niceties

"I ain't afraid of cops.  I was brought up to spit whenever I saw one."


     In the Otto Preminger movie Laura, this abrupt announcement is made not as an aside in conversation with a friend, but directly to an officer of the law.

     And it's made not by some cigar-smoking tough guy in a fedora, but by a small Irish maid portrayed by actress Dorothy Adams (born in North Dakota), who "owns the room" each time she enters one.

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     I was trying to think how I would describe why I like this film.  Then, -- read this on the AMC Filmsite:

     "Laura is one of the most stylish, elegant, moody, and witty classic film noirs ever made...."

     Oh -- kay -- right, what -- uhm -- What they said!"

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Noir was on my mind for a couple of other reasons besides Laura:

All The President's Men (the movie)

and

The Great Gatsby (the book).

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     Some scholars and readers are saying that The Great Gatsby (book) is noir, which is a concept that's got me fascinated.

     And -- Netflix thinks the film adaptation of All The President's Men is noir.  (?!!) -- they list it underneath a noir heading, along with, I think, The Third Man.

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---------------------------- [The Great Gatsby] ------------------- The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house.  

A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling -- and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.


     The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.  

They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.

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{The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald}

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