Last hurrah for film noir

The film was at 16:00, this is at 18:00 and one last burst of politics will be at 20:00, taking us out for the evening.

I'm assuming here you like film if it has class, that you like the 30s 40s 50s 'Golden Era', also fine British films of the time ... and like noir to the extent of the hardbitten, Chandleresque style, casting, atmosphere.  There was the golden age of noir, light on the Dutch angles, heavy on the action and romance ... and then there was another burst, in the 70s, of revival and neo-noir, the latter taking the style one step further.

Interesting to me is that I'm not sure it could have made it through the 80s, this style.  The 70s were noir in themselves, a down time after the flower power of the 60s, there were still great actors and actresses about, the writing and direction had not yet gone Woke ... it was, in a way, the last hurrah for good film ... therefore the casting of an ageing Mitchum was quite inspired.

The 80s would see the advent of light brown hues, far more outdoors sun, glitter and coiffed hair, truly the beginning of the end.  Dull.  OTT acting or no acting chops in many cases.  Not my fave decade.  The Age of the Yuppy.  

This 1975 film is set in 1941, the year of DiMaggio's 56 game streak, and the attention to period detail is not obsessive but it's there, the score sets the tone from the start.  I was pretty sure Mitchum and Rampling would carry off the leads well, the question was whether the vital second-stringers would be any good - Mrs. Florian or Nulty the Cop for example.

They were, they held their own in their scenes, I breathed a sigh of relief.  Harrison as the Moose got away with his woodenness as the big brute, the slimeballs were perhaps not quite oily enough, no one broke character and acted 1970s, the director took this film seriously.

My verdict ... they got away with this, it's an excellent matinee or Saturday evening movie.