), a film for which the guiding principle seems to have been: "An overstatement is better than anything."

[Christopher Jacobs]

HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, Tim Holt, et al., and produced by Howard Hughes, starts out as an interesting little noir mystery thriller set in seedy south of the border locales, and gradually becomes what must have been an intentionally tongue-in-cheek hamfest all around (Price plays a ham actor as only he can, and his presence seems to inspire the rest of the cast to play along). It all winds up being great fun.

HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, Tim Holt, et al., and produced by Howard Hughes, starts out as an interesting little noir mystery thriller set in seedy south of the border locales, and gradually becomes what must have been an intentionally tongue-in-cheek hamfest all around (Price plays a ham actor as only he can, and his presence seems to inspire the rest of the cast to play along). It all winds up being great fun.

I adore this movie, it's all great fun!

HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951) with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, Tim Holt, et al., and produced by Howard Hughes, starts out as an interesting little noir mystery thriller set in seedy south of the border locales, and gradually becomes what must have been an intentionally tongue-in-cheek hamfest all around (Price plays a ham actor as only he can, and his presence seems to inspire the rest of the cast to play along). It all winds up being great fun.

I adore this movie, it's all great fun!

Third, LOVE. Price steals it, lock, stock and two smoking...er...ah...Jane Russells. I'm also inordinately fond of Sudden Fear, for all the wrong reasons. Or all the right reasons. You decide.

I'm also inordinately fond of Sudden Fear, for all the wrong reasons. Or all the right reasons. You decide.

What's not to love about a film where La Craw gets to quote Nietzsche?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the infamous Beyond the Forest (1949), remembered as a career lowpoint for both Bette Davis and director King Vidor, and as an inadvertent camp classic which has launched many a parody. Bette's delivery of the much-quoted "What a dump!" is surprisingly low-key, but little else about the movie could be called that. She sports a black Cleopatra wig possibly borrowed from The Seventh Victim's Jean Brooks, and bristles with contempt for her grungy factory town and everyone in it. But while much of the film plays like a fairly conventional if over-heated melodrama, it's the ending that is unforgettable: that's when Beyond the Forest soars from the level of soap opera into the realm of high camp. When people talk about this movie and use terms like "lurid," "trashy," "way over the top," etc. etc., they're talking about the last ten minutes or so. It must be seen to be believed.

Meanwhile, I join of chorus of praise for His Kind of Woman, a one-of-a-kind pastiche of noir, comedy, and sadism I could happily watch again any time.

Good choices, one and all! I'd like to add DECOY. Where do I start? Let's see, there's the gangster's pin-up boy, Sheldon Leonard, as a DETECTIVE, yet! I keep waiting for him to say, "Hey bud...uh-uh." Then there's Herbert Rudley. Yes, I know he was fresh off his big-budget triumph as Ira Gershwin, but I can't help but think of him in THE MOTHERS-IN-LAW. He walks through the last 20 minutes or so as if he had a root canal and the gas hadn't worn off yet. Marjorie Woodworth (?) as his faithful nurse..a sweet girl, but she couldn't act...about the ONLY person who wasn't occupied chewing the scenery. Jean Gillie really goes all out, making the most of one of her (very) few films. The capper is dear old Robert Armstrong. I won't spoil the plot, but his scene with the lit match is one for the books.

It's been years since i've seen it, but i remember The Devil and the Deep as being hysterically overwrought, and i was howling by the end of it.

I've always been fond of Deception as well, especially the scenes of Bette Davis stalking around hollering at Claude Rains, who just sits in bed and smirks. I always get a kick out of that!

greta

Sometimes when I feel the need for a laugh, instead of a comedy I choose The Fountainhead (1949), a film for which the guiding principle seems to have been: "An overstatement is better than anything."

This film is Exhibit A for not letting an author have too much control of the film adaptation of their work. The characters make the same damn arguments over and over and over again, in pointlessly excruciating detail. It ruins what is otherwise an interesting movie--King Vidor is really at the top of his game, and the casting is perfect.

I've always been fond of Deception as well, especially the scenes of Bette Davis stalking around hollering at Claude Rains, who just sits in bed and smirks. I always get a kick out of that!

greta

DECEPTION! It is an over-the-top masterpiece! Bette and Claude squash hapless Paul Henreid like a cinematic Scylla and Charybdis. That scene in the restaurant may well be Rains's finest moment.

I am shocked, SHOCKED! that no one has yet mentioned my Favorite Loopy Melodrama, THE COBWEB. Never has so much angst (and so much ACTING!) been expended for...well...curtains.

I am shocked, SHOCKED! that no one has yet mentioned my Favorite Loopy Melodrama, THE COBWEB. Never has so much angst (and so much ACTING!) been expended for...well...curtains.

OOh, i haven't seen this one, it sounds great!

I had a good deal of fun, too with a film i stumbled into the middle of in a hotel room, involving Vincent Price trying to murder Robert Taylor by taking him marlon fishing of all things. Ava Gardner was hanging around, and the Charles Laughton turned up try to hijack the movie. And the ending--well, not to spoil, but it ended in spectacular fashion.

greta

I am shocked, SHOCKED! that no one has yet mentioned my Favorite Loopy Melodrama, THE COBWEB. Never has so much angst (and so much ACTING!) been expended for...well...curtains.

OOh, i haven't seen this one, it sounds great!

I had a good deal of fun, too with a film i stumbled into the middle of in a hotel room, involving Vincent Price trying to murder Robert Taylor by taking him marlon fishing of all things. Ava Gardner was hanging around, and the Charles Laughton turned up try to hijack the movie. And the ending--well, not to spoil, but it ended in spectacular fashion.

greta

THE BRIBE. I first stumbled into scenes from this in the early '80s when Carl Reiner and Steve Martin borrowed 'em for DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID. Finally saw the film on its own last year, and it is indeed a hoot. Judging from THE BRIBE and THE BREAKING POINT, fishing was pretty dangerous in the late 40s-early 50s.

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

Sorry to hear you didn't like it. Someone should have mentioned that it plays better after several eggnogs.

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

Of course you did......it's fun!


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Christopher Jacobs]

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

Well, that was sort of the point of the whole thread! But it's entertainingly awful at the same time it's a slick piece of craftsmanship. And it would be better to watch with a couple of friends or an audience of some sort, and yes a bottle of a favorite beverage is likely to up its entertainment value considerably.

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

All part of our evil plot.

Now you people made me watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN, and I found I unspeakably awful...

Of course you did......it's fun!


RICHARD M ROBERTS

No, it is slow, dull, silly and pointless... I like to look at Jane Russell though, and Vincent Price has his moments...

[Christopher Jacobs]

If you watch HIS KIND OF WOMAN for the first time expecting a classic film noir, it's easy to find it (literally) ridiculous and an annoying waste of time. But watching it the second or third time, to see if it's really as bad as you thought it was, it can start to grow on you, and eventually seems so over-the-top and outlandish that it appears to have been planned that way all along. That's how cult classics are born, and this certainly qualifies. (But each to his own taste -- I was never particularly fond of ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and the first time I saw it -- previewing a 16mm print alone -- found a few amusing scenes overwhelmed by a largely stupid concept and execution, although seeing it later with an audience made me see how it could appeal to group participation.) A movie like HIS KIND OF WOMAN greatly benefits from viewing it with several others who can appreciate its outrageousness!

Another yay vote for His Kind of Woman here. I never thought of it as a noir just a piece of fluff with Jane Russell and Vincent Price. What I expected was what I got. Fun!

What about The Lady from Shanghai?
or Touch of Evil?

Love THE COBWEB, great to watch with a bunch of friends and a pitcher of martinis.

For over-the-top noir, I'll go with the title that first springs to mind, KISS ME DEADLY. Its approach is like a punch in the face with a set of brass knuckles.

Gabriel Over the White House

It's one of those pictures that makes you say "My God, what were they thinking."

I understand that it's based on a novel that proposes basically a God-inspired fascist dictatorship as a solution to the Depression, but Walter Huston's being touched by an angel after his accident and turning into an American Mussolini is a bit much. Subtle, it ain't.

A later film that's a pretty over-the-top melodrama is The Spiral Road from 1962 with Rock Hudson and Burl Ives. I found myself laughing at Burl Ives as the missionary doctor chewing up the jungle scenery. Then I just lost it when some natives try to isolate Rock in the jungle for weeks to drive him crazy and he comes stumbling out of the brush, afraid of his own shadow with a long beard and ragged clothes, staring into a pool of water at his own reflection and saying, "It's ...... me!!!".

I wondered if the "It's..." guy in tattered clothes that opened up the "Monty Python" tv show was inspired by this film moment.