1954 Film Noir
From Universal-International
Directed by Jerry Hopper
Starring
Sterling Hayden
Gloria Grahame
Gene Barry
Marcia Henderson
Billy Chapin
Chuck Connors
Casey Adams
No kidding. I thought I was going into Gloria Grahame withdrawal. I hadn't seen one of my favorite actresses in a movie in some time and felt I needed to correct that. It was a delightful Saturday afternoon and I poured through some of her titles. I had almost decided on one of her very finest, The Big Heat, when I came across Naked Alibi. Although it doesn't stand as tall as Heat, it does have some things in common with it and it contains, of course, another fabulous Grahame noir performance.
Noirs like to keep things a little murky so of course we know nothing about the background of any of these characters. Their lives apparently started when we meet them. Actually, I like it that way. It's one of the reasons I'm a noir fanatic.
Grahame doesn't come into the story for the first 20 minutes or so. We are concentrated on Gene Barry, a generally boozed-up California bakery shop owner, who lives above the shop and who has been hauled into the police station on suspicion of being involved in some robberies.
Barry is a complete sleazeball whose schtick is to appear like a stellar citizen who hasn't the foggiest idea why he's being hauled in. Three detectives are questioning him and at one point he gets into a physical hassle with them. Even though he smashes one of them on the side of the head, they take him down and work him over a bit.
As chief of detectives Sterling Hayden opens the door, he sees and hears Barry say the three are going to pay. Hayden has no doubt that he means it and he's also certain Barry's earnest demeanor is bs.
Soon one of the interrogating detectives is shot and killed on the street and Hayden hauls Barry back in and tells him he knows he did it. We don't see him do it but we know the same thing Hayden does. A day or so later the other two cops are killed when their car explodes upon starting it up. (A page from The Big Heat.)
Hayden is a tough guy, a big brute with little patience, who has been warned about roughing up people. When he is caught strangling Barry, he is fired. No matter. Now he has more time to pursue (stalk) Barry who, as Hayden hopes, starts to come unglued.
Barry tells his devoted wife (Marcia Henderson) and family members that he is going off somewhere to get his head cleared. She clearly doesn't understand but goes along with it. Under the cloak of darkness and much looking over his shoulder he heads for Border City (Tijuana, to you) and the El Perico Cantina which, it becomes obvious, is like a second home to Barry. Hayden, through his sources, has also arrived in Border City.
And suddenly there she is. Grahame plays Marianna, a singer at the cantina. She's leaning against the bar with her tousled brunette locks, dark, wet, red lips and draped in a fetching black satin dress with a lace bodice held up by spaghetti straps. (This dress graces the cover of Vincent Curcio's strangely-titled but provocative Grahame bio, Suicide Blonde.) She belts out Cole Porter's Ace in the Hole while gyrating around the bar.
 |
| Grahame & director Jerry Hopper |
There has always been press on this number. First of all, Grahame isn't doing the singing. It is done by one Jo Ann Greer and the unusual thing is that the voice doesn't sound like Grahame's voice in the slightest. In fact, it's rather jarring. Additionally, some folks found Grahame's physical business during the song quite sexy while others thought her mannerisms were clunky. I certainly thought she was sexy (I always did) but I understand the criticism as well.
After the song she spots Barry whom we realize is a lover who disappeared from her life (yeah, like going home to a wife and baby). When she gets on his case he slaps her which she finds so stimulating that she kisses him. Grahame, like the consummate floozy noir actress she was, gets knocked around in a number of her films. There was more to come in this one.
 |
| Grahame & Hayden |
Barry gets wind that Hayden is in town and he sends some thugs around for some harassing payback, including getting stabbed. Grahame nurses him back to health, easily accomplished because she lives in the same tenement he's staying in. She goes through his pockets and discovers a newspaper article about Barry and puts two and two together. It's not so easy for her when Barry finds out she's playing nursemaid.
Grahame, in telling Hayden things about Barry, reveals he is not a churchgoer. That simple statement opens up the floodgates for Hayden. He could never get the goods on Barry because he could never find the German gun that was used to kill the one detective. Hayden, who had Barry watched, questioned him about his whereabouts on the night the cop was killed and Barry said he went to pray at a neighborhood church.
While Grahame makes romantic overtures to Hayden, he doesn't welcome them. Nonetheless Barry thinks otherwise and he and his henchman kidnap Grahame and Hayden and before he can kill them, a fight erupts and Hayden overpowers Barry and puts him in a car with Grahame with the intention of returning to California and that church where he believes Barry hid the gun.
 |
| Grahame, Barry & Hayden racing home |
Once there the three get separated. Barry goes for the gun while Grahame tries to stop him from killing Hayden and she is shot. Hayden goes after Barry in a rooftop chase which ends as it should for Barry. Hayden returns to Grahame, lying on the ground, comforting her and she laments what they might have had before she dies. (Another page from The Big Heat.)
Ross Hunter was a producer at Universal. He was keen on providing entertainment for the masses and though gay, had a yen for actresses, particularly older actresses whose careers were on the wane. He had seen and loved The Big Heat and he wanted to work with Grahame. He had in his stash of scripts and books a slight novel called Cry Copper which he thought might be perfect for her. In fact he wanted the screenplay tailored to her role in Heat.
As he occasionally watched her, he became interested in securing her a contract at Universal so that he could build her into a major star but apparently she didn't take him up on his offer. She had a tough time making career decisions on her own..
Hunter had worked with Hayden a few years earlier in Take Me to Town and liked his work. The producer had seen the actor's work as cops in two noirs, Crime of Passion and Suddenly and saw him as his only choice for this role. Hunter likely knew that unless Hayden was off somewhere on his boat, he turned down very few films because he always needed money.
It took about a month to make this small film and Grahame, often a hellion on film sets, was on her best behavior here except that she tried to put the make on Hayden who wasn't having any of it.
Grahame thought Barry was a terrific actor and sang his praises for years afterwards. I thought he was enjoying one of his best roles here. I've never particularly cared for him but find it so interesting that when an actor I don't care for plays a villain, I enjoy him more.
Russell Metty's great black and white photography bathes the film in those delicious noir appointments. The art direction and set decoration is spot on. Jerry Hopper was the king of B film directors and he knew his way around a small film like this one.
But when all is said and done, this little noir shines mainly because of the sulky presence of Grahame. Just to see her walk across the square several times between the cantina and her apartment in a sexy dress with a loosely-knitted shawl slung seductively below her shoulders was enough for me.
Here's a trailer:
Next posting:
Staying naked
No comments:
Post a Comment