I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)
by H. Bruce Humberstone
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Betty Grable, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar, Victor Mature, William GarganDirector: H. Bruce Humberstone
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Cinematographer: Edward Cronjager
Editor: Robert L. Simpson
Producer: Milton Sperling
Writer: Dwight Taylor
Writer: Steve Fisher
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Portuguese (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)
Movie Review: I Wake Up Staring at Ed Cornell
Summary: 4 Stars
Judging from the title alone, a casual buff of vintage films might pass this one by as just a cheapie, a screamer, another pulp movie to display Betty Grable's legs and Victor Mature's chest.
Not so. This is one of the earliest of the film noir genre, and, as historian Eddie Muller tells us in his engaging commentary, probably THE first noir made by 20th Century-Fox -- and the release date of 1941 offers proof of this, contemporary with "Citizen Kane", which might also be characterized as a quintessential film noir.
It's a beauty: dark, tense, full of plot twists, showing off all those photographic tricks characteristic of noirs: steep camera angles, blatant light/shadow contrasts, shooting through window blinds or doorway gratings, even capturing the pattern of Ms. Grable's wide-open eyelashes against her cheeks (as Eddie Muller observes).
The latter-day viewer may laugh at the cliches -- a suspect, say, sitting on a low chair railing at his interrogators above his head shining lights into his eyes -- but they are nonetheless part of the genre and may not have been so trite at the time. (Tommy Udo's nasal laugh in "Kiss of Death" was endlessly satirized because is was so effective when the film was new.)
The directing is agile, the action is unpredictable and full of bits of business, the acting is just great. Betty Grable and Victor Mature turn out marvelous performances that will surprise those who assume these two had nothing more going for them than beautiful bodies. (An irrelevant swimming-pool scene demonstrates that the studio was thinking the same way.) Victor Mature has one of the most expressive faces of any actor I've ever seen (shown to even better effect in "Kiss of Death"), and DVD commentator Eddie Muller says that he acted with his scalp -- his hat moved back and forth when he raised and lowered his eyebrows.
The dialogue's pretty snappy, too, often pushing the limits of the Production Code, and helps break the suspense. Dwight Taylor, son of Broadway actress Laurette Taylor (the original stage Amanda Wingfield of "Glass Menagerie") was no slouch as a screenwriter.
Carole Landis is shining here, as she should be, but tinged perhaps with the viewer's knowledge of her sad end a few years later.
But Laird Cregar is the guy who stalks off with the movie in his big pockets. People should get to know this fine actor, if they don't already. He LOOMS. One customer reviewer calls him a composite of Sydney Greenstreet and Vincent Price. You get the idea. Only 25 years old in this movie, alas, he died in 1944 at age 28.
Summary of I Wake Up Screaming (Fox Film Noir)
A great surprise ending marks this film noir classic, filled with taut suspense. Starring Betty Grable in a change-of-pace role.Art House & International DVD Video
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