decoy ( 1946 film )
decoy (1946): bizarre, underseen film noir in which the femme fatale is actually the protagonist. she gets the voice - over and everything. urltoken
decoy (1946) running time: 76 minutes dir. jack bernhard cast: jean gillie, edward norris, robert armstrong genre: crime, drama, film - noir
toronto film society presented decoy (1946) on monday, july 24, 2017 in a double bill with the killer that stalked new york as part of the season 70 summer series, programme 3 .
the nitrate diva on twitter :
decoy (1946): bizarre, underseen film noir in which the femme fatale is actually the protagonist. she gets the voice - over and everything. … urltoken
video 2: u. s. navy film footage depicting the removal of pacific islanders from bikini atoll on march 6 / 7, 1946 .
, being the highest rated traditionally animated film on the site. the film ranked number 10 in
gary: also listened to your decoy commentary and watched the criterion thief of bagdad .
- film noir meets science fiction here in the pretty bad1946 cult hit decoy. how this film has ever attracted a fan base is a bigger and more interesting mystery than the actual plot .
2) project crossroads test baker, bikini atoll, 25 july 1946 [ 14: 46 minutes ] .
afi' s 100 years of film scores from the american film institute. retrieved 2011 - 04 - 22 .
gave the film a full four stars, praising the film and miyazaki' s direction. ebert also said that
the collection' s five double bill discs are also available separately. this pairing joins warners' tough 50s programmer crime wave with monogram' s bizarre (and until now, rare) decoy, from 1946 .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing decoy near you .
difficult to find on home video for many years, jack bernhard' s decoy (1946) stands as a highly off - beat film noir in which margot shelby (jean gillie) plays the consummate femme fatale with designs on the $ 400, 000 her lover, frankie, has hidden .
video 1: joint task force one, “operation crossroads able and baker day tests, bikini atoll, summer 1946”, unclassified .
like most b - movies, “decoy” was cheap and churned out quickly, yet director and co - producer jack bernhard’s artistic style distinguishes this film from run - of - the - mill, mediocre b - fare. “decoy” was out of commission for several decades after its release; a screening at the american cinematheque about 10 years ago earned fresh appreciation for the film and director .
after 1978 decoy rarely or never appeared on television or in museum screenings. in 2000 the american cinematheque showed it with the writer of its original story, stanley rubin, in attendance. the movie brought the house down with its odd mix of melodrama, hardboiled gimmicks and unrestrained sadism. i thought then that, as far as violence goes, decoy was to 1946 what pulp fiction is to 1994 .
talk about raw deals. the hardest, greediest, most daring femme fatale in all of classic film noir – england’s jean gillie in “decoy” – is not widely known today, beyond a fervent cult following .
luckily, decoy only runs for about an hour and fifteen minutes; otherwise it would be a tiresome chore to even summon up the intense physical and mental strength required to actually sit through the entire film .
20 july 2001, and became the most successful film in japanese history, grossing over $ 289 million worldwide and receiving widespread critical acclaim. the film overtook
featured in film noir: bringing darkness to light (2006). see more »
in taiwan served as an inspirational model for the film, miyazaki has denied this .
the attention brought by the oscar win resulted in the film becoming a strong seller .
. basingstoke [ england ]: palgrave macmillan on behalf of the british film institute .
video 6: this u. s. navy film, an excerpt from a longer film, depicts the able detonation from the perspective of sailors aboard an observation ship .
short and sweet: monogram delivers again. this studio put out some of the greatest gems in hollywood. decoy is one of those gems. cjw
on july 25, 1946, scientists measure radioactivity in the lagoon. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 2228, folder 627483 - 627519 )
glenn: i take it you watched thief of bagdad to remove the trauma of listening to the decoy commentary. where do they find those idiot commentators ?
the chronicle report that embarrassed bart by revealing the decoy cameras hit just as the transit agency was putting pollsters into the field to gauge public ...
on a scale of excellent, good, fair, and poor, crime wave & decoy rate: movie: cw excellent, decoy extremely unusual. video: both excellent although decoy is slightly trimmed. sound: both excellent supplements: cw has a trailer, commentaries and featurettes on both. the package text unfortunately misspells stanley rubin' s name. packaging: keep case (the full set uses keep cases, not slim cases) reviewed: july 14, 2007
i was first intrigued by decoy from its entry in film noir: an encyclopedic reference to the american style and an original 1946 trade notice that appeared in a 1985 daily variety compilation of science fiction film reviews. crooks use medical hocus pocus to revive a gangster executed in the gas chamber, so he can lead them to a fortune in stolen loot. it sounds a lot like a scam in a story by ben hecht about early newspaper days in chicago, a tale retold in norman jewison' s 1969 gaily, gaily .
i had never heard of this film before i watched it today. and i am totally into old films especially film noir. i was pretty engrossed from the opening to ...
throughout the film, he is not portrayed on screen. at the time of production, eisenhower was still alive, but he died in march 1969, before the film was released .
the most notable feature of this film is that they inexplicably named the detective
portugal .
the opening monologue, delivered by george c. scott as general patton with an enormous american flag behind him, remains an iconic and often quoted image in film. the film was successful ,
to supervise an english - language translation for the film' s north american release. lasseter hired
the film is also ranked no. 9 of the highest - rated movies of all time on
reider, noriko t .
spirited away: film of the fantastic and evolving japanese folk symbols .
film criticism 29. 3: 4–27. academic onefile. gale. 11 february 2009 .
this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are. see what’s now showing
decoy is the wild card in this noir ten - pack, a relatively impoverished monogram production from 1946. its biggest star is sheldon leonard, who usually plays second string bad guys in bigger pictures. it has an interesting and committed femme fatale in jean gillie, an english actress who garnered a lot of good press but made only one more picture before dying at age 33 .
alfred hitchcock american cinematheque barbara stanwyck bette davis billy wilder dan duryea double indemnity eddie muller edward g. robinson egyptian theatre femme fatale film noir film noir blonde film noir foundation film noir horoscopes françois truffaut fritz lang gloria grahame howard hawks humphrey bogart ida lupino james m. cain james stewart joan crawford john huston joseph cotten lacma lana turner lauren bacall marilyn monroe michael curtiz mildred pierce neo noir nicholas ray orson welles otto preminger raymond chandler robert mitchum robert siodmak roman polanski stanley kubrick tcm tcm classic film festival the big sleep zodiac fun
[ 6 ]. quotations from barton h. hacker, the dragon’s tail: radiation safety in the manhattan project, 1942 - 1946 (berkeley: university of california press, 1987), 136 - 137 .
currently, fewer than a quarter of what appear to be surveillance cameras in bart train cars are real and functional. the chronicle revealed the decoy program after learning that bart had failed to film the jan. 9 fatal shooting of a man aboard a train at the west oakland station .
came about when he wanted to make a film for these friends. miyazaki had previously directed films such as
james w. boyd and tetsuya nishimura ,
shinto perspectives in miyazaki' s anime film
spirited away
, the journal of religion and film, vol. 8, no 2, october 2004 .
navy personnel decontaminating the damaged quarterdeck of the uss pensacola (ca 24) on july 25, 1946. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 2228, folder 627483 - 627519 )
bill georgaris of tspdt has finally decided to start updating his film noir page. this means the old version of…
positively reviewed the film and praised the animation sequences. mitchell also drew a favorable comparison to lewis carroll' s
a film like decoy means so many things. for one, it’s a testament to what can be done with very little, an inspiration to low - budget filmmakers. it also tells us why jean - luc godard dedicated breathless to monogram—because cheap, raw, yet luminescent films noirs like decoy shaped the vision of the next generation of directors much more than the ruffled, pretentious fare that big hollywood studios were releasing as prestige problem pictures. however, regardless of its impact, decoy deserves to be remembered in and of itself as a taut story that entertains, even as it unravels a trail of grim developments that make us squirm in our seats at the prospect of our own mortality .
the multi - camera filming of commodore wyatt “consulting” the bikinians about their evacuation on march 6, 1946. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 374 - g, box 7, folder 60 “tests: operation crossroads” )
the u. s. navy’s early march 1946 removal of 167 pacific islanders from bikini, their ancestral home, so that the navy and the army could prepare for the tests, is also documented with film footage. the bikinians received the impression that the relocation would be temporary, but subsequent nuclear testing in the atoll rendered the islands virtually uninhabitable .
attempts to make a film about the life of patton had been ongoing for over fifteen years, commencing in 1953 .
in june 2013, fox uk released the film on region b blu - ray but reverted to the 2008 transfer .
thanks to these creepy subjective touches, decoy stands out as a rare film noir that never loses track of the real - life stakes of its plot (the girl, the gun, the money) while taking a dip into the swampy pool of metaphysics. it is both gritty and surreal, corporeal and ethereal .
destroyed automatic - tracking microwave radar on the uss independence from the able test on july 1, 1946 (cvl 22). (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 2228, folder 627520 - 627549 )
produced for a song at monogram and directed by the obscure jack bernhard, decoy takes the bizarro, jigsaw plot style of the poverty row studio’s often incoherent oeuvre and spins it into something truly extraordinary .
it was also the first film to earn $ 200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the united states .
in north america, the film was released on dvd and vhs formats by walt disney home entertainment on 15 april 2003 .
so, the “decoy” referred to by the movie’s title is the phony treasure, planted by frankie olins to keep anyone but him from benefitting from his ill - gotten gains. i must confess, when i first picked up decoy, my assumption was that it was going to be about an undercover agent or a police sting. in fact, the title was announcing a twist ending all along, right under my nose !
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
the film' s final gag has been used more than once since; i' ve seen an episode of the rockford files that' s a close remake of decoy, omitting the raising - the - dead gag. when she gets her greedy hands on the strongbox containing olins' loot, margot skips merrily through the fog, laughing hysterically. the cynicism in the final' romantic' encounter with jo jo is simultaneously hilarious and devastating. decoy is a dead - serious thriller that now plays like camp, and we like it both ways .
production and release: bernhard - brandt productions. distribution: monogram pictures (1946), usa; pathé pictures ltd. (1947), uk. producers: jack bernhard, bernard brandt. director: jack bernhard. screenplay: nedrick young, from an original story by stanley rubin. cinematography: l. w. o’connell. production manager: glenn cook. film editor: jason bernie. assistant director: william calihan. set design: dave milton. makeup artist: milburn morante. stylist: lorraine maclean. musical director: edward j. kay. sound recording: tom lambert. release date: september 14, 1946 .
and of public and critical response to the film; the discussion occupies most of the chapter ,
13. john wayne ,
, the film achieved a weighted average score of 94 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, signifying
universal acclaim
.
in this movie, life is cheap and death is nasty, painful, and pointless. crazy, farfetched conceits—like chemical resurrection and a map to a buried treasure—furrow the unreal story world of decoy. it’s one bad trip .
u. s. navy still of the uss saratoga (cv 3) sinking at 15: 40 in the bikini waters on july 24, 1946. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 2228, folder 627483 - 627519 )
this list collects every film from the starting list that became they shoot pictures don' t they' s 1000 greatest films. this…
true pulp fiction, with the added pleasure of being a zero budget monogram film. there is even a zombie (kinda) .
i absolutely love this post, decoy is going right to the fore of my netflix queue. i’m so glad i stumbled across your blog (and your amaaaazing tumblrs of vintage film gifs). i really hope you’re doing something fabulous with this amazing body of knowledge you have beyond entertaining the peanut gallery here on the internet. keep up the great work .
[ 5 ]. manhattan district history, book viii, los alamos project (y) – volume 3, auxiliary activities, chapter 8, operation crossroads (n. d. , ca. 1946), as cited in restricted data: the nuclear secrecy blog .
what i can tell you is, monogram pictures mostly produced and released low budget films between 1931 and 1953 and were generally referred to as one of the poverty row studios which released b pictures. the idea behind the studio was that when the monogram logo appeared on the screen, everyone knew they were in for action and adventure. decoy was considered monogram’s best film noir, directed by jack bernhard, starring his wife jean gillie, and was based on an original story by writer, and later producer, stanley rubin. decoy had initially been developed as a radio script for “the whistler” series .
was only mentioned in a small scrolling section of their film page on disney' s official website. disney had sidelined their official website for
well, let me start by telling you about it. made in 1946 by director jack bernhard, who also directed “ blonde ice, ” this is another hard - core noir story with a totally heartless seductress, a wildly improbable plot and a grimly pessimistic take on human nature .
research and acknowledge the legacy of women - driven films. please don' t feed assumptions that erase women - centric art and film history .
had very little marketing, less than disney' s other b - films, with at most, 151 theaters showing the film in 2002 .
and also said that his movies are about
moodiness as mood
and the characters
heightens the [ film' s ] tension .
began in 2000. during production, miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours long and decided to cut out several parts of the story .
the film was released on blu - ray format in japan and the uk in 2014, and was released in north america on 16 june 2015 .
seventy years ago this month a joint u. s army - navy task force staged two atomic weapons tests at bikini atoll in the marshall islands, the first atomic explosions since the bombings of japan in august 1945. the first test, able, took place on 1 july 1946. the second test, baker, on 25 july 1946, was the most dangerous, contaminating nearby ships with radioactive fallout and producing iconic images of nuclear explosions later used in stanley kubrick’s dr. strangelove. documents posted today by the national security archive, shed light on operation crossroads, as does a gallery of videos and photographs .
captain robert s. quakenbush (left), king juda (right) and commodore spencer (center) aboard the uss mt. mckinley the morning of baker day, july 25, 1946. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 2228, folder 627520 - 627549 )
a really great post, beautifully written. you’ve illuminated so much about this film, its structure, its symbols, and its deep black heart. i simply adored jean gillie in this film and wish she could have made many more. there’s no other fatale who can approach her. thanks so much .
all reviews by stafford christensen. film is a powerful but subjective medium; this is a personal take on movies both classic and contemporary... .
, which were for small children and teenagers, but he had not created a film for ten - year - old girls. for inspiration, he read
video 4: this footage, excerpted from a longer film, depicts pre - test aerial activity and the detonation of able as seen from the air .
, japan. he often visited the museum for inspiration while working on the film. miyazaki had always been interested in the pseudo - western style buildings from the
old movies, fresh takes. tweeting film history with a twist. writer, ranter, maker of gifs, and worshipper of cats. contact: nitratediva @ urltoken
miyazaki wanted to produce a new film for years, he previously wrote two project proposals, but they were rejected. the first one was based on the japanese book
s critic jay boyar also praised miyazaki' s direction and said the film is
the perfect choice for a child who has moved into a new home .
cooper, damon (1 november 2010) ,
finding the spirit within: a critical analysis of film techniques in spirited away. (critical essay )
,
according to the navy' s caption ,
natives going aboard lcm [ landing craft mechanized ] .
according to the photo this event was in july 1946 but it was probably in late february or early march. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 374 - g, box 7, folder 60 “tests: operation crossroads” )
most of the second half of the film takes place in a car, as vincent, margot, and dr. craig hit the road to find the loot. and, lest i forget, this film contains one scene that, i swear, i have no idea how they got it past the censors. it’s that unrepentantly brutal .
video 5: as shown by the slate at the first few seconds of this film, this footage of the able shot was taken from a tower on enyu island .
i' m used to fatalistic noirs featuring black - hearted femmes fatales, but this one' s on a whole other level. much like the previous year' s detour, by the time decoy' s 76 minutes are up, it has transmogrified into some kind of surreal nightmare .
according to bob woodward and carl bernstein' s book the final days, it was also richard nixon' s favorite film. he screened it several times at the white house and during a cruise on the presidential yacht. before the 1972 nixon visit to china, chinese premier zhou enlai watched this film in preparation for his meeting with nixon .
there is a problem of spatial and temporal presence in film noir, an issue with ‘thereness’: “i remember what was the last time, not when or where – says lancaster in the killers (robert siodmak 1946) – which might be a reason why noir is often said to be existentialist or heideggerian. characters are in constant need of reassurance that they are present in the world: ‘i don’t know where i am’ says heston in dark city, ‘you’re here’ replies lisabeth scott. in crack - up (irving reis 1946) pat o’brien screams: ‘if i say i’ve been somewhere, i’ve been somewhere’. in the magnificent final sequence of force of evil, the idiosyncratic repetition of the word there in its insistent desperation problematises concrete existence in a way that works for all of film noir: “…i was feeling very bad there as i went down there i just kept going down and down there it was like going down to the bottom of the world to find my brother… i found my brother’s body at the bottom there…like an old dirty rag…
i thought gillie was terrific in her role, and there was some fun dialogue and able assistance from sheldon leonard and robert armstrong, among others. a very weird film indeed .
just as chihiro seeks her past identity, japan, in its anxiety over the economic downturn occurring during the release of the film in 2001, sought to reconnect to past values .
to say that decoy simply fits into the category of film - noir is a gross understatement. jean gillie’s margot shelby is indisputably one of the most fatale femmes in the history of the genre, and the extent she’ll go to unearth $ 400, 000. makes for a plotline that will leave even modern - day viewers wide - eyed. “she’s the brains, ” says molly haskell, the film critic and historian. “she’s running the show. and not to any man that comes across her path is she loyal. it’s kind of interesting in a way, because there are very few femmes fatales who don’t have a little time for love and seduction—but she really doesn’t. ”
film noir blonde: black & white and chic all over ® is a registered trademark. © 2010 - 2016 all rights reserved no reproductions of any content from this site without permission .
video 3: unedited and visually poor quality footage of the navy’s staging of commodore ben wyatt’s official request to the bikini population to leave their atoll. the meeting took place on 10 february 1946 and the navy restaged it on 3 march 1946. wyatt, king juda and the bikinians did repeated takes of the meeting during which wyatt asked juda and his people to “be willing to sacrifice their island for the welfare of all men. ” king juda, shown wearing a military uniform, restated his lines of acquiescence a number of times and by the last few minutes of the scene (ending at 7: 41) was plainly unhappy with the situation. the performances concluded with the bikinians having their last church service on the atoll and then meeting at the graveyard .
this movie, recently made available through a set of film noirs (volume 4) packaged with two on each disc, gets points for originality. i mean, how many movies – much less film noirs – do you see someone executed, then brought back to life, then shot in the back minutes later? now that' s what you call having a rough day !
experience modern times, the iconic film written by, directed by and starring charlie chaplin as a factory worker at the beginning of the industrial revolution. the orchestral score, also ...
[ 19 ]. for a press account, see “soviet already has atomic bomb ready to test, russian scientist implies, ” the new york times, 13 august 1946. see also michael d. gordin, red cloud at dawn: truman, stalin, and the end of the atomic monopoly (new york: farrar, strauss, and giroux, 2009), 134 - 135 .
i’m sorry to have to be the bearer of sad news. toronto film society’s good friend james cozart from the library of congress, died yesterday, saturday, march 25th. james ...
as the film was made without access to general patton' s diaries, it largely relied upon observations by bradley and other military contemporaries when they attempted to reconstruct patton' s thoughts and motives .
marc hairston argues this was a justified response to ghibli' s retention of the merchandising rights to the film and characters, which imposed a limitation on disney that did not validate the marketing costs .
after the 2003 oscars, it expanded to as many as 714 theaters. the film grossed us $ 449, 839 in its opening weekend and ultimately grossed around $ 10 million by september 2003 .
the dialogue, in particular, suggests this strange tug - of - war between the earthly and the unearthly. when noir has a sense of humor, it’s usually the trench humor of hamlet ’s gravediggers. decoy doesn’t disappoint with its two bickering prison morgue attendants, situated in a long line of morbidly funny, quirky tertiary noir characters .
the first half of the film is seething with melodrama, with enough sappy music and cheesy dialogue to choke dr. phil, and the other half of the film has the viewer struggling to keep interest. in addition to the film' s plot not being engaging, it is completely absurd. the narrative revolves around bringing a mobster fresh from the gas chamber back to life via
methylene blue
( which does not bring people back from the dead) to find out where he hid a bunch of money... . oh yeah, i' m buying that one... .
miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on the ten - year - old daughter of his friend, associate producer seiji okuda, who came to visit his house each summer .
praised the voice acting and said the film is the
product of a fierce and fearless imagination whose creations are unlike anything a person has seen before
. turan also praised miyazaki' s direction .
1. at some point monogram must have partially censored the scene in decoy' s original negative. in this dvd version margot only runs over her victim once. perhaps warner home video and the owner of the rare print shown at the american cinematheque can get together and restore this extra six or seven seconds of mind - blowing sadism. return
because of this, and for being too liberal to the press, patton is sidelined during the d - day landings in 1944. instead, he is placed in command of the phantom first united states army group in southeast england as a decoy. german general alfred jodl (richard münch) is convinced that patton will lead the invasion of europe .
in the dvd commentary, historian glenn erickson and writer stanley rubin note that as an english actress, gillie was new to hollywood and didn’t have to worry that by being a total bitch she would lose favor with her fan base. so, she’s a total bitch and then some. (rubin conceived the “decoy” story; ned young wrote the script. )
when jean - luc godard dedicated breathless to monogram pictures, foremost in his memory must have been decoy. it’s a movie whose reputation, over the years, has grown into folklore, because it’s all but impossible to view or obtain. for aficionados of film noir, it has attained the stature of a holy grail (or maltese falcon), a fabulous treasure the quest for which seems doomed to futility. it has, however, showed up at festival screenings, and now circulating, in samizdat as it were, is a subtitled copy taped from croatian television .
i thought the ending of this film – the final minute – was especially good. so many times, you get the ending that doesn' t stay true to the main character, but this one did .
this 30 minute narrated film was the official operation crossroads documentary, prepared at the direction of task force one director, admiral william blandy. it may have been prepared for internal u. s. government use .
except for the unfortunate missing snippet, decoy is a superb dvd rendering; we don' t see many monogram pictures in this condition. most were sold off to television, and the original elements for many were duped to 16mm and then tossed to the dogs. this sharp transfer allows us to check out the quality of sets, costumes and even the makeup .
eventually, the patton family was approached by the producers for help in making the film. the filmmakers desired access to patton' s diaries, as well as input from family members. however, by unfortunate coincidence, the producers contacted the family the day after beatrice ayer patton, the general' s widow, was laid to rest. after this encounter, the family refused to provide any assistance to the film' s producers .
thinking becomes “untidy, like most thinking today’ in murder, my sweet’s diagnoses of the situation. even memory, the core of an individual’s identity, is an object of suspicion: ‘memories have a way of getting stuck together, like the pages of a book’ (somewhere in the night [ joseph l. mankiewicz 1946 ]). at its extreme, the subject is now a placeless, faithless, memory - less black hole to the point where, as alan ladd puts it to veronica lake in this foucauldian line from the blue dahlia (george marshall 1946), “you’re trying to run out on yourself, like me. ” as a result, the body is subject to a re - organisation to the point where crime wave (andré de toth 1954) can offer a very nietzschean piece of psycho - social diagnostics: “murder always starts down here [ the stomach ]! ”
in addition to any special events and programming, the toronto film society programmes 5 regular series and events each year. below is a list of those programmes. [ sws _ 2 _ column title = ”” ...
i watched decoy several years ago and was quite astonished by it. the female lead was beautiful and awful, just like villainesses should be. but who was this beautiful actress? certainly no one i had ever heard of. i did a bit of research and found there was very little written about her or the director, and what there was, is in our programme notes .
however, marshall also points out that the film contains
too much cursing and obscenity [ by patton ]. patton was not habitually foul - mouthed. he used dirty words when he thought they were needed to impress .
told almost entirely in flashback, this film is a strange, twisted plot that doesn' t always work. no major inconsistencies jump out (which is not to say there weren' t any), but i recall thinking as i watched it that certain things were off. it opens with the ending, so there' s no real spoilers to say it ends in violence and betrayal, and the title gives away at least a general theme of the film .
the biggest difficulty in making the film was to reduce its length. when production started, miyazaki realized it would be more than three hours long if he made it according to his plot. he had to delete many scenes from the story, and tried to reduce the
eye - candy
in the film because he wanted it to be simple. miyazaki did not want to make the hero a
pretty girl .
at the beginning, he was frustrated at how she looked
dull
and thought ,
she isn' t cute. isn' t there something we can do ?
as the film neared the end, however, he was relieved to feel
she will be a charming woman .
there’s barely a moment when gillie isn’t front and center, for which gratitude should be fulsome. she delivers a go - for - broke performance, short on nuance but long on the flamboyant gesture. she coldly guns the motor to run down one of her victims, skitters into hysterical giggles when she shoots the next, and, dying, laughs in leonard’s face after coaxing him to kiss her (‘jo jo, just this once, come down to my level’). she’s a knockout, and because of her the elusive decoy, despite the inevitable shortcomings of its monogram origins, can be counted a knockout, too  film noir with no frills .
at once linear and all over the place, at once inevitable and luridly surprising, this film galvanizes everything warped and gorgeous about horror, sci - fi, trashy crime literature, and the legit noir canon into a dark, relentlessly suspenseful parable .
you are not going to believe this, but i was watching this primo film noir on warner archive and it cut off right before the end! !! ! maybe i should stop streaming and go back to dvds. what do you think ?
usually the first part of a movie we come into contact with is a title, and they’re often not very revealing. well, this one blows the movie’s whole secret. how’s that for a clever meta - filmic joke, a joke you only get after the whole gruesome spectacle has splattered across the screen? i suspect that you don’t realize what your own life is about until it’s over—if then—and decoy follows this bitingly ironic path .
while probably it can’t ever live up to the inflated legend that trails in its wake, it’s decidedly no disappointment. monogram and its raffish rivals on poverty row shot fast and cut corners, working from fast - and - loose scripts full of implausible chunks of plot for viewers either to swallow or choke on. usually, the results were shoddy and forgettable. but now and again enough elements came together to generate unexpected chemistry. decoy marks one such serendipitous occasion .
general george s. patton (george c. scott) addresses an unseen audience of american troops, (based on his speech to the third army before d - day). the film version of the speech is heavily condensed, with much of the original vulgarity removed .
a made - for - television sequel, the last days of patton, was produced in 1986. scott reprised his title role. the film was based on patton' s final weeks after being mortally injured in a car accident, with flashbacks of patton' s life .
. one unannounced battle scene was shot the night before, which raised fears in the royal palace neighborhood of a coup d' état. one paratrooper was electrocuted in power lines, but none of this battle footage appears in the film. the scene at the dedication of the welcome centre in
members of the joint chiefs of staff’s evaluation board looking over the damaged fleet on july 3, 1946, accompanied by captain horacio rivero of the navy’ s special weapons staff, who had played a key role in selecting bikini. shown in the photo from left to right are: rivero, vice admiral john h. hoover, bradley dewey, general joseph w. stilwell (after his death replaced by general albert c. wedemeyer), lt. general lewis h. brereton. (nara, still pictures unit, record group 80 - g, box 1724, folder 627483 - 627519 )
bernhard discovered gillie in england while he was serving in world war two. they married, made this film and split up. sadly, gillie died of pneumonia in 1949, at age 33. bernhard disappeared from the hollywood scene shortly after and little is known about the rest of his life .
every now and then, i get to the point where i (rather arrogantly) think i’ve seen every movie worth seeing that exists within the confines of my interests. and i despair. and then i find a movie that hits me like a tender blackjack to the base of the skull and forces me to realize all over again what it means to watch a movie and be shocked and stunned by its audacity. decoy is one of those movies for me. i think it might be for you too .
in this gripping film noir, a mortally wounded physician staggers into the apartment of a vicious vixen. shots ring out, and the police rush to the scene. sergeant leonard arrives to find the doctor dead and the woman dying. before she dies, the woman tells the sergeant the whole terrible story .
noir, to a certain extent, revolves around this fatal error. characters make the assumption that what something looks like, it must be in reality. they jump to the conclusion that a hidden thing, “the great whatsit, ” or the chest of money in decoy, is to be desired and not avoided like a toxic temptation. interestingly enough, dichotomy can technically refer to that stage in a planet or celestial orb’s waxing or waning when it is half illuminated, half in darkness, half seen, half concealed .
gillie’s is the standout performance, but the guys certainly hold their own, especially sheldon leonard as the conflicted cop. (leonard also played nick the bartender in “it’s a wonderful life. ”) i love the part in “decoy” when leonard’s jo - jo sits on a bar stool munching a snack – not a burger or fries, but a hard - boiled egg. mmm, what could be better than a beer and a yolk? another great moment is when he bums a “stay - awake” pill from dr. lloyd .
a moment later, jojo shows up at the doc’s office and decoy takes the famous hallway scene from double indemnity and blows it up to a logical extreme. while dr. craig improvises some excuses about olins’ missing body for jojo’s benefit, margot, her lover, and the dead body cram into a tiny medical supply closet… while vincent points the gun at jojo, ready for action. it’s a master class in pulp suspense with the promise of violence hanging thick in the air, like the smell of antiseptic in a doctor’s office .
after a diet of mostly serious and sometimes prestigious films noir, decoy stands out as an outrageous delight. it begins on a view of an absolutely filthy gas station bathroom sink and mirror and continues through a minimalist series of functional but artless sets, filmed and edited for speed in the manner that earned monogram its low - end reputation. reviewers thought that the story was exciting and moved at a brisk pace, but the cast of mostly no - name actors tells us that this b - picture wasn' t made by the majors .
the girls had left at the cabin, but felt they only offered subjects on
crushes
and romance. when looking at his young friends, miyazaki felt this was not what they
held dear in their hearts
and decided to produce the film about a girl heroine whom they could look up to instead .
army air force footage of the baker test. film footage of the iconic baker test can be seen in the closing moments of stanley kubrick’s dr. strangelove. source: u. s. national archives, motion picture branch, rg 342, department of the air force, 342 - usaf - 34282ar - 58 - 62
crime wave warner dvd 1954 / b & w; / 1: 37 flat full frame / 74 min. / street date july 31, 2007 / 20. 98 or 59. 92 in the film noir classic collection vol 4 boxed set starring sterling hayden, gene nelson, phyllis kirk, ted de corsia, charles buchinsky (bronson), jay novello, nedrick young, james bell, dub taylor. cinematography bert glennon art direction stanley fleischer film editor thomas reilly original music david buttolph written by bernard gordon, crane wilbur, richard wormser from the story criminal' s mark by john and ward hawkins produced by bryan foy directed by andré de toth
bradley served as a consultant for the film though the extent of his influence and input into the final script is largely unknown. while bradley knew patton personally, it was also well - known that the two men were polar opposites in personality, and there is evidence to conclude that bradley despised patton, both personally and professionally .
make no mistake, though: this is gilles' movie. for classic movie fans and particular film noir buffs, this is worth checking out. it' s always fun to see a new
face ,
and that certainly applies to gillis, whose character reminded me a bit of peggy cummins' one in
gun crazy .
there are some wonderful discursive moments concerning temporal matters in film noir, for example this line from kansas city confidential (phil karlson 1952): ‘professor einstein, there is just so much time and every moment gone is a moment gone somewhere). one of the great speeches about time in any film comes in the joseph l. mankiewicz film somewhere in the night. josephine hutchinson’s (mrs. townsend from north by northwest) character elisabeth delivers one of mankiewicz’s two great speeches about time (the other is in the honey pot 1967): ‘things change in time but time doesn’t change. it goes on and on and doesn’t change. i know, because i’ve watched it. nights, days, nights, always the same. dawns are always grey, and the days can have different colours, but the nights are black, they’re all empty. no, only people change, they grow old and ugly and pitiful…i’ve made believe for so long…that i wasn’t alone…afraid, that i wasn’t dead, that i was alive. ”
if you like strange movies, try this. a ruthless femme fatale (jean gillie) does whatever is necessary to the men in her life to get hold of some stashed
dough
. part of this odd noir film involves the theme of reviving the dead, so hence there' s an offbeat horror angle thrown in on the side .
like the flatfoot he is, refusing to grasp the larger implications of her question, jojo replies, “simple arithmetic, ” echoing something she said to him earlier in the film. from there, she launches into her story—which jojo mostly knows already. in this case, the act of telling serves as a catharsis, an unburdening between her and jojo .
bodies pile up like cordwood, with several ruthless killings happening off - screen. nasty baddie - for - hire philip van zandt stilettos a driver to death, and frequent double - crosses are sealed by shots from a. 38 special. in its weirdest episode decoy briefly becomes a mad doctor movie, reviving frankie olins with an injection that' counteracts the effects of cyanide gas.' he then administers electric shocks, as in a boris karloff movie. this amazing medical miracle is short - lived, literally, as margot wants not a revived zombie, but simply the secret hidden in olins' memory .
the key element in this explosive reaction is jean gillie, an english actress whose early death in 1949 deprived cinema of one of its darkest jezebels. like her compatriot peggy cummins (annie laurie starr in gun crazy), she makes no attempt, as margot shelby, to americanize her origins; in explanation, decoy lets her spit out her contempt for poverty in an eloquent aria about that ‘dingy, dirty street’ that ‘runs all over the world, ’ and through the sooty mill town in england she came from. she vows never to go back to want, and her unquenchable greed powers the plot .
reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 44 reviews, with an average score of 8. 4 / 10. rotten tomatoes summarizes the critical consensus as ,
george c. scott' s sympathetic, unflinching portrayal of the titular general in this sprawling epic is as definitive as any performance in the history of american biopics .
over the course of this film’s action - packed 76 - minute runtime, no less than two men essentially walk out of their graves to get what they want. the whole story is framed by a voice - over slipping into the beyond, but not spoken by a dead man like joe gillis, but by an evil woman whose life force is rapidly ebbing away .
when scott learned that the speech would open the film, he refused to do it, as he believed that it would overshadow the rest of his performance. director schaffner assured him that it would be shown at the end. the scene was shot in one afternoon at sevilla studios in madrid, with the flag having been painted on the back of the stage wall .
the film ends with patton walking his dog, a bull terrier named willie, and scott relating in a voice over that a returning hero of ancient rome was honored with a triumph, a victory parade in which
a slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory... is fleeting .
but, of course, the film is not helped out by the fact that the majority of the film' s actors could not act their way out of a circus tent. edward norris is very weak in his vincent the gangster role, sheldon leonard is as wooden as a bar stool in his joe the detective role and herbert rudley is frankly just terrible as the double - crossed dr. craig with every overdone action and line delivery - being about as believable in his role as bill clinton exclaiming he is a one woman man. jean gillie is the strongest member of the cast; although looking better than she acts, gillie is at least believable as the seductive villainess margot (she should have worked on her weird evil cackle, however) .
theme, yubaba' s act of taking chihiro' s name and replacing it with sen (an alternate reading of
chi
, the first character in chihiro' s name - lit .
one thousand
), is symbolic of capitalism' s single - minded concern with value, reflecting the film' s exploration of capitalism and its effect on traditional japanese culture .
washington, d. c. , july 22, 2016 - u. s. atomic tests in bikini atoll in july 1946 staged by a joint army - navy task force were the first atomic explosions since the bombings of japan a year earlier. documents posted today by the national security archive about “operation crossroads” shed light on these events as do galleries of declassified videos and photographs. of two tests staged to determine the effects of the new weapons on warships, the “baker” test was the most dangerous by contaminating nearby test ships with radioactive mist. according to the joint chiefs of staff’s evaluation board, because of the radioactive water spewed from the lagoon, the “contaminated ships became radioactive stoves, and would have burned all living things aboard with invisible and painless but deadly radiation. ”
decoy is a 1946 american film noir . directed by jack bernhard , the film stars jean gillie , edward norris , robert armstrong , herbert rudley , and sheldon leonard . the film was produced by jack bernhard and bernard brandt as a jack bernhard production , with a screenplay by ned young , based on an original story by stanley rubin decoy is a showcase of how film noir can do so much with so little . short-lived jean gillie stars as one of the film genre 's toughest femme fatales . gillie was married to bernhard when this film was made . 
decoy is a 1946 american film noir. directed by jack bernhard, the film stars jean gillie, edward norris, robert armstrong, herbert rudley, and sheldon leonard. the film was produced by jack bernhard and bernard brandt as a jack bernhard production, with a screenplay by ned young, based on an original story by stanley rubin decoy is a showcase of how film noir can do so much with so little. short-lived jean gillie stars as one of the film genre's toughest femme fatales. gillie was married to bernhard when this film was made.
decoy is a 1946 american film noir. directed by jack bernhard, the film stars jean gillie, edward norris, robert armstrong, herbert rudley, and sheldon leonard. the film was produced by jack bernhard and bernard brandt as a jack bernhard production, with a screenplay by ned young, based on an original story by stanley rubin decoy is a showcase of how film noir can do so much with so little. short-lived jean gillie stars as one of the film genre's toughest femme fatales. gillie was married to bernhard when this film was made.