The biggest problem of some critics and chroniclers of Noir with the film I Wake Up Screaming is that they don't know how to categorize it. It doesn't fit the carefully crafted "German Expressionism" influence scenario that they have worked out as the origin of Noir. It's Director H. Bruce Humberstone, never made another Noir, it's brilliant cinematographer, Edward Cronjager, never filmed another Noir so conceptually and visually it's a one off, one of a kind, sui generis.I'm calling it a seminal "Gateway Noir" because the film serves the same purpose as a gateway drug, it functions as a sort of gateway to Noir for those unfamiliar, at that point in time, with what eventually came to be known stylistically, and hard boiled narratively, as Films Noir.Look at the film in chronological context, only Stranger On The Third Floor (1940) approaches it in Noir visual stylistics, while The Maltese Falcon (1941) released only twenty eight days ahead of it on October 3, has the hard boiled story by Dashiell Hammett, but barely any of the signature visual stylistics. I Wake up Screaming not only was based on the hard boiled novel by Steve Fisher and also has the brilliant Noir stylistics in abundance but it has much much more. You can say that the film has dissociative identity, multiple genres if you will. It's also a bit of a Screwball Comedy, a Romantic Drama, and almost a Musical. This seamless genre bending provides the "gateway" for Comedy, Romance, and Musical audiences at that time into the films that eventually will be pigeonholed into the future Noir cycle.My assertion is that if you've screened I Wake Up Screaming after the various other Noirs it will seem a strange hybrid indeed, because of the conceptions you've already amassed. But, experiencing it as audiences did in 1941 it would probably seem fresh and innovative.The credits flash against a Noir New York Skyline the titles are written in marquee lights and we hear a the musical equivalent of a shrill klaxon horn blasting out a danger warning. It segues into Street Scene one of the signature New York City themes. Street Scene was used by 20th Century Fox for the films Street Scene, Cry of the City, Kiss of Death, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Dark Corner, and as the overture to How to Marry a Millionaire. The story even actually starts with a street scene a newsboy hawking the murder of a model. We then cut to a dark police interrogation room bright spot lights are sweating a suspect, classic Noir. Professional promoter Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) is being grilled, surrounded by shadowy figures barking questions.Frankie then begins to relate the story, and in a flashback we are transported to a Times Square restaurant and we are brightly lit again and into screwball comedy mode. Frankie and his two pals, over the hill actor Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray) and gossip columnist Larry Evans (Allyn Joslyn) flirt with hash slinger Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis). In a nod to Pygmalion Frankie makes a bet that he can transform Vicky into a celebrity inside of six weeks. Cut again to a classy nightclub where Frankie introduces Vicky, now dressed in evening gown and sable, to café-society. Throughout the film the sequences that feature Vicky or are in some way connected to her also have the Street Scene theme in various arrangements jazz, muted trumpet, etc., it becomes her leitmotif, and suggests the Musical genre. In a later sequence in a police projection room we see Vicky singing on her screen test.We cut back to the police station, back to the present, and back into Noirsville. We now see Jill Lynn (Betty Grable) being questioned in the dimly lit squad room. As Jill tells her story we again go into flashback. She tells us how Vicky came home that first night and told Jill that she was through slinging hash and that from now on she had other things to sling. She had offers for modeling, commercials etc., etc. Jill tells her it's just easy money "your picture is on a magazine one day and in the ash can the next." Vicky is unfazed she snaps back that she knows what she wants and how to get it..The weeks pass and Jill finds herself falling in love with Frankie. Every time Jill and Frankie are together Over the Rainbow plays in one form or another as their "love" leitmotif another nod to musicals. Street Scene is not only Vicky's leitmotif but also it represents the New York, anything goes, sophisticate. The juxtaposition between it and Over The Rainbow which also brings to mind innocence is interesting for this Noir.During another session with the cops Jill remembers a stranger she saw staring at Vicky through the window of the restaurant one night. It turns out to be Lt. Cornell (the name a nod to Cornell Woolrich) who is unhealthily obsessed with Vicky Lynn. Cornell also has a moody, sinister leitmotif.Cornell is trying hard to pin the murder on Frankie, going as far as withholding and planting evidence. Elisha Cook Jr. is Harry Williams the nervous Nellie desk clerk at the residence hotel where Vicky and Jill have their apartment.We get another Screwball Comedy sequence when Vicky tells her three "creators" that she's signed a long term contract for Hollywood and that she's leaving for the West Coast. We see Frankie, Robin, and Larry are seated on bar stools drowning their sorrows and taking pop shots at one another.The cat and mouse game between Frankie and Cornell plays out to the end with some nice interesting twists. The screen-caps are from the Fox Film Noir DVD. The film is like an early flyover of Noirsville 9/10.

My feelings about this film changed when I watched it last night on TCM during Betty Grable's Summer Under the Stars tribute. It is not as good as I remembered. It suffers from quite a few plot contrivances, and the main stars look a little uncomfortable in their roles (except for Laird Cregar and Carole Landis), and for the most part it sort of registers like a glorified B crime film. I think Grable was right when she told studio boss Darryl Zanuck that she was not cut out for straight dramatic parts and stuck to musicals henceforth. In a musical you can get by with mediocre acting if your dancing and singing is spectacular. But in a film of this nature, with nothing else to fall back on, you have to be very convincing-- and in some spots she is a bit too self-conscious and not at all convincing. Costar Victor Mature does not exactly have a handle on his character either (but as his career at Fox continued, he would become a dependable dramatic lead). VICKI, the remake that hit screens twelve years with Jeanne Crain and Jean Peters, is better in my opinion.

Film noir is one of the most difficult genres to do, because it is very tough to hold a normal person's interest with nothing more than tough talk.And that's why good noir has more than just tough talk.This one is about a pair of sisters, one of whom is killed before she can do a screen test to become a star.The suspects number a half dozen principle players, but three of them are obviously red herrings (the sister, the older actor, and the newspaper man). Of the other three, we know that usually in noir movies, it is typically the little timid guy played by Cook, but it becomes evident that this is a long shot, and would be a contrived ending when we see the conflict between the two chief suspects.This is because the hero awakens to find the creepy detective in his room, the same detective who was known to stalk the murdered girl. And later the detective and a cop produce the alleged murder weapon from the hero's room, which the hero says was planted.This happens about half way through the film, and it obviously infers that either the hero is guilty or the detective is insane. If the detective is insane, and not guilty of the murder, that would be a little too Hollywood in "contrived and coincidental" outcomes.So not to spoil the ending, I won't say how it does end. I will say the film holds your interest, because there is a good mixture of charm, wit, action, and drama. It is smartly directed.

and besides it IS pretty much "awful" as 1 is supposed to indicate maybe it might get another star for the fact that they put Victor at the swimming' hole at what midnight or something... which is quite a stretch at least they realized that as groucho said, the man's breasts were bigger than the lady's. anyway his hotness'es hotness is about all in the in this venture, along with the always welcome Laird Cregar, always welcome LC! Watching this also I could only think how could Carole Landis give up the ghost fo Rex darned Harrison?? Life is strange isn't it? There's no justice, is there?