​Intriguing crime classics new to Blu

Two often-overlooked classic noir thrillers featuring stars in atypical roles are available on Blu-ray this month from Kino, one coming next week (May 24) and the other released May 3.

An out-of-work vet with some psychological problems accepts a job as chauffeur for a wealthy gangster, and soon becomes dangerously involved with the gangster’s beautiful wife. The basic premise of “The Chase”(1946) adapted by Philip Yordan from a novel by Cornell Woolrich, is a standard outline for a typical film noir, but the film itself has a number of off-beat and unexpected elements that set it apart.

For one, although star Robert Cummings did some straight dramatic roles (including Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur”), he is better-remembered for light comic characters in both film and television. He does a decent job here as a noir protagonist with personal issues who finds himself struggling to survive the situations he finds himself in. The film’s director, Arthur Ripley, spent a large part of his career as a gag man and writer specializing in comedy for such noted figures as Mack Sennett and Frank Capra. He does a fine job with this drastic departure from his forte and fresh variation on the usual Hollywood formula.

There are several moments of dark comedy mixed in with the dark subject matter, some of the most memorable delivered by Peter Lorre as the sinister and cynical sidekick to the eccentric but ruthless and violent crime boss played by Steve Cochran with a disconcerting unpredictability and gleefully sadistic streak. The byplay of the two with each other, as well as with Cummings and with Michèle Morgan as the wife, has reminded more than one critic of the work of David Lynch some 40 years later. Adding to this impression are various off-the-wall actions by Cochran’s villain, the frequently nightmarish, dreamlike quality of many scenes as the plot develops, and some surrealistic plot twists that seem ahead of their time.

These provide an overall feeling not unlike that in Lynch’s “Blue Velvet,” “Twin Peaks,” or “Mulholland Drive” (indeed Cochran’s Eddie Roman often foreshadows Dennis Hopper’s Frank Booth, and the plot structure bears certain similarities to “Mulholland Drive”), although of course not nearly so extreme. Other aspects have a distinctly Hitchcockian flavor, notably the innocent man pursued for a crime he did not commit.

Until now, “The Chase” has been available on mediocre and poor quality Public Domain DVDs or internet downloads. Kino’s Blu-ray is a lovely HD transfer of a new preservation by the Film Foundation and UCLA archive, restoring Franz Planar’s crisply detailed black-and-white cinematography to its expressionistic glory, with only minor dust and scratches visible. Audio is okay. The disc includes two half-hour radio adaptations of the original novel, “The Black Path of Fear,” an entertaining and informative audio commentary by eccentric and Lynchian filmmaker Guy Maddin, plus trailers for three other noir films Kino has released on Blu-ray.

THE CHASE on Blu-ray – Movie: B+ / Video: A- / Audio: A- / Extras: B-

The 1956 screen adaptation of Ira Levin’s award-winning first novel, “A Kiss Before Dying,” is also the first feature directed by Gerd Oswald, an effective and unusually daring film for its time. It is sometimes classified as a film noir, but its noir elements seem more a side-effect growing out of its creepy, somewhat Hitchcockian murder thriller plot.

Robert Wagner is probably best-known today for three hit TV series from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, and perhaps his appearances in the “Austin Powers” films, but in the 1950s he was a rising young star usually playing romantic leads. A change of pace was his charming but slimy and utterly ruthless central character in “A Kiss Before Dying,” which goes far beyond the typical film noir anti-hero to become a dangerous and opportunistic villain.

Wagner plays a college student hoping to marry into money, and will do pretty much anything to achieve his goal. When he learns his heiress girlfriend (a young Joanne Woodward) is pregnant, she wants to get married immediately but he realizes her strict copper-magnate father (George Macready) will disown her, destroying his plans (so far their romance has been a secret). Thus he quickly plots to murder her, make it look like suicide, and since her family has never met him he starts to romance her sister (Virginia Leith), soon killing another young man who might implicate him and making that look like suicide as well. Eventually the sister starts to have suspicions and teams up with a young detective (Jeffrey Hunter) to seek positive evidence. The strong cast also includes Mary Astor as Wagner’s mother.

Atypically for a film noir, or most crime dramas of its era, “A Kiss Before Dying” was filmed in lush, saturated color and well-composed CinemaScope widescreen. This helps focus on the everyday lives and surroundings of the characters, giving it the feeling of 1950s domestic melodrama as much as murder thriller. In this way it resembles another off-beat noir thriller, “Violent Saturday,” which was released the previous year, also revolved around sordid secrets in an Arizona copper mining town, and also happened to co-star Virginia Leith. Other films it calls to mind are “A Place in the Sun,” and Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” “Dial M for Murder,” and certain aspects of “Psycho,” but Oswald’s “A Kiss Before Dying” is a polished, self-assured crime melodrama that can stand on its own.

The picture on Kino’s Blu-ray is mostly very good, but has a couple of spots with noticeable bluish distortion and splotches, and some minor wear throughout. The sound sometimes shows its age, but is reasonably good. The only bonus feature is a trailer in standard definition (although it is at least in CinemaScope).

A KISS BEFORE DYING on Blu-ray – Movie: A- / Video: A- / Audio: A- / Extras: D