Film noir movies were known for their snappy patter. Why talk plainly when you can punch things up with innuendo and clever metaphors?
1946’s “The Dark Corner” is the movie to beat for great patter. It’s endless verbal jousting as characters try to one-up each other with puns and zingers.
Normally I’d summarize the plot right about now, but it’s rather convoluted in “The Dark Corner”. There’s a private dick who was a fall guy for a crime he didn’t commit and finds himself being set up again. His secretary, played by Lucille Ball, is determined to help him stay out of trouble. Men are cheating on their wives. People are being blackmailed. A thuggish lout in a white suit is going around making trouble.
The details really aren’t important. I suppose they seldom are in these films. It’s all about atmosphere and mood.
And dialogue. I’ll drop in a few bits here I lifted from the IMDB page:
“I’m clean as a peeled egg. No debts, no angry husbands, no payoffs… nothin’.”
“One thing led to another, and he led with his right.”
Or how about this sampling of sex relations in the 40s?
Bradford Galt: What other kinds of games do you like to play? You know, we’ve got some great playgrounds up around 52nd Street.
Kathleen: Among them your apartment?
Bradford Galt: Why, just a coincidence.
Kathleen: I haven’t worked for you very long, Mr. Galt, but I know when you’re pitching a curve at me, and I always carry a catcher’s mitt.
Bradford Galt: No offense. A guy’s got to score, doesn’t he?
Kathleen: Not in my league.
Pure poetry!
About that atmosphere: As with all black and white noir films, it’s deftly created through the use of shadow and light, with a lot of great scenes of silhouetted figures passing on the other side of a window.
As mentioned, Lucille Ball, a few years before her sitcom success, stars. The main detective is played by Mark Stevens, who I’d never heard of, but according to Wikipedia had a long career. Clifton Webb drips sneering disdain as a gallery owner with a wayward wife. William Bendix gives off a Jon Favreau vibe as the main henchman.
Also, there’s a ton of great incidental 40s music—mostly big band stuff—playing in the background of many of the scenes. I was particularly struck by a scene featuring the Eddie Heywood orchestra, so much so I dug up the bandleader’s music on the web.
All in all, “The Dark Corner” serves up a beefy portion of 1940s culture and moviemaking.
