Netflix Noir: The Dark Corner (1946) and The Mystery Man (1935)
Enter “film noir” in Netflix’s search field, and get nearly 15,000 suggestions. Wow! There are classic black and white films, documentaries about film noir, and modern entries in the genre. While many of us think “black and white” when we hear "film noir," it’s the grays that make it so “noir”—those areas that fall between good and evil, those things that make a good guy do bad things for all the wrong reasons. Among Netflix’s offerings are winners like Casablanca, losers like The Mystery Man, and a helluva lot in between.
The women of film noir seem to be either helpmates or devious manipulators, and it’s the helpful kind that shows up in The Dark Corner. She can take dictation and answer phones, sew, cook, clean up murder scenes without flinching and she’s—Lucille Ball? Yes, it’s “everyone’s favorite redhead” as gal Friday to Private Investigator Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens).
While The Dark Corner has its tense moments and fab camera shots, it is slow moving and formulaic. Galt served two years in prison on a manslaughter set-up, gets out, opens his own private investigation agency (despite his criminal background he got a license; I guess anything goes—or went—in New York), and soon finds himself framed for murder—again.
Ball, as Kathleen, plays the secretary who has only been in the job a few weeks when she lets the boss know she plans on marrying him. No matter how many times and ways he says “take a hike,” she’s there to see him through his darkest hours. When she walks into his apartment only to find a dead body, she immediately goes into clean-up mode, while Galt hides the body (of the man he didn’t kill) under the bed for the maid to find. (Did I mention that Galt is “hard boiled”?)
Lucy played an efficient babe who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, but her throaty voice did little to dispel the thought that Ricky might arrive at any moment. However, she is the primary reason to see The Dark Corner, with William Bendix as a thug who takes a dive a close second. Eye candy is provided by Kurt Kreuger as Galt’s nemesis, Anthony Jardine, and the beautiful Cathy Downs, as wife to rich art dealer Clifton Webb.
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