Though Dick Powell and Anne Shirley are hardly Bogart and Bacall, this Raymond Chandler adaptation prefigures many of the pleasures of The Big Sleep, including pithy dialogue and witty narration, as well as a preposterously incomprehensible plot. Claire Trevor is okay as the femme fatale, but Powell is actually very good as Philip Marlowe, a career leap for the erstwhile crooner. Edward Dmytryk does well directing the RKO production team involved with Citizen Kane. Lots of deep focus and dark shadows, a drugged nightmare sequence and other endearingly low-tech special effects. The suspense elements tend to be risible in themselves, but a dynamic wit sustains this enterprise. It’s not the darkest of noirs but one of the most entertaining. (1944, dvd, n.) *7-*
I won’t presume to review Days of Being Wild (1991), but merely note my continuing insusceptibility to Wong Kar-Wai. Many are wild about the Hong Kong stylist and his collaborations with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, but after several tries I have not engaged with any of his films.
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