Film Noir and The Wire

"Illegal / The Big Steal (Film Noir Double Feature)" (Warner Home Video)

"Whirlpool (Fox Film Noir)" (Otto Preminger)

Years ago, in a moment of financial exuberance (don't ask, I can't tell you), I paid the shareware fee for a great little Netflix application called Netflix Freak. The best two features, for me anyway, are that one's queue can be sorted by year or genre (sometimes I'm looking for something recently released, sometimes I want a SciFi flick), and most importantly, there is a "shuffle" feature. I love the shuffle feature. Otherwise, my queue would echo whatever mood I was in, six months after the fact, and who would want that? Instead, I get a healthy dose of film noir mixed into my steady diet of film critics favorites, recently released block-suckers, and Criterion Collection releases. Netflix should really add a shuffle feature to its' website.

Anyway, the astute writers of Heaven and Here (a blog mostly about the Wire) have suggested three more additions to my film noir list (links lead to Netflix).

Sorry for the lazy transition, my mind is certainly on vacation along with the rest of me.

I’ve been watching a lot of film noir lately. I’m hardly a expert, but I do know that these movies are responsible for much of language of cops-and-robbers moving pictures. In one sense, they should be anathema to the Wire-viewing part of my brain. However, I’m increasingly struck by the number of characters that seem direct reference points for The Wire’s universe. I’m not implying that the writers do this intentionally; nor so I believe in some great big soupy reservoir of cosmic creative brain-mass that we all dip into. Yet almost at random, performances crop up that evoke my Wire faves. Just this week: In East Side, West Side, Van Heflin plays a goofy, lovestruck cop who turns abruptly into obsessed, nearly grim, case-solver. Maybe I’m tainted, but me (and Pizza Whale) both saw McNulty at both ends. And it wasn’t just the narrative; the acting itself reminded us of ol’ Bushy Top.

Morris Levy, too, is often in my thoughts and prayers. Last night, I watched Illegal, with Edward G. Robinson as a theatrical D.A. whose hurbis drives him to mob defense. Now, I’m sure that Levy is actually based on so-and-so, who defended such-and-such, with a nod to Simon’s cousin Mel, plus a few in-jokes about Baltimore Jews that I don’t get. But if I didn’t know about The Wire’s pipeline to “the real,” I would swear Levy was modeled after characters like this. Actually, I had to kick myself and yell that three times after meeting Jose Ferrer’s villain from Whirlpool. Dude even has Levy’s look and nasally insolence:



[Click to read more discussion of Those Provident Fires]