Underworld U.S.A. (1961)
This week’s selection for Take-Up’s Monday Night Noir series at the Parkway was Sam Fuller’s Underworld U.S.A., which is not available on DVD. Though his film’s aren’t widely known, Fuller is often included on lists of “auteur” directors:
From Wikipedia:
In film criticism, the 1950s-era auteur theory holds that a director’s films reflect that director’s personal creative vision, as if they were the primary “auteur” (the French word for “author”).
Auteur theory has had a major impact on film criticism ever since it was advocated by film director and film critic François Truffaut in 1954. “Auteurism” is the method of analyzing films based on this theory or, alternately, the characteristics of a director’s work that makes her or him an auteur. Both the auteur theory and the auteurism method of film analysis are frequently associated with the French New Wave and the film critics who wrote for the influential French film review periodical Cahiers du cinéma.
In the film, a 14 year old boy, Tolly Devlin, sees the silhouette of a man beaten to death by four men. His father was the victim, and he declares he’ll seek vengeance on the killers. He soon becomes a criminal himself, and bounces through the correction system, until he stumbles on a way to take his revenge on the men, who have become national crime bosses. The adult Tolly, played by Cliff Robertson, works both with the mob and the government, and plays them both for his own ends. Ultimately, though, he is the doomed hero of a noir movie, without hope of redemption either from a mother figure, or his lover. Shot, he collapses underneath a “Give Blood Now” poster.
Unlike most noir films, Underground, U.S.A. doesn’t have a femme fatale. Tolly’s lover is a hooker with a heart of gold, instead. Even though it was made about a decade later than most classics of the genre, it contains the noir theme of an ethically wavering man whose future is menaced by threats from the past. Fuller’s film is full of bitter humor and images. Most interesting, I thought, was the plot point that the mob opened espresso shops, not bars, as fronts for drugs and prostitution. The audience found this hilarious each time it was mentioned; perhaps it was the foretelling of Starbucks, et al.
Next week’s noir at the Parkway is Monday February 4, 2008 with Our Man in Havana. It is written by Grahame Green and directed by Carol Reed, the same team responsible for The Third Man. It is also not available on DVD; revival screenings like this one are rare treats.