Sun 10 Aug 2014
Movie Review: BAD FOR EACH OTHER (1954).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[11] Comments
BAD FOR EACH OTHER. Columbia Pictures, 1953. Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Dianne Foster, Mildred Dunnock, Arthur Franz, Ray Collins, Marjorie Rambeau, Lester Matthews, Rhys Williams. Screenplay: Irving Wallace & Horace McCoy. Director: Irving Rapper.
This movie is available on DVD in a set of four films billed as Bad Girls of Film Noir, Volume 1. While I’ll name them below, I won’t comment at length on the other three, but to be blunt about it, Bad for Each Other is the kind of film that gives noir a bad name.
Don’t blame the movie. It is what it is, a black-and-white doctor drama that when it was made had no intention of being related to any of the host of crime films, spy dramas, gangster movies, mystery thrillers, and even the occasional historical mini-epic from the late 40 and 50s that are all lumped together in the guise of being noir. Some are. Most aren’t. “Noir” is now often little more than a marketing device.
There isn’t even a crime in this one, only the moral dilemma some members of the medical profession (Dr. Tom Owen, for example, as portrayed by Charlton Heston) must face: be idealist and work for pennies on the dollar that society doctors can make, catering to rich women with minor aches and pains, or be one of the latter and rake in the big bucks.
Lip service is paid to the idea that Dr. Owen needs the money to be able to contend for the hand of one of the idle rich, Helen Curtis (cool husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott), twice divorced and the daughter of the wealthy owner of the mine back in Owen’s hometown of Coalville, PA, but the good doctor seems all too willing to be seduced by money instead and the easy way to get it. That Mrs. Curtis is only a trophy to be gained along the way seems all too clear, even at the sacrifice of his own reputation. (He has to cover anonymously for the head of his practice when the latter confesses that he can no longer do surgical procedures.)
There are a couple of interesting plot lines that go nowhere. The story that remains is as limp as yesterday’s lettuce. Well-known hardboiled author Horace McCoy ought to have been embarrassed for putting his name on this one.
Other films in this set are The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), Two of a Kind (1951 and reviewed here) and The Glass Wall) (1953). Two of a Kind starts out in fine fashion, but in my opinion fades badly. Comments on any of these most welcome.
August 10th, 2014 at 7:33 pm
If black and white drama made it noir every film made before color would be noir. This isn’t noir by the broadest of definitions, its soap and middling soap at that.
August 10th, 2014 at 7:49 pm
The film lacks several of what I would consider among the essential elements of noir:
(1) a doomed protagonist
(2) a violent crime of any sort/a murder
(3) unique camera angles or the usage of shadow and lighting to convey meaning and/or to demonstrate a character’s psychological transformation (usually for the worse)
Instead, we get
(1) a flawed protagonist who changes for the better by the end of the film
(2) no violent crime. the protagonist’s worse offense is wanting money and allowing another physician to take credit for his work
(3) there’s nothing unique or memorable about the cinematography and there’s no usage of darkness to convey meaning
August 10th, 2014 at 8:31 pm
I’ve never seen Bad for Each Other.
IIRC, at the time of its release, people at davekehr.com were making jokes about how this doctor film had been slipped into a noir set.
It is reportedly blatantly non-noir. What next, Dr. Kildare as noir?
I think Jonathan’s 2) and 3) above are a good definition of film noir.
The Glass Wall (Maxwell Shane, 1953) is a pleasant little film.
It’s not a masterpiece, and one doesn’t want to raise false expectations. But the one time I saw it a decade ago found it a “nice”, satisfying little film. Do not expect core film noir, either.
I think I saw The Killer That Stalked New York, and found it too darn grim to be fun. Don’t remember it well.
August 10th, 2014 at 10:00 pm
With regard to my category (2) violent crime/murder, I would include acts of self-harm/violence toward one’s self in the form of alcoholism, drug abuse, addictions (gambling, etc) if the act lead to a downward spiral
but again, that’s not the case with “Bad For Each Other”. Drama is all about flawed protagonists. Noir is about a certain kind of flawed protagonist, more often than not filmed in a certain way
August 10th, 2014 at 11:16 pm
Noir has many tropes, and a few historical and western films are damn close, but in general true noir is contemporary, has a flawed protagonist who is saved or damned by his reaction to a violent usually criminal event (he’s a veteran as often as not), and, aside from stylistic and visual features, often has a narrator, and a woman who may or may not be a femme fatale.
You can’t rely on any of those, since the femme fatale is virtually the only reason LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is noir, yet it is noir.
Though the word is out of fashion today, I would say what defines noir other than the visual is often the presence of a neurotic hero and or villain. One not merely flawed, ambitious or ruthless or the like, but suffering from some active neurotic problem that has to be resolved in order for the film to reach a cathartic end. I would tend to put that neurosis as being close to as important as the look and style.
That said, films like CRY WOLF and KEEPER OF THE FLAME have most of those and aren’t noir. I’ve tried myself, and I’m not sure it can be defined by anything but perception.
August 11th, 2014 at 12:39 am
David,
Very well thought out points. Instead of “neurotic,” I think I’d use the phrase, “psychologically scarred”. Again, that may be just as true for the Greek tragedies and Shakespeare, but there’s a deep psychological torment that seems to exist in almost all noir protagonists, either at the beginning or at the end of their journey.
August 11th, 2014 at 2:09 am
The film was based on Horace McCoy’s novel, “Scalpel”
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/horace-mccoy-3/scalpel/
August 11th, 2014 at 7:14 am
Jon
Thanks for the link. That the film was based on one of McCoy’s novels is a fact not know to either IMDb or the AFI catalog. The book is in Hubin, but with a hyphen, indicating marginal or unknown criminous content, along with the info about the film, but I hadn’t thought to look there.
August 12th, 2014 at 12:14 pm
I sympathize with David Vineyard and others who grapple with the definition of “noir.” I roll with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964), regarding possible obscenity in The Lovers. Stewart famously said about obscenity, “I know it when I see it.”
August 12th, 2014 at 4:23 pm
George
That’s where I have ended up in regard to noir. If I think it is noir, it is.
August 13th, 2014 at 12:05 am
David,
I just watched Robert Siodmak’s “Son of Dracula” starring Lon Chaney. I considered that far more of a noir film than a lot of the generic black and white crime films that are packaged and marketed as noir these days!