Richard Wright (1908-1960) was perhaps the best-known and most written-about black novelist of the 20th century, but as far as I know no one except myself has ever pointed out the debt he owes to Cornell Woolrich. During the late Thirties when Wright was working on his first and finest novel, Native Son (1940), he is known to have been a voracious reader of the pulp mystery magazines like Black Mask to which Woolrich contributed dozens of stories.

   Native Son’s basic storyline of a young man wrongly accused of murder and running headlong through “streets dark with something more than night” was clearly inspired by Woolrich’s powerful suspense thriller “Dusk to Dawn” (Black Mask, December 1937; collected in Nightwebs, 1971).

   During the last months of his life Wright was working on another crime novel, recently published in unfinished form as A Father’s Law, and it seems equally clear that here too he took his point of departure from Woolrich. In “Charlie Won’t Be Home Tonight” (Dime Detective, July 1939; collected in Eyes That Watch You, 1952) a middle-aged cop slowly becomes convinced that the criminal he’s seeking is his son. Woolrich’s cop of course is white. A Father’s Law deals with a middle-aged black cop who also becomes convinced that his son is a criminal.

   If this is simply a double coincidence, it’s one that even Woolrich (who was prone to stretch coincidence to the outer limits) would have rejected. Any student of African-American literature who’s in need of an unexplored topic could do worse than to investigate the Woolrich-Wright interface in depth.

   Silly mistakes in mystery fiction are not confined to nonentities like John B. Ethan, whose fond delusion that Zen Buddha was a person I discussed in my last column. Some of the biggest names have perpetrated howlers no less ridiculous.

   Take, for instance, Margery Allingham. “The Definite Article” (The Strand, October 1937; collected in Mr. Campion and Others, 1950) finds Albert Campion called in by his friend Superintendent Oates when Scotland Yard is asked by the “Federal Police” of the U.S. (by which I presume she means the FBI) to arrest and deport a “society blackmailer” whose extortion drove a young woman in New York to suicide.

   Excuse me? Where’s the Federal crime? Where’s the Federal jurisdiction? Any doubts that Allingham knew nothing about the American legal system should be allayed a little further in the story when Campion asks Oates why the Feds got in touch with Scotland Yard instead of, say, “the Sheriff of Nevada.” Since when do states have sheriffs?

   Richard Fleischer (1916-2006) directed some of the worst big-budget movies ever to issue from Hollywood but started out helming several excellent little specimens of film noir, perhaps the best known being The Narrow Margin (1952) and Violent Saturday (1955).

   His memoir Just Tell Me When to Cry (1993) says very little about most of his noirs but includes a neat anecdote about a similar film he had nothing to do with. In 1946, as a novice at RKO, he sat in on a production meeting with tough-as-nails executive producer Sid Rogell and the well-known theatrical director Harold Clurman, who was helming his first movie. Fleischer doesn’t name the picture but, since Clurman made only one movie in his life, it has to be Deadline at Dawn, loosely based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel of the same name.

   As Fleischer remembered the meeting, the first thing Rogell told Clurman was: “You don’t have forty days to shoot the picture. You’ve got thirty.” Then Rogell picked up the script, noticed that the first scene took place at night and called for rain (in film noir, what else?) and asked Clurman: “Rain? You know how much fucking rain costs?….What do you want rain for?” “For the mood,” Clurman told him. “Fuck the mood. No rain.”

   Rogell was about to order Clurman to cut back on the number of people who appeared in the scene when the director interrupted: “How about dust? Lots of dust blowing everywhere. Can we afford dust?”

   In the finished film the first scene takes place indoors – the confrontation between the blind pianist (Marvin Miller) and his predatory ex (Lola Lane) – and neither rain nor dust appears in the second scene, which is set outdoors but was clearly shot on a soundstage.

   So many people have told me that I absolutely must see Infernal Affairs (2002), the Hong Kong movie which Martin Scorsese remade with Leonardo di Caprio and Matt Damon as The Departed, that I finally did it earlier this month.

   The Asian film tells the same story as its U.S. counterpart – the duel between two moles, one planted in the mob years ago by the PD, the other planted in the PD by the mob – but much more tightly and cynically and without the graphic in-your-face violence that seems to have become a Scorsese trademark.

If    you’ve hesitated because you’re unfamiliar with Asian action films and are afraid you won’t be able to tell the characters apart, I can assure you that this is not a problem. The wispy-mustached police mole in the mob (Tony Leung) could never be confused with the clean-shaven mob mole on the force (Andy Lau), and the only cop whose knows his mole’s identity (Anthony Wong) could no more be mistaken for the only mobster who knows his mole’s identity (Eric Tsang) than could Martin Sheen for Jack Nicholson in Scorsese’s version.

   I do recommend, however, that Infernal Affairs be seen in letterbox. The panned-and-scanned version I got from Netflix eliminates far too much of each image from an intensely visual film – and one that goes far towards proving that noir has become a universal language.

THE STREET WITH NO NAME. 1948, 20th Century Fox. Mark Stevens, Richard Widmark, Lloyd Nolan, Barbara Lawrence, John McIntire, Donald Buka, Joseph Pevney. Directed by William Keighley.

   As a sequel to The House on 92nd Street (Fox, 1945), this film repeats both the semi-documentary style and Lloyd Nolan as FBI agent George Briggs. Immediately after the film’s credit, the following notice appears on the screen:

   To obtain Mr. Hoover’s approval for the film, one supposes, the first fifteen minutes are dreadfully and drearily slow. With loud, stentorian music in the background, the audience is dramatically shown the technical advances and training background that agents of the FBI had at their disposal in their new post-war battle against crime.

   Mark Stevens, perhaps too good-looking for the role, plays undercover agent Gene Cordell as he tries to gain acceptance into the Alec Stiles gang. It is not until Alec Stiles makes an appearance that the movie begins to gain some footing – and you know who plays Stiles don’t you? You’ve seen the credits, if not the movie. Straight from his major debut in his star-making role as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death, Richard Widmark.

   As the woman-hating, narcissistic and germophobic gang leader Alec Stiles, Widmark tones his portrayal down so that he is only a mere two hairs from lunacy, but they are thick hairs. Lloyd Nolan, whom we think from the beginning is going to be the star, has next to no part at all.

   It is on the streets of “Central City” where the action is, with John McIntire as Cordell’s mentor and backup agent Cy Gordon in the rooming house across the street, getting scruffier and shabbier by the minute, but providing Cordell his only protection.

   Playing nearly as important a role as Widmark is the aforementioned “street,” actually downtown Los Angeles at the time the movie was filmed, crammed with flop houses, pool halls, penny arcades, cheap restaurants, boxing emporiums, and dives of all sorts and kinds. Filmed largely at night, beginning as the bus rolls in with Cordell on it and getting off, it triggers a sense of 1940s big city sleaze as overpowering and as authentic as you can imagine. Deep down inside, you know that this is (was) as real as it gets.

   Noir? Yes, definitely, once the movie’s rid of its documentary trappings. Filmed with a superb sense of black and white, inventive camera angles and taking superb advantage of on-location shooting, this is one of the best views of how the inhabitants of Skid Row managed to exist, if not live, immediately after World War II.

   Surprisingly enough, the members of Styles’s gang still wear coats, ties and hats to most of their functions, including poker games, boxing matches, stick-ups, robberies and murders. There is also only one woman in the movie, Barbara Lawrence as Styles’s wife Judy, a cheap, sarcastic moll (even to Styles) if there ever was one and convincingly so, even if, as an actress, she was only 18 or 19 at the time.

   I think that there was a little too much violence in the ending, in the manufacturing warehouse filled with all sorts of strange-looking machinery, making for all sorts of terrific shots from a cinemaphotographer’s point of view. I don’t have the technical expertise to describe the latter. Take a look at Mike Grost’s website for that. If you’re interested in reading an in-depth analysis of the movie-making (and movie-watching) aspects of The Street with No Name, there is definitely the place to go.

   But, as I began to say, my opinion is that the police were a little too trigger-happy than they should have been. A little? A lot! There is more gunfire in this nifty low budget film noir than I can remember in any of the others I’ve ever seen, but of course there are many I haven’t. Nonetheless, if only the first fifteen minutes could be skipped: you’d have one of the best of them all.

KILL ME AGAIN. 1989. Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Michael Madsen. Screenwriters: John Dahl & David W. Warfield. Director: John Dahl.

   Whee-oooh! For fans of modern noir drama, this movie will take you for quite a ride. Flawed though it may be, there are scenes in this movie that seem to come straight from those beloved yellowed old Gold Medal paperbacks from the 1950s, updated only a little – and thinking back, perhaps not even at all.

   Jack Andrews, played by Val Kilmer, is one of those down-at-the-heels Reno private eyes who exist only in fiction, who’s hired by a beautiful client to take on a slightly illegal job for her. The client, Fay Forrester (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), claims that she is on the run from a former boy friend who’s stalking her and that police cannot do anything about it with no solid evidence that he means her harm.

   Her solution? To have Jack create a murder scene, with herself as the victim, so that she can take on a new identity and start a new life. She does not mention that she has a small suitcase in her possession filled with hundred dollar bills, and the “boy friend” is her former partner in crime, Vince Miller, played to perfect psychopathic perfection by Michael Madsen.

   As it so happens, Jack has some seriously due gambling debts – so seriously that he has a broken little finger to show for it – and after thinking over for all of a minute and a half – not to mention that Faye is seriously beautiful – he agrees to take the job.

   I forgot to mention the mob from whom Vince and Fay have stolen the money, nor have I said anything about the rock that Fay bashed over Vince’s head when she made her departure from him. Neither one will take their losses sitting down – neither the mob, nor Vince.

   The murder scene that Jack creates is only moderately successful, and when he catches up with Fay again – yes, figure that out – they both find that their trail has not been terribly difficult to follow. Hence the title, and I wouldn’t have told you quite so much about the story if I hadn’t have thought that the title needed an explanation.

   Beautifully photographed in color rather than black and white, the movie still manages to demonstrate its noir roots in shadows and shading and even broad daylight. Nicely done, and there are some nice twists to the tale that I have not been even close to telling you about.

   Flaws? There may be a twist or two too many for some, but they worked for me, all but perhaps the very last one. (I’m still thinking that one over.) Michael Madsen plays lunatic madmen as well as anybody, and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer is not only savagely beautiful, with curves galore, but she is (or her character is) also seriously loopy in the head. You can almost hear the wheels moving in her mind, with a lusty gleam in her eyes, whenever she’s contemplating her next course of action.

   Val Kilmer, on the other hand, seems to be the only one not seriously up to his part. His face is too innocent, too much of choir boy’s, to be first of all, a down-at-the-heels Reno private eye who exist only in fiction. That he’d get caught up in the grip of lust for Fay Forrester goes without saying – or is only interested in the money – or is he trying for both? His facial expressions do not give it away, which in some sense is good, but after a while you begin to wonder as you start to realize that he only has two or three facial expressions to give.

   An almost forgettable flaw, perhaps, but perhaps not, and I thought I’d better warn you. All in all, I thought the movie was terrific, or mostly so, but there are others who don’t. My recommendation: Don’t listen to them.

ACTS OF BETRAYAL. 1997, Conquistador Entertainment. Maria Conchita Alonso, Matt McColm, Muse Watson, David Groh, Susan Lee Hoffman. Director: Jack Ersgard.

   If you were to ask, I’d say that as a rough guess maybe 80% of this 90 minute action film is exactly that: non-stop action. There are more bullets flying in this picture than in many small revolutions, and at the end there are only two people left standing: star corruption witness Eva Ramirez (Maria Conchita Alonso) and stalwart, straight-as-an arrow FBI agent Lance Cooper (Matt McColm), whose thankless job it is to get her before the investigating jury.

   Opposing them is a veritable army of thugs, soldiers of fortune, outlaws, bikers and miscellaneous gunmen, organized and fortified by two individuals (one man with a tall, strikingly beautiful female assistant) in a well-equipped communications van, complete with state-of-the-art computers and backup plans and mercenary forces far beyond anything Al Capone ever dreamed of.

   Did I say that agent Cooper is straight-laced? What I didn’t say is that the lady he is escorting is uninhibited, a non-stop talker, an incessant chatterer, often suggestively and R-rated, and of course, as they most often do, opposites attract. Eventually. I love it. And of course they save each others’ lives more than once.

   For the kind of movie this is, on a scale of one to five, I would give this one a five. The acting is far above average, the dialogue witty, and while realism has no basis in the story line, realism is not exactly what people who watch movies like this are watching for.

   For the kind of movie this also is, there is no scale from one to ten. I do concede that movies like this do not deserve a scale that goes that high.

   I’ve not been able to find this movie on DVD in English — only in Spanish, or as a beat-up former video rental. I guess you’ve have to explain the economics of movie-making to me. I’m sure this never played in theaters, only on cable. Even a cheap five dollar DVD would recoup some of the production costs, wouldn’t it?

THE BIG COMBO. Allied Artists, 1955. Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, Helen Walker, Helene Stanton. Director: Joseph H. Lewis. Original music by David Raksin.

   This one’s the real deal. In the last week or so I’ve been telling you about bits and pieces of various movies that were noirish in nature, but by 1955 directors and cinematographers (John Alton, in this case, of Raw Deal and I, the Jury fame) who worked with noir films knew exactly what they were doing, and they did it well.

   Mike Grost has done a superbly in-depth online analysis of the films of Joseph H. Lewis (no relation), and you should go read it. The Big Combo is one of his films that comes in for a lot of attention, including a good many things that didn’t register for me on my first time through. (Mike admits that he has watched many of Lewis’s films more than once.)

   I’ll not repeat any of Mike’s thoughts and facts about the film. I don’t mind repeating myself by saying that you should go read it for yourself. I’ll be content to relay to you my impressions and not rely on any of his.

   And impression number one is the reason I included David Raksin’s musical score in the credits. The loud jazzy opening scene, with a good-looking blonde running frantically from two thugs in the shadowy depths of a boxing arena is one of the finest in recent memory. Made me think the movie was about a jazz band (The Big Combo), in fact, but no, not so.