Haggai
01-28-2010, 04:27 AM
It was a distaff night at Noir City, with bad girls taking over the proceedings both on and off screen. Before the ladies took center stage, Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was on hand to discuss the process of managing the studio's assets and the role his group plays in preservation and DVD production, as an intro to two entries in Sony's upcoming Bad Girls of Film Noir DVDs.
Cleo Moore was making ONE GIRL'S CONFESSION in Hugo Haas's cheapie about a dame who gets revenge on her late father's swindler, by stealing a ton of cash and willingly serving her time before getting out and making a new life. She takes a job waitressing in the clip joint run by inveterate gambler Haas, who's suddenly up to his neck in trouble with betting debts and bad checks. Moore gives him a break for his good turn to her by telling him where the money's hidden, but when it fails to turn up and Haas still ends up on easy street, what's a desperately wronged girl to do?
The audience enjoyed this rather brainless (she just TELLS him where the money is, without ever having retrieved it herself? Huh?), but amusing, bit of pulp that features fun banter and witty bits of business between Haas and his constant female companion. In between the films, Eddie introduced three lovely ladies who previously held the title of Ms. Noir City, before also introducing the festival-goer who traveled the farthest to this year's program, Rainer Clotius from Germany. That lucky guy got his picture taken onstage with the three fetching dames, a nice reward for having racked up all those airline miles!
Far more thespian skills than in the first movie were on display in the second feature, the pithily titled WOMEN'S PRISON. Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Phyllis Thaxter were among a solid cast of prisoners suffering under the iron fist of an oppressive warden, played by crowd favorite Ida Lupino. She was roundly applauded for lines such as, "I hate to tell you this, but your wife is a borderline psychopath." Sympathetic prison doc Howard Duff has a ragingly bitter on-screen standoff with his real-life spouse, as he and Lupino battle for control with the fates of Totter and Thaxter hanging in the balance. A climactic prison riot, culminating with tear gas and a padded cell, left the audience satisfied with this briskly entertaining tale of bad girls sticking it to the (wo)man.
Cleo Moore was making ONE GIRL'S CONFESSION in Hugo Haas's cheapie about a dame who gets revenge on her late father's swindler, by stealing a ton of cash and willingly serving her time before getting out and making a new life. She takes a job waitressing in the clip joint run by inveterate gambler Haas, who's suddenly up to his neck in trouble with betting debts and bad checks. Moore gives him a break for his good turn to her by telling him where the money's hidden, but when it fails to turn up and Haas still ends up on easy street, what's a desperately wronged girl to do?
The audience enjoyed this rather brainless (she just TELLS him where the money is, without ever having retrieved it herself? Huh?), but amusing, bit of pulp that features fun banter and witty bits of business between Haas and his constant female companion. In between the films, Eddie introduced three lovely ladies who previously held the title of Ms. Noir City, before also introducing the festival-goer who traveled the farthest to this year's program, Rainer Clotius from Germany. That lucky guy got his picture taken onstage with the three fetching dames, a nice reward for having racked up all those airline miles!
Far more thespian skills than in the first movie were on display in the second feature, the pithily titled WOMEN'S PRISON. Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, and Phyllis Thaxter were among a solid cast of prisoners suffering under the iron fist of an oppressive warden, played by crowd favorite Ida Lupino. She was roundly applauded for lines such as, "I hate to tell you this, but your wife is a borderline psychopath." Sympathetic prison doc Howard Duff has a ragingly bitter on-screen standoff with his real-life spouse, as he and Lupino battle for control with the fates of Totter and Thaxter hanging in the balance. A climactic prison riot, culminating with tear gas and a padded cell, left the audience satisfied with this briskly entertaining tale of bad girls sticking it to the (wo)man.