Wait while I look up who did the singing* for Gloria Grahame on the excellent and terrifying number, "Ace in the Hole," in Naked Alibi, because it was so not her. She certainly did her own her "dancing."

It was a packed house at the Castro Theatre last night for the "Bad Girls" Noir City X double feature, Naked Alibi  (1954) and Pickup (1951) and worth every yawn and creaking joint this morning. What a wacky picture Naked Alibi is. Everyone was slapping somebody or shootin' 'em or stabbin' 'em or kissin' 'em...hard.  Sterling Hayden plays a seemingly-psycho cop who is convinced that the seemingly-innocent Gene Barry, local baker and family man, has murdered a few cops (one of whom was the ubiquitous Max Showalter) and becomes obsessed with proving it even after he is dismissed from the police force for brutality. Then for some reason they all go to Mexico.

Once over the border, we learn that Gene Barry has a hot cookie on the side in the form of Gloria Grahame and that Sterling Hayden has virtually no police instincts, as he is lured into a dark alley, stabbed and robbed within an hour of arriving. Billy Chapin, shoeshine boy, becomes the catalyst for Hayden meeting Grahame so they can begin their doomed romance. Eventually everyone (except Billy Chapin) goes back over the border and Gene Barry is revealed to be the murderous heel Sterling Hayden always knew he was. Gloria Grahame doesn't make it, sad to say, and I'm sorry, but Sterling Hayden is still psycho.

Gloria Grahame to Sterling Hayden: "I don't understand you, you don't understand me. We have a lot in common."
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* The singing was done by Jo Ann Greer, says the excellent site "Movie Dubbers" and the angel who posted the song on YouTube (it starts about a minute in). 

Beverly Michaels is my new best inappropriate girlfriend who my parents think is a bad influence and forbid me to hang arround with. I can't express how much I enjoyed her performance in Pickup, a surprisingly funny, moderately suspenseful glimpse into the life of bored bad girl in a small town.

Hugo Haas starred in, wrote, and directed this picture. Apparently, this was the first in a series of films Haas made throughout the 1950s on exactly the same topic — hot, mean girl takes shlubby middle-aged man for all he's worth (this from Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, who gives a short lecture before each movie. Muller, bless him, is kind of a toolbag, but he really knows a lot, so it's worth sitting through the smarm). I'll be trolling for more of Haas's pictures, so stay tuned.

Contrary to what the posters would have you think, Pickup, isn't especially hardboiled. Each character is believeable and flawed; their choices stupid and human. Yes, it's a B noir, but the story is ultimately about loneliness, companionship, and forgiveness — even "Betty" (Beverly Michaels) isn't completely rotten. I'm not going to elaborate, because you really should see it if you can.

Betty stepping out of Hunky's jalopy once she sees the railroad "shack" he lives in: "When's the floor show start?"

Night of the Hunter is one of those movies I always think of as being in color and am always wrong and am always surprised that I'm wrong. Because I recall scenes — Robert Mitchum riding a horse, singing that creepy tune in the dawn light across the horizon from Billy Chapin's terrified vantage point; the children floating up river in the skiff — in rich, Michael Powelly colors. And yet, not in color afterall, which makes it, to me, an excellent movie. In fact, I am also repeatedly fooled in this way by Powell's The Edge of the World, which is not that great, but some shots are so lovely it makes you want to cry.

There are obviously things wrong with it:  the cloying little girl; having Lillian Gish address the camera when no one else does; the frequent beating over the head with metaphors from nature; not ending when it should — when Billy Chapin breaks down under the burden he's carried and Gish carries him off; and, frankly, a good portion of the soundtrack. But so much of it is beautiful, terrifying, and dreamlike.

I watched it last night on my computer (thanks Netflix) somewhere over Denver in an airplane. We'd just passed over an impressive line of active thunderstorms and it only seemed fitting to watch an equally beautiful and terrifying picture during what I was certain were my last moments on earth. Robert Mitchum turns in one of the best representations of evil ever and Shelley Winters isn't all that bad. Yes, she winds up under water — AGAIN — but that was kind of her "thing."

Perhaps one reason the film didn't do so well when it came out is because the trailer (thanks again, Netflix) promises it to be about the wantonness of females and retribution of many types, when it turns out to be about how very hard it is to be bound to people by blood and the awesome responsibility people have (or take on) when they decide to form meaningful relationships with  one another — as a parent, a wife, a sibling, or a trusted friend.

As Icey Spoon, Evelyn Varden gives her take on the unhappy necessity of conjugal responsiblities by explaining that she "just lies there and thinks about my canning." Her husband is standing Right Over There, by the way, shrugging. Clearly they're companionable. By the way, Evelyn Varden had a similar role in the more flawed, less chilling, but ever entertaining film, The Bad Seed.

Varden's character goes nuts (and drunk, apparently) with the guilt of not protecting her friend, Shelley Winters, from the evil Robert Mitchum and the possible destruciton of her children. See? Giving crappy advice to a friend has consequences!   

And speaking of sibling attachments, my sister and I apparently share a seasonal inclination to watch The Night of the Hunter.  Here is an exchange from a blog post to my Daily Earworm that took place almost exactly this time last year.

The original question was whether my sister recalled us having the 45 of the Close Encounters theme, which she answered "nah" and included the excellent aside, "Owl. Bunny. AAAGH."  Of course I know Shelley Winters didn't drown in this film, but she was dead and under water, and that's all that counts.