Musical Noir

Or Noir Musical. What ever you might say. Speaking about film noir and musical. To me it’s sound like it come from a different breed. Just like Poodle and Pit bull. Well ..I’ve just saw two mutts lately and oh boy these two mutts are what I can’t take my eyes off.

Humeresque (1946)

~ A Beautiful Woman Is Most Dangerous When She's In Love! ~

Glamorous socialite Helen Wright (Joan Crawford) takes what she wants - clothes, alcohol, men - uses them up and tosses them aside(Just like me....). Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield). But this isione toy she can't break. Instead, her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point.

In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire, Crawford makes Helenia rich, layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius. Humoresque's production values extend to the musical interludes, dubbed by Isaac Stern. Garfield's dazzling technique is thanks to two real violinists hid behind him one to do the fingering and one the bow work. Bravo!

Young Man with a Horn (1950)

Here he's a musical virtuoso (Kirk Douglas) who discovers an uncanny ability to play piano on sight, then picks up a trumpet in a pawn shop and falls in love with it right away.

As a grown man, Rick Martin (loosely based on a musician named Bix Beiderbecke) finds himself itching to play jazz but stifled by the constraints of playing in a dance band. His love life fares even worse, as his eventual wife Amy North (Lauren Bacall) runs hot and cold. Throughout it all, his mentor Smoke Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael) and singer pal Jo (Doris Day) stand by his side while Rick tries to hit an elusive high note that no one else has ever played.

Not nearly as scandalous or as emotional as it would like to be, Horn has moments of power and loads of great music -- interrupted only by Douglas's pathetic pantomime of "playing the trumpet."... Bacall and Day take familiar positions as trouble and good girl, respectively, and Carmichael nearly steals the show with his wisdom-of-the-ages mentor role.