Tue 28 Nov 2023
A TV/Cinema Question from Lazy Georgenby:
You all know how Dick Powell –- as Phil Marlowe –- is lounging in his office one night, sipping scotch, gazing out his window at the lights of Los Angeles. He’s got no active cases. No dough coming in.
It’s all part of the opening sequence in Murder My Sweet. Suddenly –behind him –the ghastly face of Moose Malone (Mike Mazurki) looms over him in the darkness, reflected by the neons winking on his windowpane. Powell sits up and turns around.
So far so good? Okay so, I’m talking to someone lately who wants to know whether there is any crime, mystery, noir, hard-boiled detective movie-or-TV-series which incarnates the archetype above: keeping everything exactly the same as the above, except that ‘the detective turns around’ because of a knock at his door. He bids the visitor to enter and the newcomer is a beautiful femme fatale in need of his help. Via voice-over, his mental patter is the usual, “…she looked like trouble right from the start…†or words to this effect.
He swears this is the opening scene in a classic crime flick. I’ve racked my brains trying to pin this down. A lot of candidates were easily eliminated; I’m fairly sure that it’s not the opening scene in any of the really famous P.I. movies.
Currently, I’m hunting through old episodes of Mike Hammer on TV (Darren McGavin’s run), Lloyd Nolan’s Mike Shayne movies, the early Spillane movies like Girl Hunters, and even the Bob Hope parody movies like My Favorite Brunette.
The maddening aspect of it all, is that this ‘trope’ could literally be from anywhere: TV commercials, graphic novels, SNL skits, cartoons. It might not have ever been filmed at all. Could be found only in homages or pastiches. Might not even be from the majors era, could be something from the ’70s.
So as a last resort, I am throwing myself on the mercy of this court. What say ye? Thx thx thx!
November 28th, 2023 at 10:56 pm
Perhaps Guy Noir? (And the line would then go on to say “and the trouble began with a pair of legs that would put a Chippendale table to shame”…or something like that.)
November 29th, 2023 at 2:28 pm
Guy Noir? Yes! Don’t know if these are from opening scenes or not, but if not they should have been:
“She was tall, blonde, in jeans that looked sprayed on and a T-shirt so tight I could study her bone structure. I could see she wasn’t from Duluth. There were no chinstrap marks on her neck, her hair hadn’t been deformed by stocking caps, she didn’t have that roll of fat around her middle—her midriff was as tight as the cap on a pickle jar.”
and
“She was tall and long-legged and her blonde hair hung down sort of like what Beethoven had in mind when he wrote the Moonlight Sonata. She wore a knit sweater and jeans so tight it looked as if she’d been poured into them and forgot to say ‘When.’ When she moved, she seemed to undulate under her clothes in ways that took a man’s mind off supply side economics.”
(From Guy Noir’s Wikipedia page.)
November 29th, 2023 at 7:34 pm
Ty ty ty! On several counts. Sincerely ‘ppreciate y’all making my little egg-hunt something more hands can pitch-in on.
The bloke with the source of the question, is a relative stranger to me; but since they are unfamiliar with the 1930s-50s, I offered to help ‘im out.
It’s an interesting little brain-teaser which (initially) I felt would be easily solved. Turned out, not so easily done.
Not a matter of life-or-death to solve this, but it would be minorly-satisfying to unravel the skein. [This citizen is somehow lazier even than I am –he doesn’t want to really investigate this –he just wants the definitive answer.]
But as I started sifting through the question, I am now intrigued myself; as to whether or not this common ‘noir trope’ has an ‘ur-‘ source in any actual film. [Slow season ’round here lately.]
This joker (I mean: the OP) –his flaw is that he’s lookin’ at too much pop-art, cartoons, and graphic art.
He thinks he sees a pattern in the way illustrators re-create classic hard-boiled P.I. yarns.
He feels it unlikely that so many artists would suggest a femme-fatale approaching a P.I. in his office, without it having an actual cinema source.
I’m inclined otherwise. To my recall, a pencil-skirt/high heel dollface slinking into a tawdry P.I. office is just a ‘sometimes seen’ ingredient in the well-worn noir recipe.
Since noir-‘schtick’ is all so formulaic, there’s no reason at all, to assume it was ever actually filmed. At least, not in anything except an homage or pastiche.
Oh well. Taking ‘Murder My Sweet’ as a starting point, I’ve already gone over all this terrain:
Ruled out all three versions of ‘Maltese Falcon’. The dangerous-dame is neither Miss Wonderley nor Ava Archer.
Ruled out all the rest of the ’30s. If this motif is so bandied-about at this late date, it wouldn’t have originated that long ago. It would be post-Chandler.
Ruled out the James Garner ‘Marlowe’.
Ruled out George Segal’s ‘Black Bird’ spoof.
Ruled out ‘Lady in the Lake’ and ‘Blue Dahlia’, and every other Raymond Chandler project.
Sifted through most of Bogart’s titles –especially Chandler’s ‘Big Sleep’ –to ensure I wasn’t missing anything.
Been through the films of Alan Ladd.
Ruled out George Raft, Eddie G. and Paul Muni.
Ruled out the office-confrontation being buried anywhere in the middle of a movie or TV show. [It would more likely be the start of a P.I. case.]
Still working on Bob Mitchum movies. It’s not Jacques Tourneur’s “Out of the Past” although the scene with Jane Greer in the Mexican bar is very evocative.
Ruled out anything from Ross MacDonald, James M. Cain, Cornell Woolrich, Horace McCoy, Dorothy Hughes, John D. MacDonald.
Pored over adaptions of Mickey Spillane’s works.
My first guess –‘Kiss Me Deadly’ –begins on a highway.
Still sifting through 1950s TV shows like Bourbon Street, Richard Diamond, Johnny Staccato, Peter Gunn, etc
It’s not Steve Martin in “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” although there is a very similar scene.
Whew! Out of breath for the moment. Thanks again for serving as a sounding-board for this fool’s quest!
November 29th, 2023 at 7:48 pm
And it could also be a “racial memory” sparked by countless paperback and magazine covers of the 40s and 50s…
November 29th, 2023 at 8:29 pm
Lazy,
My initial thought was it had to be something like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The scenario sounds like a bit of a put on—which was why I thought Guy Noir was such a good guess. What about Mel Brooks’s stuff, like high anxiety or something? Or woody Allen?
November 29th, 2023 at 11:21 pm
re: #5. Yes indeed. Thank ye for the skull-sweat. We’re much of like mind.
‘Jessica Rabbit’ also occurred to me, and her progenitor (Tex Avery’s “Red Hot Riding Hood”) which I admired as a kid.
Another one besides “Plaid” is “Johnny Dangerously” which I’ve never actually seen.
Woody Allen/Brooks –I’m a fan of both –but I’m dubious towards them in this case. Ill-equipped as well. I’m at a deep disadvantage since I haven’t kept up with them. I’ve seen ‘Play it Again Sam’, but not ‘Shadows and Fog’. It’s that kind of hodge-podge.
But –so the logic of this correspondent runs –whenever Allen/Brooks/Martin/Bob Hope parodies PI office flirtations like Marlowe/Shayne –are they parodying an actual scene? Or just a melange? A mirage?
The question grows more intriguing the more I give it attention. Was there ever a scene like this, or do we all just imagine there was?
The ‘femme fatale’ is ingrained in all our popular memory. But who actually was she? Who was the first one, who actually knocked on the smoked-glass windowpane of the PI’s door and lisped out her plight?
Maybe she begins with Mata Hari or with Dietrich’s ‘The Blue Angel’, but in terms of American popcult, where else but …Bacall? Okay …but does Bacall ever actually knock on Bogart’s door?
I’ve tried to approach he whole question as rationally as possible but you can see why I finally brought it here. It’s more of an empirical question, which can probably only be solved by lifelong noir aficionados with fantastic visual recall, as I know you all possess.
Anyway, “to be continued …” Thanks!
November 29th, 2023 at 11:46 pm
Re: #4 Racial memory. Yes. I too, favor this theory. I’m with ya.
I asserted this myself (to the hapless questioner), I suggested that he has merely assembled a “bunch of unconnected fragments” in his mind and composed a mental jigsaw puzzle. All of his own devising.
But he counter-punched me with a bunch of links to online graphic art. He parried my insinuation with the evidence of a slew of web-zines and illustrations which all draw on the same motif. In other words, there’s ‘more than just himself’ who are dreaming the same dream.
In reply to this gut-punch, I still insist that it doesn’t matter how many graphic illustrators all assemble the same jigsaw puzzle pieces. It doesn’t mean the pieces all refer to one source.
Like, say you have a jigsaw puzzle of a waterfall. All waterfalls kinda look the same, in their fine details. If you complete a 250-piece jigsaw puzzle of a massive waterfall, okay but it still doesn’t mean the painting of that waterfall (printed on the puzzle pieces) comes from a classic Alfred Steiglitz photograph of Niagara Falls which was then turned into a famous oil painting of Niagara Falls. It might just be a richly detailed painting by some unknown artist, depicting Victoria Falls in Tanganyika(?) or Patterson Falls in NJ. Who knows.
But yes this is still my working theory –and I am peppering him with it –vicious jabs all over his face and body –but he’s stubbornly resisting.
I mean, consider how absurd the whole thing is. It’s just not likely that there would be a famous damsel-in-distress movie scene which has been so much reprinted down throughout all these many decades without there ever having been an original instance from which it sprang. How could that possibly be? No matter what the ‘gold source’ ever was, it couldn’t be that lost to time no matter how many copies were coined. Someone would surely know the lineage.
But since –so far –no one apparently does know any lineage, then YES, it is much more likely that it has no authentic provenance. Just a figment of (either) individual or communal imagination.
Thanks mate!
November 30th, 2023 at 9:14 am
Update: wondering now if the guy is confusing, ‘To Have and Have Not’ as being part of the detective-flick genre?
Bogie has a tiny office for his fishing boat business in the Howard Hawks version; the office does have thick Venetian blinds which cast the requisite ‘noir’-ish shadows; and Bacall does come slinking inside for the famous “Do you know how to whistle?” dialogue.
Maybe it’s really just as simple as that.
November 30th, 2023 at 9:49 pm
Strictly Television you might try the final season of 77 SUNSET STRIP which moves Stu Bailey to the Bradbury Building and off the strip, or the short lived BANYON with Robert Forster or CITY OF ANGELS with Wayne Rogers. All three went in for noir touches. There are quite a few made for television movies of the week that might qualify from Marc Singer as Dan Turner to Fred Ward as a tec name Lovecraft.
Can’t be Peter Gunn, he doesn’t have an office, and after the first season set in New York it sounds too stagey for the LA based Richard Diamond.
Most of the later eyes don’t operate out of offices unless it is the dream sequence from MAGNUM P.I..
Could be Bogie in TO HAVE AND TO HAVE NOT. Ladd only played a P.I. MY FAVOITE BRUNETTE and the only person in his office is Bob Hope, though you might check out the scene where Bob is pretending to be Ladd and client Dorothy Lamour shows up.
You could check out DARK CORNER, I can’t recall if Secretary Lucille Ball walks in on Mark Stevens that way or not.
To be honest the scene sounds a lot like DIXIE COSTELLO a XXX rated noir with 40’s P.I. John Leslie and cop ally Cameron Mitchell.
And it of course could be one of those images conjured up in our unconscious mind out of six other movies and television series.
I have one a little like this from a Western, the hero enters the bar to have a shootout with the owner. He enters the backroom, the door shuts, there are gunshots, the bad guy walks out and half-way across the room collapses dead and then the hero emerges.
Of course, the ending of STAGECOACH is similar to that and there is a similar scene in Richard Dix’s THE KANSAN, but in my imperfect memory the movie is from the late Forties or Fifties and David Brian is in it.
I’ve looked for it for years, and never quite seen it, but I’ve watched a lot of David Brian Westerns.
December 1st, 2023 at 3:42 pm
Re: msg #9 thank ye kindly. Some good leads there to follow.
I’d only ever heard a faint mention before now, of that Wayne Rogers project; whereas Robert Forster in ‘Banyon’ –yes! Have heard and also seen but hasn’t crossed my mind in ages. Forster is cool, I wish’d he’d had a bigger career.
’77 Sunset Strip’ –groan –I should have checked that out a few days ago at the start of this clambake.
Gonna pounce on these tips, but at this point I’m strongly favoring ‘To Have and Have Not’.
The phantom western sequence: I would’ve suggested Eli Wallach in the first few moments (the barbershop scene) in TGTB&TU.
Oh well. Sincere thanks!