Are these the best things Lang ever made? No, but they are very interesting and cynical and tend to have totally irredeemable characters, which is always fun to watch. So let's take a look, shall we?
While The City Sleeps (1956)starring: Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, John Drew Barrymore, James Craig
dir. Fritz Lang
A serial killer is on the loose and a newspaper is determined to catch him. Not because they believe in justice, but because the new owner Vincent Price is going to promote the first department head that breaks the story. So the race is on as three men double cross each other to get the job. Everyone is a cad, a borderline alcoholic and generally just a shitty person. It's a newspaper expose and serial killer film all in one. I really liked Andrews as the liquored up television news anchor who is willing to use his new fiance to lure the killer out into the open. John Drew Barrymore is the killer with mommy issues that drive his twisted killings.
This is a much more parred down style for Lang, saving any visual flair for the scenes with Barrymore as he creates his dark and twisted world. There is plenty of wit as Sanders, Mitchell and Craig work on out manipulating each other to get the new job. Craig is the strongest of the three since he gets the sleaziest character to play. His idea is to get the bosses wife to help since he's knocking boots with her on the side. Ida Lupino gets to shine as a woman who knows how to seduce to get the story. It's a lot of fun delving into a world that is morally and ethically bankrupt, but still wind up being the protagonists.
This one shows up every so often on TCM and is twisted fun with healthy dollops of sexual innuendo to appease anyone.
8 out of 10
Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (1956)starring: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, Arthur Franz, Philip Bourneuf, Barabra Nichols
dir. Fritz Lang
Even more stripped down than While The City Sleeps, Lang made this on a shoestring budget and it shows, but he still sets up some very nice shots building single takes that move and re-frame to keep the energy up. At first glance it sounds like it may be the dumbest movie ever, but once it ends and you actually think about the construction, it's pretty damned clever.
Dana Andrews is a writer who gets engaged to Joan Fontaine. Her father, played by Blackmer is against the death penalty and feels to many men are dying due to circumstantial evidence. When a murdered girl ends up in the news, Blackmer and Andrews decide to make it look like Andrews did it, have him convicted and then spring the proof that he didn't to make the D.A. look like a fool. It's a crazy way to prove a point, but Andrews decides to go along with it so he can write a book.
It all seems pretty dangerous and hokey and when you expect something will go wrong, it does. But everything is not what it seems and the structure and slow build lead to a solid ending that makes everything that proceeds it shift a few degrees and takes on new meaning.
It has even more depth when you start comparing it to Lang's first American film Fury (1936), which seems to cover some of the same themes, but from a very different point of view from a filmmaker who may have been cynical, but had hope. Interesting how time, frustration and compromise can change a man.
It's movie that seems a lot cornier on first viewing, but makes dramatic sense once the lights come up. This is actually being remade by Peter Hyams with Michal Douglas in the Andrews role for a 2009 release.
8 out of 10
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