Cruel Gun Story (1964)
Female on the Beach (1955)
Sometimes you get that Noir itch and once you've seen the Classics, Buried Treasures and Cult films it becomes a roll of the dice. A few hundred titles, usually low budget affairs with similar-sounding titles that sometimes don't represent the film, similar plots and characters. A few days ago I was itchy and I selected The Crooked Way because of John Payne and John Alton. Well, all the great Noir compositions in the world couldn't save how tired this film felt. Literally. It was like everyone was acting underwater, bored by the hand-me-down characters they were given.
Last night, my itch finally got scratched. These didn't break into the upper decks like they did for you, but they reminded me where I should be looking for pockets of gold. Cruel Gun Story is a Japanese heist film gone wrong. Classic armored car robbery plot, but lean and violent. I especially liked watching the plan as if everything goes right, and you can see things the robbers are expecting will happen that easily might not. Of course it all goes wrong, that's what makes it interesting. That and watching everyone try to beat and shoot their way out of it.
Female on the Beach I've avoided because Joan Crawford noirs always get into the genre by the skin of their teeth. There's murder, but 90% of the story is melodrama about whatever is emotionally crippling Crawford. This one is hard to classify because it makes unexpected choices. (Something I read in your review after.) There's the opening death, the con artist old couple and the no good but oh so tempting shirtless man, but except for the death, which is resolved with a slapped on confession, events play out unexpectedly. This could've been a disaster, but Crawford is so good. So so good, she keeps everyone else focused and makes her characters reactions plausible. I'm now interested in going deeper down the path of Joan Crawford films of the 40s and 50s. She really was equal to Bette Davis.
I'm sorry I didn't give you much to react to Martin, but I did like both films and they came along at a good time.