Oh Orson you make me believe in God.

B+


Great cinematography, very noir feel and a terrific performance by Orson Welles here...but on the whole, I just wasn't very impressed with the story and Heston's lead didn't leave much of an impression on me either. Still a very solid flick with a great ending.

The best noir ever? Maybe. It's certainly up there.

It's interesting to compare this to some early film-noirs (The Maltese Falcon, for instance) and trace the path the genre went through over about fifteen years. There's a lot more perverse subject matter in this one (sex, drugs, rock-and-roll) and it's an interesting progression from the earlier stuff, which were mostly wholesome, despite their dark settings.

This is echoed in the style of the film, too. The camera moves about wildly, sometimes lingering on a single scene for an unhealthy amount of time (that opening scene of course, but also the bit in the middle in Sanchez's house), and sometimes cutting to erratic angles and placements. The cameraman is not afraid to move, and it makes bits like the opening or the climax that much more thrilling.

And then, of course, there's Orson. Prosthetics or not, it's still an amazing (and repulsive) transformation from The Third Man not even ten years earlier, and it makes his villain that much more disturbing. His character dominates the story just as his figure dominates the screen, physically, and it makes for one of the great performances in film history.

Of course, you could turn it off after three minutes and it'd still be one of the best films ever. That's how amazing that opening is.

this guy's in charge. ok.