Jacques Tourneur : The Cinema of Nightfall

by Fujiwara, Chris; Scorsese, Martin

• ISBN13: 9780801865619
• ISBN10: 0801865611
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-10
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

"Tourneur was a great director, fully deserving of the thoroughly researched and perceptive treatment he receives from Chris Fujiwara." -- Martin Scorsese As the director of Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and Night of the Demon, Jacques Tourneur crafted three horror classics which, decades later, have lost none of their power to frighten audiences. And his 1947 film Out of the Past is still acknowledged as the quintessential film noir. Yet Tourneur himself remains underappreciated and his contribution to cinema history neglected. Many of his films, however, reveal a fluid artistry absent from the routine studio fare of the era. Working in a variety of genres, from Westerns ( Canyon Passage) and spy films ( Berlin Express) to swashbucklers ( The Flame and the Arrow) and melodramas ( Experiment Perilous), Tourneur imposed a personal cinematic vision that emphasized uncertainty and ambiguity. In Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall, the first in-depth exploration of Tourneur's career, Chris Fujiwara offers a detailed film-by-film analysis of the director's four French films, his 20 MGM shorts, and his 29 studio productions, as well as his work in television. As Fujiwara shows, mystery, sensuality, and a deliberately restrained expressionism were the hallmarks of Tourneur's style, which frequently overcame the difficult circumstances in which he worked. Informative and immensely readable, this book provides an insightful and comprehensive study of an important and unjustly forgotten director.

Author Biography

Chris Fujiwara is a freelance writer whose work frequently appears in Hermenaut and the Boston Phoenix. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Foreword	xi
Martin Scorsese
Introduction	1	(12)
Maurice Tourneur	13	(7)
Jacques Tourneur: I	20	(4)
Jacques Tourneur: II	24	(8)
French Films (1931-1934)	32	(4)
Second-Unit Work (1934-1938)	36	(3)
MGM Shorts (1936-1942)	39	(21)
They All Come Out (1939)	60	(4)
The Nick Carter Films: Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939) and Phantom Raiders (1940)	64	(6)
Doctors Don't Tell (1941)	70	(2)
Cat People (1942)	72	(13)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)	85	(13)
The Leopard Man (1943)	98	(10)
Days of Glory (1944)	108	(4)
Experiment Perilous (1944)	112	(11)
``Reward Unlimited'' (1944)	123	(2)
Canyon Passage (1946)	125	(13)
Out of the Past (1947)	138	(12)
Berlin Express (1948)	150	(8)
Easy Living (1949)	158	(6)
Stars in My Crown (1950)	164	(13)
The Flame and the Arrow (1950)	177	(6)
Circle of Danger (1951)	183	(6)
Anne of the Indies (1951)	189	(9)
Way of a Gaucho (1952)	198	(11)
Appointment in Honduras (1953)	209	(9)
Stranger on Horseback (1955)	218	(3)
Wichita (1955)	221	(8)
Great Day in the Morning (1956)	229	(6)
Nightfall (1957)	235	(7)
Night of the Demon (1957)	242	(14)
The Fearmakers (1958)	256	(6)
Timbuktu (1959)	262	(5)
La Battaglia di Maratona (1959)	267	(3)
The AIP Films: The Comedy of Terrors (1963) and War-Gods of the Deep (1965)	270	(6)
Television Films	276	(13)
Afterword	289	(2)
Notes	291	(10)
Filmography of Jacques Tourneur	301	(18)
Bibliography	319	(4)
Index	323