Forgotten Noir – Volume
One: Portland Express/They Were So Young (VCI)
Picture: C+
Sound: C Extras: B- Films: B-
While everyone (still) thinks they know what Film Noir is,
the real definition and weight of it is much deeper. One thing that would help make the era better understood is to
release the lesser known and rarely seen films that bring home how great this
era and type of filmmaking is really about.
Leave it to VCI once again, beginning a new DVD series called Forgotten
Noir. They had already issued gems
like Blonde Ice and Slightly Scarlet, both reviewed elsewhere on
this site. Now, the new disc.
Portland Expose (1957) is a story built around
Teamster corruption, but that is a backdrop to a tale of greed, lust and
darkness in the Noir tradition that minimalizes the “Gangster” angle a good
bit. Virginia Gregg, Frank (The
Riddler) Gorshin, Laurence Dobkin and B-movie queen Jeanne Carmen co-star in
what was a solid release by the old Allied Artists studio. Harold Schuster’s directing is solid and the
film has aged well, thanks in part to Jack DeWitt’s good screenplay.
They Were So Young (1954 aka Mannequins For Rio
or Party Girls For Sale) has a more exploitive title and angle, but is a
much better film than that. The set up
includes Scott Brady as the hero, Raymond Burr as the villain, Johanna Matz as
the potential victim and Gert Frobe from Goldfinger in an early
role. Lippert was the company who
released this film, which was made in Germany with American actors, a common
practice at the time. The story
involves models caught in a crazy white slavery plot, which is bolder than the
title would have you believe, but much less exploitive than it might have been
otherwise or if it were made today.
Director Kurt Neumann co-wrote the script with Felix Luetzkendorf and
once again, the results are impressive.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on both films
is good for their age, and though there is some softness in more cases than one
would like, the Video Black and Gray Scale make up for it. Carl Berger shot Expose,
while Ekkehard Kyrath shot Young.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both films are a bit more brittle, but
have their moments of clarity and the actors can be heard well for the most
part, while the music scores suffer a bit.
Paul Dunlap, who worked with Sam Fuller on some of his early classics,
composed the score for Expose.
Extras include photo gallery, trailers for both films and three other
Noirs, text bios on Brady, Burr & Parsons Jr. and audio commentary on Expose
by Parsons Jr. that is very informative and an all too rare commentary on Film
Noirs of any kind. I wish it was
full-length, but he has less to say towards the end, which could have been
avoided with a good interviewer. Either
way, serious filmmakers, as well as fans, should catch this set and these
extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
