Creepy Noir

I have kind of a love-hate relationship going with the Independent Film Channel (IFC). Sometimes they air some terrific stuff, and other times they show some real crap (over and over again). But when they’re on, they’re on. This weekend, IFC aired The Honeymoon Killers, a creepy 1969 movie based loosely on the true story of Ray Fernandez and Martha Beck, who met through a newspaper ad in the late 1940s and set about scamming and killing single, desperate women just to steal their meager savings. Director Leonard Kastle filmed it in black-and-white, giving the picture a cold and disturbing atmosphere. Shirley Stoler as the obese Martha and Tony LoBiano as the dashing Ray were both brilliant and well cast. In real life, Ray and Martha were fried at Sing Sing in 1951. This film was so unsettling it creeped me out for the entire weekend. (The first murder, performed with a simple claw hammer and a pair of stockings, was surprisingly realistic, and Kastle didn’t hold anything back.) Interesting note: A little research revealed that Martin Scorsese was the original director, but was fired after a few days for taking too long to set up shots. I’m not sure how much influence he had on the overall tone of the picture, but it would seem almost inevitable that he had some. Highly recommended.

And when they’re off, they tend to be way off. On Sunday night, IFC showed Last Man Standing, the truly horrible Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken film about a bunch of 1930s thugs in a dumpy little Texas border town all killing each other. For who cares why. With every cliche imaginable. With voiceover. Ugh. It almost seemed as if IFC had intentionally programmed a fine example of noir against a lousy one. This is how it is done, and this is how it should never be done. Totally not recommended.