Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
I haven’t really had much of a plan in taking out the films on The List. That’s been by design. I didn’t want to burn out on old films or get stuck in a particular rut. In general, I jump around a lot. I have focused some on the early films of the list, though. It helps with a sense of film history, of learning where later films got their ideas. So I have regularly targeted the lowest current remaining number and watched that film. I wasn’t too excited when I saw Angel Face as the low number du jour, at least until I cracked open the NetFlix envelope. I saw “Robert Mitchum” and “Otto Preminger” and “film noir” and became very pleased. Sometimes, going into a film completely cold has real benefits. (On a related note, this is one of the bad things about removing most of the early films—I’m pretty much out of noir titles, and that’s a bummer.)
Anyway, Frank (Mitchum) is an ambulance driver with his partner Bill (Kenneth Tobey). They’re called to the Tremayne mansion where Mrs. Catherine Tremayne (Barbara O’Neil) has almost died of gas inhalation. It’s the sort of thing that is easy to consider a suicide attempt, but all of the indications suggest that suicide isn’t really on the table for her. On the way out, Frank meets the hysterical step-daughter, Diane (Jean Simmons). A few mutual slaps later, and these two are hitting the town, with Frank waxing poetic about the garage he wants to build, the cars he used to race, and now and then mentioning his girlfriend Mary (Mona Freeman). It’s important that he’s begged off a dinner with Mary in order to spend the night with Diane.
