Murder By Contract

 

Director Irving Lerner

 

MURDER BY CONTRACT      A                                                                                            USA  (81 mi)  1958  d: Irving Lerner

What really stands out in this independent film is how it so closely resembles the outline of Jean-Pierre Melville’s later film Le Samouraï (1967), where a studiously proficient hit man is all about meticulous planning and preparation, given a clinical, precise approach, becoming a ritualized, existential journey told with a cool detachment, yet given an American twist, especially when the locale switches to sunny Los Angeles.  Shot in just seven days, this is reportedly one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite B-movies, and Lerner was a supervising editor who died during the making of Scorsese’s New York, New York (1977), so that film was dedicated to him.  An early member of the Workers Film and Photo League (USA), a group of radical filmmakers whose newsreels documented the era’s labor unrest during the first half of the 1930’s, Lerner was a photographer and editor, also a film critic for New Masses and New Theatre, both left wing journals, publishing under the pseudonym Peter Ellis, and blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but revived his career as a director and editor in Hollywood, as he was known as a fixer who could re-edit seemingly failed or wayward projects, working as an uncredited editor and second unit director on Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960).  A close friend of Fritz Lang, he worked as an assistant to Lang on You and Me (1938), introducing him into the left-wing New York intelligentsia, where Lang was also blacklisted in the early 50’s due to his known working relationship with German playwright Bertolt Brecht and other known communists, spending a year and a half clearing his name during the Red Scare. Written by Ben Simcoe and an uncredited Ben Maddow, who in 1936 co-founded the short-lived left wing newsreel The World Today before becoming known as a virtual invisible man, eventually blacklisted, working under the front of Philip Yordan, who never wrote a single line.  Like many other blacklisted screenwriters, Maddow survived by writing scripts under assumed names and making uncredited contributions to a variety of films, though he never regained his stature after the blacklist.   This film, however, is uniquely compelling, featuring a wonderfully inventive and playful guitar theme by Perry Botkin (longtime bandleader for Bing Crosby!) that recalls the zither music in Carol Reed’s THE THIRD MAN (1949), instantly providing a constantly changing state of mind, as if various musical themes are built around different characters who are thrown into the same ever-constricting space, tightening the grip of atmospheric suspense.  The music also introduces audiences to Vince Edwards as Claude, a contract killer, Murder By Contract -- (Movie Clip) Opening Credits - Turner ... YouTube (1:19), who views his profession as just another job, a business like any other, impeccably dressed in a suit and tie each day, always looking sharp, with the film moving forward with an economy of style and a surprisingly spare efficiency, exuding a cinéma vérité realism with a natural look, less about narrative and more about exploring his internal struggles, where it stands out as something completely different.  Released the same year as Orson Welles’ TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) and Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud) (1958), predecessors to not only Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959), Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (À Bout de Souffle) (1960), and the coming French New Wave, but also Seijun Suzuki’s BRANDED TO KILL (1967), the film noir cinematography is provided by Lucien Ballard, best known for his collaboration with Sam Peckinpah, beautifully realized in black and white with offbeat stylistic flourishes.

Despite the grim nature of the subject matter, which is an extension of postwar despair, there are hilarious deadpan moments that come out of nowhere, literally gifting the audience with something much more appealing than we expect, while the scintillating performance by Vince Edwards really stands out, something of a revelation in his methodical sense of detachment that is chillingly cold and calculating.  Best known for his rather wooden 60’s TV role as Dr. Ben Casey (Lerner directed over a dozen episodes), he’s allowed to really extend his range here in an outrageously subversive take on a model citizen who otherwise follows the law in every respect, not wanting to draw any unwanted attention, yet he devises a harebrained, get-rich quick scheme (only in America!), where it’s hard not to identify with the intelligence of his character even knowing the gruesome nature of his profession.  None of the killings occur on camera, where this is more about everything leading up to those moments, told in a surgically precise, yet extremely spare style of existential noir that became a staple of French films.  Early on we see him in a job interview, where the potential employer, Mr. Moon (Michael Granger), feigns disinterest, checking him out, observing his reactions, while Claude’s curt replies and surprising directness are contrasted against a polite and respectful tone that suggest he’s a consummate professional, where he aspires to be a contract killer because he wants the money to afford a respectable middle class life, Murder By Contract -- (Movie Clip) Interview - Turner Classic ... YouTube (3:05).  We never learn much about Claude, who remains something of a mystery, living a monk’s life, yet he’s trained himself to go about his business without any emotion, with as few distractions as possible, keeping a clear head and a well-toned physique, as we see him in his hotel room doing a series of workout exercises while he awaits a call for his services, "Murder by Contract" (1958): "Waiting for the Call" Montage YouTube (2:34), something Scorsese borrowed for Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver - Workout Scene YouTube (1:17).  Passing the first tests with flying colors, Murder By Contract (1958) -- (Movie Clip) You Are Next  YouTube (3:17), he’s sent to the West Coast for a top priority assignment, the kind only few are chosen to handle, requiring plenty of advanced preparation and nerves of steel.  Getting off the train, he’s met by two henchmen in a convertible who will stick with him until he finishes the job, offering any assistance he needs, yet they couldn’t be more different.  George (Herschel Bernardi) is calm and relaxed, willing to be helpful and supportive, giving the man plenty of space, while Marc (Phillip Pine) is always on edge, a nervous wreck who can’t understand why he doesn’t just jump right into it, growing ever more irritated by each day that passes without any sign of interest to carry out what he’s been hired to do.  Instead Claude is mesmerized by the Pacific Ocean and the sunshine, watching surfers, going swimming, hitting golf balls at the range, and even enjoys some deep sea fishing, never once asking about his contract, instead becoming something of a sightseeing tourist which just drives Marc nuts, so the three of them play out like some sort of Greek chorus of contrasting emotions, where it appears that Claude is amusingly stringing them along for his own entertainment, but he’s just scoping them out.  As if forced to defend his detached nonchalance, “I wasn’t born this way,” he says.  “I trained myself.  I eliminated personal feelings.”

There’s a running line of philosophical ruminations in this film, with Claude continually pondering what it means to kill someone, “It’s business.  The same as any other business — you murder the competition.  Instead of price cutting, it’s throat cutting.  Same thing,” drawing comparisons to what he does for a living and soldiers who are legally trained to kill others, often given a medal for their heroicism.  What about the airplanes that drop bombs causing huge numbers of civilian casualties.  None of the pilots are arrested, yet he would be for killing a single target.  When he goes into a warehouse gun shop, the place is filled with rifles, ammunition, and weapons of all kinds, describing it as “a warehouse full of murder,” yet he’s the one labeled a murderer.  This philosophical take on the moral dilemmas of a contract killer is an interesting train of thought that doesn’t make it into very many movies, then or now, way ahead of its time in the safe and conservative Eisenhower era of the 1950’s, where the psychological aspects of this film are cutting edge, with the killer viewing himself as a kind of Nietzschean superman who is far superior to anyone else around him.  There are no gangsters or criminal stereotypes here, just people trying to make a buck in a non-traditional manner, suggesting an underbelly of the safely conventional surface of middle class America, much like Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET (1986).  Even more surprising is the sex of the target, as it’s a nervous, chain-smoking woman holed up in the Hollywood Hills, Billie Williams (Caprice Toriel in her only screen appearance), a former night-club piano player turned state’s witness, having witnessed a murder from a high-profiled mobster who now wants her snuffed out before she can testify in court, Caprice Toriel smoking – "Murder by Contract" (1958) YouTube (2:24).  While she’s bossy, ungrateful, and angry at having to be cooped up with cops for her own protection, she’s a stark contrast to the calm-under-pressure Claude who finally starts taking an interest in the job, but is thrown for a loop when he discovers his target is a woman living in a near impregnable fortress, causing a sudden crack in his cool façade, not the measured, analytical thinker we’re used to seeing, while his misogynist attitudes toward women are extreme and a little goofy, where she’s suddenly thrown him off his game.  Things go a little haywire after that, growing more moody and deliriously over the edge, even taking a trip into Charlie Chaplin’s former movie studio on La Brea, now sitting abandoned and empty, the perfect place for things to spin out of control.  Like any good noir thriller, locations are key to providing atmospheric tension, and Los Angeles has a bounty of out-of-the-way places that unexpectedly turn up in movies, Murder By Contract (1958) -- (Movie Clip) You Talk Like A ... YouTube (3:17), paving the way for all the LA noir thrillers of the 70’s, like Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), Roman Polanski’s CHINATOWN (1974), John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976), or Walter Hill’s THE DRIVER (1978).  While the film was once obscure and rarely screened, audiences may be drawn into the boldly naïve assurance and wide-eyed attitude of Claude’s youthful ambitions to get ahead in his twisted version of the American Dream, with the camera following him wherever he goes, continually flaunting middle class values, instilling an idea of comfortable familiarity, yet when we see him crawl through a drainage pipe, we can’t help but recall similar scenes of Orson Welles running through the sewer in THE THIRD MAN, though this is a much more no frills, low-budget version, where a sociopathic fatalism is deeply entrenched into the fabric of this film.

Martin Scorsese on Murder by Contract (1958) YouTube (5:01)

Noir Alley: Murder By Contract (1958) intro 20200614 Eddie Muller introduction on TCM, YouTube (4:45)   

Murder By Contract 1958 Vince Edwards & Phillip Pine entire film on YouTube (1:20:29)

Edge of the City

 
 

Director Martin Ritt

EDGE OF THE CITY       B             

USA  (85 mi)  1957  d:  Martin Ritt

Ritt’s biography claimed that he had acted in a hundred and fifty television productions and directed a hundred more before he ever directed a movie, now known for making films with a social conscience, featuring characters who are underdogs, victims of racism or sexism or workers exploited by capitalism, all coming from diverse backgrounds, quietly struggling to overcome their unfortunate circumstances.  Curious about exploring the American landscape, one uncommon aspect of his films invites viewers to identify with the growing awareness of his central characters, often making it difficult and challenging, yet this collaborative experience can be inspiring.  Often labeled a political filmmaker, Ritt would dismiss that, expressing a primary concern for providing authenticity in capturing how people truly live, showing great empathy for minorities or the disenfranchised, celebrating the multiplicity of America.  Ritt got his start working with the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal theater company that provided jobs for struggling artists during the Great Depression.  Often linked with filmmaker and theater director Elia Kazan, both children of immigrants coming from impoverished neighborhoods in New York, working together in the New York-based Group Theatre, which shaped their personal philosophy as well as their working method, both pioneers of the American acting technique taught by Konstantin Stanislavski, otherwise known as method acting, bringing a more naturalistic style to the screen, with Ritt directing 13 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances, including three that won Academy Awards, Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas in Hud (1963), though it’s Paul Newman’s blustery performance that we remember, while Sally Field memorably won for NORMA RAE (1979).  Despite being from New York, Ritt was one of the most sensitive chroniclers of the American South.  As early as 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee was investigating the Federal Theater Project, believing it was overrun with communists because their productions actively promoted racial integration (yes, that is correct, it must be the communists behind any idea of racial integration), with suggestions they also perpetuated an anti-capitalist agenda, cancelling all funding for the project in 1939.  Ritt’s affiliation with the Federal Theater would profoundly affect his career, as he was blacklisted by the television industry in 1952 during the heyday of McCarthyism, though never named by any of the testifying witnesses, but his name was mentioned in a right-wing newsletter called Counterattack, a publication formed by three former FBI agents, alleging that Ritt helped Communist Party-affiliated union locals in New York stage their annual holiday show, also claiming he raised money for the Russian war relief in a Madison Square Garden theatrical production, while a Syracuse grocer accused Ritt of donating money to Communist China in 1951.  Unable to work in the television industry, Ritt earned a living as an acting instructor at the Actors Studio cofounded by Kazan for a period of five years. 

In the 50’s when Hollywood was converting to color films in an attempt to distinguish itself from television, Ritt continued to make films in black and white, including this film and Paris Blues (1961), extending even into the mid 60’s.  By the time Ritt got his start directing films, the industry itself was losing money, some of it due to television, but more significantly, one thinks, is the impact of the Hollywood blacklist removing such substantial talent from the overall talent pool while fueling suspicions that Hollywood was under siege from subversive elements, not exactly a walking advertisement for family entertainment.  Perhaps because of this, a door opened for Ritt, who was the recommendation of producer Walter Susskind, as the film is a Robert Alan Aurthur adaptation of a live Philco Television Playhouse drama in 1955 entitled A Man Is Ten Feet Tall, which also starred Poitier in the same role, who was himself facing scrutiny from HUAC, forcing him to sign a document repudiating certain “undesirables,” namely black actors Canada Lee and Paul Robeson (who had already been blacklisted) if he wished to continue working in the industry.  It was only the intervention of both Susskind and Aurthur that spared him the indignity.  So the film is a milestone, an early example of social consciousness.  Both Ritt and Kazan were masters of location shooting and both were considered superior teachers of actors, known for drawing out exceptional performances, where they also integrated local inhabitants into the scenes, adding to the overall sense of realism and authenticity in their work.  This film combines the talents of two legends in the business, Sidney Poitier and John Cassavetes, though neither was accomplished at the time, coming early in their careers, where it’s a treat to see them work together “before” they became who we know them to be.  While Poitier made a great impact in his first film, the incendiary Joseph L. Mankiewicz drama No Way Out (1950), one of the first films to deal honestly and realistically with racism in America, here he’s much more authentic and believable, seen doing dance steps in his living room, adding more swagger to his character than we usually see, embracing life for all that it offers, while this was only the second feature film to star Cassavetes, working mostly in television dramas before that, a method actor who was already conducting his own acting workshops, viewed as deeply troubled and conflicted throughout, carrying an unseen burden on his shoulders.  Unfortunately, the storyline so closely resembles Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954), examining the lives of blue collar dockworkers on the corrupt New York City waterfront, it all but dwarfs this smaller feature, towering over it in cultural impact, sweeping most of the major Academy Awards, leaving this in its shadow.  While it’s not nearly as powerful, or influential, it is an early example of an interracial friendship onscreen and a sophisticated exposé of racism, with the focus on Axel North (an edgy Cassavetes), a lone drifter looking for a job, immediately exploited by his hard-edged supervisor Charlie Malik (Jack Warden) who extorts part of his salary while mocking and criticizing everything he does.  In contrast, Tommy Tyler (Poitier), the only black supervisor, is much more likable, taking him under his wing and showing him the ropes, though it’s easy to see why, as Malik keeps all the workers for himself, creating a situation where Tyler supervises nearly no one.  We quickly realize why, as Malik is a vile racist who feels threatened by Tyler’s presence on the docks.  A black supervisor was extremely rare in that day and age with openly racist working conditions, where blacks were explicitly barred from most unions, or required to pay kickbacks to get in, with whites controlling both access to operating equipment and the more skilled positions well into the 70’s until court rulings on the 1964 Civil Rights Act legislation forced the unions to open up (Black longshoremen and the fight for equality in an 'anti-racist ...).

Right from the outset the film features a dissonant musical score by Leonard Rosenman that can be jarring, taking viewers on an emotional rollercoaster more suggestive of a thriller, accentuating boldly dynamic highs and lows that have a way of waking up viewers who aren’t paying attention, ratcheting up the decibels, while highlighting all the emotional turmoil underneath this unorthodox journey.  With screen titles by Saul Bass, much of the film presents the everyday realities of the two men, with Tyler much more open and easy-going with an engaging personality, who’s maturity suggests he’s more comfortable in his skin, while Axel is a tough nut to crack, alienated and overly defensive, hiding secrets from everyone, calling home to his parents in Gary, Indiana, but then refuses to utter a word.  While there’s a damaged element to his character, Axel accepts Tyler’s open invitations to his home, meeting his wife Lucy (Ruby Dee) and infant son, and tough as nails mother-in-law (Estelle Hemsley), while Tyler also encourages him to get closer to Ellen (Kathleen Maguire), a white teacher who supervises after school children’s activities, including Tyler’s son.  These dinners together suggest an ease about everyday life where race simply doesn’t matter, instead a budding friendship paves the way for deeper concerns.  While Tyler enjoys playing matchmaker, Axel is more disgruntled, revealing the source of his inner anxiety over drinks at a bar, suggesting the only person he ever loved was his older brother, who did everything better than he did, immensely popular and easy to praise, where even a kid brother was in awe, but everything changed after a road accident left his brother killed with Axel at the wheel, forever feeling guilty afterwards, losing his father’s respect, where nothing he ever does is good enough.  As it turns out, he enlisted into the Army, but deserted after he was relentlessly hounded by a Sergeant, where he’s been on the run ever since.  But rather than turn away in horror, Axel is embraced by this black family, standing in for the brother he lost, making him feel accepted.  Tyler urges Axel to stand up to Malik and his bullying tactics, suggesting there are men and there are lower forms, where he can’t let the lower forms push him into being anything less than the man he inherently is, and if he can do that he will be “ten feet tall.”  The relationship between Poitier and Ruby Dee is especially good (appearing in five films together), where their marriage is a happy one, as there’s extraordinary closeness between them, recurring again a few years later when they work together in A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961).  Despite their best efforts, Axel remains all mixed up inside, fearful of being exposed, where there are underlying implications that he’s a closeted homosexual, but none of that materializes onscreen, instead his treatment on the docks resembles his Army experience, as Malik continually rides Axel, knowing he is on the lam, taking full advantage of his powerlessness, treating him with contempt, warning him to stay away from Tyler, basically getting under his last nerve.  Taunted into a fight, using bailing hooks as weapons, Tyler quickly intervenes and puts an end to this nonsense, protecting his friend, but that doesn’t stop Malik who then comes after him instead, breaking out into a battle royale, with the other workers holding back Axel, all watching with particular interest, filmed as if it’s wild animals in a caged match.  The senseless cruelty of it all is hard to miss, especially in contrast with Tyler’s decency, but the vitriol of hatred drives the viciousness of the battle, leading to tragic ends, which feels foreshadowed and preordained, yet leaves viewers emotionally devastated nonetheless.  The tragedy is extended over a lengthy duration, never more poignant than Ruby Dee’s defiant realization of just what occurred, becoming overly theatrical, perhaps, by the end, but essential and necessary, striking a raw nerve.  In keeping with that display of racial animus, theaters in the American South refused to screen this film due to the presence of a black lead actor, though a decade later, with Poitier playing a softspoken and “perfect Negro” in GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), bringing with him a litany of extraordinary professional achievements while displaying reassuring qualities that the white South could accept and embrace.  Unfortunately, this regional dynamic created during the Confederacy still has overriding political issues with racial division at the heart of it.