Car Noir 

In the world of Film Noir, cars aren’t just some shiny, bright playtoys for distraction and fun. They are just as often objects of destruction and mayhem, although, in these films, it may be debatable whether it is the autos themselves, or the femme fatales that own and drive them, that lead these car-centric men to their rendezvous with disaster.

Two of a Kind (1951; Columbia Pictures; available in the Sony Pictures DVD set Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 1)

Lizabeth Scott can’t contain her glee at tracking down orphan ladies’ man Edmond O’Brien as the perfect puzzle piece to a fraudulent inheritance scheme cooked up by crooked lawyer Alexander Knox. O’Brien’s “Lefty” never has a chance, though, as he finds himself bounced between two strong-willed dames, Scott and her friend, Terry Moore, the girl next door with a not-so-secret penchant for bad boys (“Do you tie me up, or just knock me out?”).

The gals also control the cars, which reflect each of their personalities, Scott with the sleek sedan and Moore’s wholesome Mercury woody station wagon…….with O’Brien only occasionally allowed to drive. Despite his interest more focused on dice than where to hang the fuzzy types, he still manages to get his finger mangled in Scott’s deliberate car-door amputation. Ultimately less noir than high-camp, the actors (and Scott’s amazing wardrobe) still keep the action frantic and fun to the end.

They Drive By Night (1940; Warner Bros.; available in the Warner Bros. DVD set Humphrey Bogart – The Signature Collection, Vol. 1 - UPDATE: Available streaming for a fee on Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube, VUDU, and Fandango Now, often streaming on TCM on demand)

With a convoluted plot (from a novel by former mechanic & truck driver turned celebrated writer A.I. Bezzerides), that is all over the map (Noir? Social commentary? Melodrama?), there is a common element of vehicular death and debilitation.  Bogart and George Raft play truck-driving brothers frenetically struggling to stay awake, earn a buck, and avoid the repo man. After witnessing a fiery crash involving a road-weary friend, and finally managing to pay off their beat-up jalopy (Bogie literally kisses the truck door), they swerve off a curve, Bogie loses a limb (do you sense a theme?), and they are forced into more pedestrian jobs.

There the attention shifts to Raft’s competing shapely lasses, Ann Sheridan (as Cassie, “a classy chassis” who he “couldn’t even pay for the headlights”) and Ida Lupino, who drives the newest and shiniest to complement her wardrobe. Lupino’s hard-partying husband, Alan Hale, finally succumbs to the doom of the newest technology of the time, the automatic garage-door opener, and Lupino runs amok in an acting tour-de-force as his cracked-up cookie.

Drive a Crooked Road (1954; Columbia Pictures; available on DVD through the Sony Pictures Choice Collection or in the Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics III set from the TCM Vault Collection - UPDATE: Streaming for a fee on VUDU, Apple TV, Amazon, and YouTube)

Eddie Shannon (Mickey Rooney) is a serious, lonely little mechanic and local race-car driver with a huge facial scar (from a car accident, of course) and an Asberger’s –like focus on conversations solely about European cars and race drivers. When faced with a come-on from vavoom client Dianne Foster (and her Hillman), he scarcely knows how to react. Of course it’s a set-up involving her playboy boyfriend Kevin McCarthy, souping up a beat-up getaway vehicle and bank robbery.

Rooney is at his most pathetic and least cloying, as he tools around in his MG and fantasizes about being a racing champ. Tense and well directed (by Richard Quine), it crashes into a spectacular finale on the California coast.

Angel Face (1952; RKO; available on DVD through the Warner Bros. Archive Collection or in the Warner Bros. set Robert Mitchum – The Signature Collection)

Is there any noir in which Robert Mitchum is not a sucker for a pretty face? This time it’s calculating rich-girl Jean Simmons and her impeccable French Curve (a Bugatti?) that she dangles in front of the former racer, now ambulance driver, with the promise of his high-end auto-shop dream if he slums as a chauffeur for her dysfunctional doting novelist father, Herbert Marshall, and his martini-swigging, bridge playing, ultra-rich 2nd wife.

Of course there is deception and denial, a jilted blonde girl-next-door (Mona Freeman), and guess what? Some mechanical malfunction and a steep incline lead to a murder trial.  Reminiscent in its psychological nuances to another Otto Preminger noir, “Laura,” the script is first-rate with its Cornell Woolrich-like downbeat ending. Robert Mitchum plays the ultimate price for being wishy-washy.

As long as my carburetor holds out, my tires don’t get too squishy, and my crankshaft don’t get too cranky, I will soon be bringing you more musings on the intersection between cars and film.

Julia Devine

June 2015 (Updated 2/27/21)