by Gene Berkman
Noir Alley is a weekly film series on Turner Classic Movies. Normally starting at 9:00 PM on Saturday night, Noir Alley features films about crime and its detection, most from the late 1940s and early 1950s.
“Noir” is a French word, meaning “black” or “dark” and it has a double meaning (at least) as a descriptive for these films. Much of the action in Noir films takes place at night, in dimly light alleys, hallways or even harbors. “Noir” also refers to the darkness in the hearts and minds of the protagonists in these movies, and not always just the darkness of the villain’s deeds.
I have watched Noir Alley every week for several years. The quality of the films varies. Some are classics of the genre. A few are classics beyond any genre. And many are mid-grade “B” films, but even these are interesting for what they tell us about the era in which they were made and in which the plots take place.
Adding to the value of Noir Alley for the film enthusiast, or the cultural historian, Eddie Muller offers an intro setting some of the context for the film – how it was made, some facts about the writer(s), director, and main actors, and other interesting tidbits. More interesting usually is the outro, which gives more information on the film, the stars and what happened to them, and even the writers and directors.
Given the period in which most of the films shown were made – 1946 to 1954, as Eddie Muller noted in his intro Saturday night, July 13 – it is inevitable that politics intrudes into the stories of the films, and of the people who made them. Mr Muller gave an extended, and interesting talk on the significance of the “Red Scare” and the blacklist on Noir film making in the postwar period. To make clear the importance of context, Mr Muller states “…you cannot understand the Normandy invasion without knowing about the Holocaust…”
It does not diminish the horror of the Holocaust to note that the soldiers, sailors and military commanders involved in the Normandy invasion were not likely to be aware of the genocide being undertaken by the National Socialist regime in Germany. They were fighting the Third Reich to save Britain and France. But the Holocaust is important. It is part of the context for World War II. Just so, there is a context to the Red Scare in America that Eddie Muller has not really mentioned.
The Normandy Invasion was not specifically a response to the Holocaust, Eddie. But the Holocaust is directly related to another invasion – the Invasion of Poland in 1939, the proximate cause of the second European war, during which the Holocaust became the horrific historical fact that we still remember today. We often don’t remember that when troops of the German Reich invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Red Army entered Poland from the rear – I mean, the east.
The Invasion of Poland was the cause invoked by Britain and France to go to war with Germany. Poland was home to 3 million Jews, the largest Jewish population in Europe. The German death camps were established in Poland, and Polish Jews constituted the largest single bloc of victims of the Holocaust. The invasion of Poland took place during a period in which the Soviet Union was in alliance with National Socialist Germany.
Dark as these facts are, what do they have to do with Noir Alley, and Noir film of the postwar period? Victims. There are more victims than Eddie Muller has talked about – millions more. And those victims are part of the context for the Red scare, the expose of writers and actors with sympathies for the Soviet Union, and the Blacklist that Eddie Muller brings to light on a regular basis. But Eddie Muller is not the only one silent about the victims. How about the victims Eddie Muller talks about – did they say anything about Stalin’s alliance with Hitler that brought the subjugation of Poland, and the second European War?
Writers, directors and actors that were real or potential victims of the Hollywood blacklist, or of harassment by official agencies or crusading politicians were people who were or had been members of The Communist Party, or supporters of campaigns and front groups created by the Communist Party. They can include people involved in the Party or in front groups before the invasion of Poland, who remained loyal to the Party into the postwar years; those who joined the Communist Party or supported front groups after German invaded the Soviet Union; they saw the USSR as a bulwark against Nazi Germany despite the material support given the German Reich during the period of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
The third group was composed of Dalton Trumbo. He was very anti-war, not a bad thing. He wrote Johnny Got His Gun during the period of the Hitler Stalin Pact. But he was not a member of the Party when he wrote the book. At the time the Communist Party was campaigning against any American involvement in a war to save Britain and France. That was the party line during the Hitler Stalin Pact, and Trumbo saw the party as a force for peace. Trumbo joined the Communist Party when it was allied with Nazi Germany. As Forest Gump would say, “…that weren’t a smart thing to do.”
I appreciate Eddie Muller’s little histories of the people who made these films. Some went into exile to continue working in films during the blacklist period. Some submitted scripts under pseudonyms. As Dalton Trumbo noted – “…the blacklist exists. So does the black market.” None of his little histories have involved writers or actors assassinated by FBI or CIA death squads, but the past is the undiscovered country.
Some of those who where blacklisted produced good or even great cinema, available because of the black market, offshore production and foreign employment. We don’t know as much about dissident writers or actors in the Soviet Union in the Noir Alley period, because the American writers and actors did not take up their cause. We often don’t know their names – there are many unmarked graves in Soviet labor camps.
I was hoping for some balance when he announced a film that would be obviously anti-Communist. Naturally, he showed a film that was over the top, and used the history of the development of the film to highlight the oppressive atmosphere for writers at the Hughes studio during the Cold War. Probably all true, and interesting. With the vast film library available to him, including foreign films. Eddie Muller could do a service if he found a sophisticated noir film that dealt with totalitarianism and those who commit to it and act on its behalf.
I can mention modern films that highlight the reasons people oppose Communism, and even Communists. Too modern for Noir Alley, but each has Noir elements. The Lives of Others includes undercover police, smuggling, blackmail, and police corruption in East Germany.
The Death of Stalin has a dead body, political corruption, undercover police, and complicated motives in the very era Noir Alley focuses on. The Death of Stalin takes place in1953, but has regular reference to events up to 15 years earlier that led to the death and its aftermath.
Mr. Jones takes place in the 1930’s as some Noir Alley movies have done. Much of the action takes place at night in ill lit circumstances. There are dead bodies, some shown, more alluded to. An undercover investigator tries to expose a big crime. Most of the eye-witnesses are dead. Official agencies, news companies and writers he attempts to convince all have vested interests in their friendship with the perpetrator of the crime.
Of course, if Eddie Muller were to run Mr. Jones on Noir Alley, he would hopefully mention that today we know the crime boss in charge of the mass murder in Ukraine in the late 1930s. The crime boss was Joseph Stalin – still head of the Soviet regime in 1946 to 1953, when many Noir Alley writers and actors were still sympathetic to the great leader of the Russian people.
We can be sure that Mr. Jones portrays crimes that are way too dark for Noir Alley. It would have been nice if Dalton Trumbo or Lillian Hellman had ever acknowledged these crimes.
Turner Classic Movies is a private enterprise in America. I watch TCM alot, and I always watch Noir Alley. I would not presume to tell someone else how to run their business, unless they asked. But having watched it for years, I will always think of Saturday night as the night for Eddie Muller’s Rouge Alley.
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