Warner Archive has released a new double feature for me (which is much better than the last one) by director Fritz Lang. Lang is one of the directors which shows up very early in a cinephiles experience with his silent Metropolis, I film I somehow convinced my wife to see it in a theater, and she still married me. She liked it fine, she would really enjoy these two films.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Director: Fritz Lang
Screenplay: Douglas Morrow
Minutes: 80
Year: 1956
Score: 6.67
Release: Warner Archive

Much like Metropolis, Lang’s Beyond a Readsonable Doubt, is a twisty noir about a writer and his soon-to-be father-in-law work together to try and dismantle the death penalty system by highlighting flaws in the system.

From WBShop.com:

After director Fritz Lang vaulted to prominence with such masterpieces of German cinema as Metropolis and M, he brought his art to Hollywood films, including Fury, Ministry of Fear, The Woman in the Window and more trenchant tales of innocents caught in a web of seeming guilt. His last U.S. movie is this intriguing film noir about a novelist (Dana Andrews) out to expose the injustices of capital punishment. Working with his fiance’s (Joan Fontaine) father, a newspaper publisher (Sidney Blackmer), he frames himself for murder, intending to produce exonerating evidence at the last moment. But the publisher suddenly dies, the evidence is lost.and that’s only the first twist in a brilliantly layered plot ideally suited to Lang’s talents.

A strong aspect to a respectable noir is that it is very difficult to discuss them while dancing around the twists because this movie falls apart if you know what is going on before you go in. That is this movie. I did not see this ending coming, it plays out in a very matter-of-fact one beat in front of the next, everything expected.

I loved this movie. It wasn’t great, but it may find itself on the top shelf as far as noir films go for me. I expect that I will be pulling this off the shelf when someone is asking for noir suggestions after they have watched all of the Bogart entry-level flicks.

The movie looks tremendous. In its original 2:1 ratio in 1080p. It could use some more special features but it is still worth a blind buy.

Special Feature:

• Trailer

Director: 9 – Cinematography: 7 – Edit: 5 – Parity: 1 – Main performance: 7 – Else performance: 3 – Score: 6 – Sound: 5 – Story: 10 – Script: 8 – Effects: 5 – Design: 7 – Costumes: 7 – Keeps interest: 10 – Lasting: 10

While the City Sleeps

Director: Fritz Lang
Screenplay: Casey Robinson
Minutes: 100
Year: 1956
Score: 6.57
Release: Warner Archive

There is always a downside to somewhat random double features. When one is really good the other tends to suffer. Also out recently is another Fritz Lang noir, While the City Sleeps.

From WBShop.com:

“Ask mother,” says the message scrawled in lipstick at a murder scene, written by an unidentified serial killer who preys on women. It’s a sensational story – if it bleeds, it leads – and a news conglomerate offers a big promotion to any high-level company exec who solves the case. So begins the wheeling, dealing and backstabbing of the competing media hotshots as they vie to unmask the so-called Lipstick Killer. Fritz Lang (The Big Heat), whose early career expressionist works would strongly influence the film-noir genre, directs this stylistically understated noir that features an abundance of starpower rare for the genre: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino and other notables.

The movie reminds me of a cross between Ace in the Hole, The Hudsucker Proxy, and an episode of Criminal Minds. The hook is that on the day Vincent Price’s father, the owner if a news conglomerate dies, they led with a story about a cryptic serial murder. Price decides to start a sideshow competition between various arms of the news agency for a new editorial position which will be given to the man who solves and the breaks the news of the crime.

They film plays a little fast and loose with the crime aspect and may have been better served as two separate films. A screwball comedy and a hard-boiled detective tale. Alas, it was not. It is a fine film and was, in the end enjoyable. Plus it was really interesting to see a young Vincent Price playing a immature playboy rather than an old skeevy playboy.

Special Feature:

• Trailer

Director: 7 – Cinematography: 5 – Edit: 7 – Parity: 0 – Main performance: 8 – Else performance: 5 – Score: 7 – Sound: 5 – Story: 9 – Script: 8 – Effects: NA – Design: 9 – Costumes: 8 – Keeps interest: 9 – Lasting: 5