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<blockquote data-quote="Crimson" data-source="post: 348054" data-attributes="member: 5079">Last night, THE VELVET TOUCH (1948); one of my favorite obsure-ish films.I&#039;m a bit iffy about whether this is noir or not.&nbsp; It looks like noir, but most B&amp;W films of the mid- to late-40s look like noir even when they&#039;re not.&nbsp; This one is a bit light for the genre, but Wiki and IMDB both classify it as such; so bet it.&nbsp; Plus there&#039;s no thread on the forum for &quot;Watching Quasi- Film Noirs&quot;.&nbsp; This one&#039;s a melodrama about a famous stage actress who kills her abusive lover; the rest of the movie is about whether she gets caught, or her conscious gives her away.&nbsp; (Hint: Hayes Office.)There&#039;s no actress of the era that I find more hit-or-miss than Rosiland Russell.&nbsp; &nbsp; She could be great but, just as often, grating.&nbsp; Here,&nbsp; I think she found a good balance between florid but not too&nbsp; over-the-top.&nbsp; &nbsp; She&#039;s well supported by Claire Trevor, who seemed to know the exact right amount of over-the-top.&nbsp; This and her work in KEY LARGO rank among my favorite performances of the era.&nbsp; Sydney Greenstreet is equally good as a starstruck detective investigating the crime.[ATTACH=full]42187[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crimson, post: 348054, member: 5079"] Last night, THE VELVET TOUCH (1948); one of my favorite obsure-ish films. I'm a bit iffy about whether this is noir or not. It looks like noir, but most B&W films of the mid- to late-40s look like noir even when they're not. This one is a bit light for the genre, but Wiki and IMDB both classify it as such; so bet it. Plus there's no thread on the forum for "Watching Quasi- Film Noirs". This one's a melodrama about a famous stage actress who kills her abusive lover; the rest of the movie is about whether she gets caught, or her conscious gives her away. (Hint: Hayes Office.) There's no actress of the era that I find more hit-or-miss than Rosiland Russell. She could be great but, just as often, grating. Here, I think she found a good balance between florid but not [I]too [/I]over-the-top. She's well supported by Claire Trevor, who seemed to know the exact right amount of over-the-top. This and her work in KEY LARGO rank among my favorite performances of the era. Sydney Greenstreet is equally good as a starstruck detective investigating the crime. [ATTACH type="full"]42187[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]

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