Iron Noir
William Wellman’s THE IRON CURTAIN is a brazen propaganda flick about a Russian agent (Dana Andrews) who tries to defect in Canada. What with Wellman’s latter-day shift to the right, the film’s subject matter, and the ever-so-slight miscasting of Andrews and Gene Tierney as Russians, I wasn’t expecting great things.
The film has one of those stentorian voice-overs, like T-MEN, that always gives me a bit of a pain, and it’s rather comically scored with Russian classical music for that toney upscale espionage feeling. But the cinematography is FANTASTIC — Wellman treats it as noir all the way, with the Russians as gangsters (and I’m not so much a lefty that I can’t see the justice of that in this case) and the Canadian settings give it a wintry splendour. Charles G Clarke also shot MOONTIDE, and he has a real feeling for the shadows…
So, if the drama is wooden and one-note — and completely humourless — it’s still pretty watchable, just for the imagery. And we have the sneering villainy of Berry Kroeger, a sort of more-sybaritic Orson Welles figure, whom I’ve previously enjoyed in CRY OF THE CITY (venal mob lawyer), GUN CRAZY (sleazy carny), and many others. Berry K is one of the few actors who can simultaneously emit oil and poison from every pore, a skill which guaranteed he was never out of work at the studios, although he did have to bring his own mop.
May 17, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Kroeger looks very Wellesian (a la The Third Man) in your last frame grab, he reminds me of Louis Hayward with their similar brands of oiliness. He’s also good at the end of Zinneman’s ACT OF VIOLENCE. This is one that slipped under my radar, I’m going to have to check it out, love the wintry noirs (like the cinematography in L’ASSASSINAT DU PERE NOEL).
May 17, 2010 at 1:36 pm
It’s been too long since I watched Act of Violence, a film I like a lot. Janet Leigh is incredible in it, and Robert Ryan is like the frickin’ Terminator.
Maybe The Iron Curtain isn’t quite noir, since it’s so morally certain and unquestioning in its assumptions. But visually it’s absolutely a noir, and a very handsome one.
May 17, 2010 at 1:55 pm
I was just about to mention Louis Hayward! A teriffic actor who never made it out of the Bs. Happily there he made two of the greatest: Ulmer’s Ruthless and Lang’s House By the River.
May 17, 2010 at 4:39 pm
His work in The Iron Mask is fantastic, playing the bad twin with a slightly higher voice than the good. “You’ll never sustain it!” warned James Whale, but Hayward, a trained singer, did.
There’s a nice Alexandre Dumas link, since Kroeger plays Dumas in Black Magic. Probably a mistake casting him in an Orson Welles vehicle, since they’re so alike it’s actually confusing, especially given Welles’ propensity for disguise. Of course, Dumas was Creole, and Kroeger’s rather exotic appearance is reasonably close to Dumas’s, although an actual mixed-race actor would have been far more suited.
May 18, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Hans Christian Andersen offeres some interesting tid bits about his encounters with Dumas on his trips to paris..Spent his days in his pajamas and nights out chasing skirts…
May 18, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Sounds like a nice lifestyle!
May 18, 2010 at 11:50 pm
kinda life a writers GOTTA HAVE..
May 19, 2010 at 1:38 am
There’s a George Axelrod line I read today: “The necessity for a writer to occasionally write something is the one hideously jarring note in what otherwise approaches an ideal lifestyle.”