Noir City 8: Belita, The Ice Queen of Film Noir

[Haggai]

It was an off-beat night at Noir City with a tribute to Belita, star of the hitherto little-known subgenre of "ice skating noir." Before the films started, Eddie introduced this year's Ms. Noir City, the beautiful Madeline Brown, decked out in her lovely outfit from the festival poster. She revealed the thing that, according to Eddie, clinched this year's title for her: a left shoulder tattoo that says "Mom and Dad." As he explained, Noir City is all about "family values."

The double bill started with SUSPENSE, the big budget Monogram/King Brothers attempt at one-upping Fox's Sonja Henie with a noir twist. I'm not sure which production meetings determined that there was an untapped target audience ripe for a combined ice skating/Latin music/crime drama extravaganza, but that's what they delivered. Small-time hood Barry Sullivan, trying to escape his suspicious past back east, gets his bravado across with impresario Albert Dekker, who gives him a job selling peanuts. Sullivan warms to the star of the ice show, Belita, who turns out to be married to the boss; but hey, this is noir, so what's stopping them from taking over the whole operation? The intrepid main characters scheme together and survive a series of dramatic incidents including a death-defying skating stunt through a knife-laden hoop, an on-ice conga interlude, and even an avalanche, but hell hath no fury like a scorned Bonita Granville. Maybe he should have stuck to selling peanuts.

The Castro audience, primed for a weird show by Eddie's enthusiastic intro, enjoyed this truly bizarre grab-bag of mid-'40s entertainment. The top-notch production values for the ice show numbers were particularly appreciated, with applause at the end of each routine.

The second film was THE GANGSTER, with Belita now in a straight supporting role, sans ice skates. Sullivan stars again as a gangland figure, this time as a well-connected tough running a numbers game. While it isn't ice-skating noir, this one does qualify as "ice cream parlor noir," as the action and characters all center around the soda store where Sullivan conducts his business. A near-endless parade of familiar character faces entertained the noir-savvy audience, with applause for cameo appearances by Elisha Cook and Shelley Winters. Akim Tamiroff, Harry Morgan, John Ireland, and Virginia Christine were just a few more of the recognizable supporting players. One has to wonder, though, about the efficiency of any criminal organization where Charles McGraw is relegated to doing dirty work for Sheldon Leonard--a role reversal there would surely result in a more ruthless and effective racket.

[Steve-O]

I'm glad the audience was accepting of it. Having the crowd clued in on what the film was all about certainly helps people appreciate forgotten b-movies (especially a wonderfully weird Suspense.)

It's a shame I didn't see this year's Noir City dame. Apparently there's a creepy Craigslist posting asking for her...

Thanks again for the updates. This was one of the nights I wanted to see.

[buzz in seattle]

"Suspense" was a highly entertaining noir, one that I had never seen before and was a marvelous surprise. Frankly I wasn't expecting much, but this is one fun film noir and The Castro was the perfect venue to see it. One thing Monogram Pictures accomplished by casting Belita in the lead role is they were able to creatively evade the production code, showing off her world class legs in the skimpy ice skating costumes frequently throughout the film. For 1946 this is about as sexy as it gets--at least as far as showing lots of leg. Even if the plot was unbelievable it was still fun movie, and Barry Sullivan was also good. Haggai gives a hint to the final scene--and a really cool final line that is classic noir. A lot of fun and if you haven't seen it, you should try to rent the DVD.

"Fly By Night" has been the other nice surpise here, imo. "Cry Danger" is a friggin masterpiece, and looked so good Sat night it sent chills. Kudos to everyone involved.