Joe MacBeth (1955) Shakespeare goes Noirsville

Directed by Ken Hughes (Heat Wave, Wicked as They Come, The Long Haul, The Small World of Sammy Lee). 

Written by Ken Hughes, Philip Yordan, and William Shakespeare. Cinematography by Basil Emmott and Music by Trevor Duncan.

Starring Paul Douglas (Clash By Night, Fourteen Hours, Panic In The Streets) as Joe MacBeth, Ruth Roman (Beyond The Forest, Champion, Lightning Strikes Twice, Strangers On A Train, Tomorrow is Another Day, The Window) as Lily MacBeth, Bonar Colleano (Pool Of London) as Lennie, Grégoire Aslan as Duca a.k.a. "The Duke." Sid James as Banky.

Paul Douglas as Joe MacBeth, and Ruth Roman  as Lily MacBeth

 Sid James as Banky

Bonar Colleano as Lennie

Grégoire Aslan as Duca 

With Harry Green as Big Dutch, Walter Crisham as Angus, Kay Callard as Ruth, Robert Arden as Ross, Alfred Mulock (The Good The Bad And The Ugly, Once Upon A Time In The West) as First Assassin, George Margo as Second Assassin. 

Story

This takes place in an imaginary "Noirsville" New York City. 

It's all hatched up by the combined brains of director Ken Hughes, and Philip Yordan. They visualize Shakespeare's MacBeth as a modern gangster story. A gangland war between various factions and the men who lead them, each trying to become the "King-pin" of organized crime. The ersatz city is an establishing skyline shot of actual New York City and later you will notice another insert of an elevated with a train crossing over a street. There's a stock footage car chase with what looks like 1940s cars, but Joe MacBeth's ride is a 1950 Ford De Luxe. The rest of the set is all Shepperton Studios. We get a Nightclub that sits in a sort of cul-de-sac. It starts out being called Tommy's and runs through a succession of Neon sign name changes after each owner meets his demise. 

There's the lake house with a tower that is the home of MacBeth, a lake to go with it, and a tenement looking building, but everything else is pretty much interior studio sets. 

The film has a nice opening sequence. We see the exterior of Tommy's Place. A car pulls up an man gets out.  

The Nightclub that sits in a sort of cul-de-sac. It starts out being called Tommy's and runs through a succession of Neon sign name changes after each owner meets his demise. 

From there we go to the garage headquarters and we get the intro to all of Joe MacBeth's gang. It's explained that MacBeth assassinated Tommy, underboss to the big guy "Duke" Duca, on the Duke's orders. 

MacBeth tells Duca it took so long because Tommy, he thought, was never going to close up. Duca gives Joe a bonus for the job well done. Its a ring.

We then segue to Joe finally getting to Lily who he has left standing at the alter 2 hours late on their wedding day. 

Lily throws her bouquet in his face. 

After the wedding, the reception is held at the newly named nightclub DUCA's formally known as Tommy's. Rosie a flower selling fortune teller crashes the party.

 

At the reception Rosie the fortune teller pushes her way into Joe and Lily's private booth and takes out her tarot cards. She shuffles the deck and tells Joe to cut it. The the cards come up knave, tower, and king. Rosie tells Joe that he's destined to become the Kingpin of the gang. 

Joe doesn't take it seriously but Lily does. The Duke shows up to congratulate the couple and as a wedding present gives Joe and Lily the key to the Lake House (that has a tower like the tarot card) and makes Joe the new underboss.

A new Gang war breaks out with a rival gang led by Big Dutch. Joe is able to poison his food and eliminate him. 

At a party that Lily and Joe throw at their new mansion celebrating the demise of Big Dutch, Lily convinces Joe that this is the time to stab the Duke and take over as Kingpin. Joe is at first reluctant but Lily goads him on. 

The deed is done but Joe is shaken up and left the knife in the body. Lily must go in the water herself and dive down and retrieve the weapon. 

In the morning the Duke's bodyguards come to pick him up. He's nowhere to be found.

Lily claims to have discovered Duke's bathrobe by the lake. Did he go swimming in the night and drown? When they find the body Joe declares himself the new Kingpin. Its starts to go Noirsville when Lenny resents Joes rapid rise to the top claiming that his father Banky got a raw deal.

Noirsville 

It's certainly watchable. I like Paul Douglas, Ruth Roman, and Bonar Colleano. It was also nice to see Al Mulock in something else. About a 6.5 /10 a 7 with a better print.   

"The knife knows where to go. Follow it!"

hwg1957-102-2657044 May 2020

Warning: Spoilers

Made at Shepperton Studios in England, this is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's play 'Macbeth' set in the world of American gangsters and I thought it came across very well. Part of the interest is to see how the Scottish play is echoed in the film and where it diverts but on its own terms it is a rattling good yarn with atmospheric noir cinematography by Basil Emmott and confident direction by Ken Hughes who often made a low budget stretch effectively. The banquet scene is particularly well done.

It is helped by a near perfect cast. Standing out for me were Ruth Roman as the ambitious Lily MacBeth, Sidney James as the seasoned Banky and Grégoire Aslan as the outgoing kingpin Duncan, not forgetting Walter Crisham as the dry butler Angus who has seen mobsters come and go. Continuity for the film was done by the splendidly named Splinters Deason.

This was much better than expected and gripped from beginning to end.

 7/10

A pretty valiant effort

HotToastyRag9 November 2021

William Shakespeare's classic gets a re-telling and new setting to the 1950s in Joe Macbeth. How to make the bloodbath accessible to a modern audience? Make the main characters gangsters, of course! It was a great concept, and since I love the lead actor, Paul Douglas, I was very excited to see it. For the most part, it was a really valiant effort. The plot was pretty close, but with some substitutions that would make more sense in 1955. Instead of three witches, there's a Thelma Ritter wannabe who tells fortunes with tarot cards. Instead of Macduff and Banquo, the characters are renamed Duffy and Banky. King Duncan of Scotland is instead Duncan, kingpin of the American crime gang. Towards the end, it did get a little melodramatic (like the end of Scarface), but I'm sure there are some folks who won't mind. After all, it's a re-telling of Shakespeare - isn't it supposed to be melodramatic?

Ruth Roman, who shows off her lovely figure in some great gowns, plays the evil Lily Macbeth who encourages her husband Paul Douglas to bump off the head of the crime syndicate so he can replace him. She does a great job, reminiscent of Joan Crawford or Eleanor Parker, who could have also played Lady Macbeth. Paul is perfect casting, with his softie demeanor making him an easy target for his wife to manipulate.

Paul Douglas fans will love this movie, although they'll probably wish it had been made with a little bigger budget. I'm always interested in seeing "understandable" versions of Shakespeare stories, since in their native language, I usually can't understand what the characters say. As an unexpected treat, I got the biggest kick out of seeing Sidney James (from the hilarious Carry On series) in a drama, and with an American accent!

8/10

Sid James plays it straight in powerful reworking of Shakespeare story

Igenlode Wordsmith15 March 2007

Warning: Spoilers

When you're talking about Shakespeare on film, the usual suspects are the foreign classics of Kurosawa and Kozintsev -- Kenneth Branagh and Laurence Olivier star-directing -- Leonardo di Caprio and Heath Ledger playing for the teenage market. "Joe Macbeth" I'd never even heard of.

I only went to see this picture because it was billed as a chance to see Sid James in a straight dramatic role: surely one of Britain's most ubiquitous and unsung supporting actors. Before becoming a household name identified with the "Carry On" series, he supported stars ranging from Vivian Leigh to Charlie Chaplin and Burt Lancaster, turning up in everything from "The Titfield Thunderbolt" to Nigel Kneale's "Quatermass" and a remake of "The 39 Steps" -- plus any number of other productions of the period -- but almost invariably as comic relief.

In "Joe Macbeth", however, he plays a central part in the plot as New York gangster 'Banky', whose murder is the step too far that sets his friend, colleague and newly self-elevated boss, Joe Macbeth, on the road to oblivion. The role is played absolutely straight (in an American accent throughout), and Sid James convinces as the grizzled enforcer whose loyalty is beyond question. Within the skewed morality of the film's setting, Banky, who just wants his son out of the racket, is one of the good guys; and it is with his death that Macbeth's actions tip into the indefensible, both in his own perceptions (witnessed by the appearance of 'Banky's ghost') and in ours.

With next to no idea of what to expect from the film, I was very impressed. In 1954, this must have been one of the first screenplays to make the connection between Shakespeare and film noir: the rewrite fits with uncanny accuracy. Macbeth's wife is the prototypical tough-as-nails dame whose ambition pushes her lover/dupe into waters deeper than he knows, while the ruthless wars, power struggles, family loyalties and even the banquets slip into the Mob template like a glove. Once it has been pointed out, the low budget -- night-time shooting, small number of sets, tight camera angles -- is self-evident, but virtue has been made out of necessity. Killings take place 'off-stage', telegraphed by the flat, unforgiving thud of the executioner's gun, scenes are claustrophobic, and the tension of the unseen is nail-biting.

With the exception as mentioned of Sid James (playing against type), the actors were all unknown to me, but the performances were excellent. The only uncertain note I felt was struck by Bonear Colleano, as a weak and somewhat petulant Lennie who is convincing enough as a youngster constitutionally unsuited to life in the Mob, but less so when the worm supposedly turns: Banky might have had the seniority to take over from 'Mac' when his men rebel, but his son's sudden elevation as heir-apparent by all these hardened killers leaves a credibility gap. But this may be a question of direction; in the 'banquet scene', we certainly see a Lennie who has gained the self-control to become dangerous.

Paul Douglas as Macbeth is superb, veering from bull-like power to pathos in an instant, and capturing audience sympathy as the bloody protagonist who destroys himself step by reluctant, reasonable-seeming step: when the machine-gun's bullets finally rip through his body, it can only be release. Ruth Roman shines as the wife who urges him against his visceral, slow-thinking instincts, tries to hold his crumbling empire together against the odds, and yet breaks down when she walks in on the slaughter of the innocent; the tone of their marriage is set from their first scene together, where she slaps the wilted wedding bouquet across his face after he keeps her waiting two hours at the altar, yet there is a genuine charge between them. Joe Macbeth's fall may come, in true noir style, from a doomed passion for a ruthless woman, but her ambition for their marriage is ultimately a defensive one, and neither will leave or betray the other. When she dies at his hand, it is with the intent of making a last stand at his side.

Gregoire Aslan made an impression on me as the smooth-talking /capo/ whom Mac is driven to murder and replace, and Walter Crisham as pale Angus the butler, who has seen a succession of mobsters come and go in the house by the lake and taken care never to evince too close an interest in any of them. Shakespeare's three witches are encompassed in one volume by Minerva Pious as Rosie, tarot reader and failed actress, who takes pointed pleasure in quoting lines from "Macbeth" to its namesake -- perhaps the most obvious of the many allusions to the characters and actions of the original play.

The homage is quite explicit, extending at times to close paraphrasing of the dialogue, yet it is impressively unforced. For all its echoes, the adaptation is a free one, a story and milieu in its own right and not a gimmick; it is as unafraid to make sweeping changes as it is to add ironic references back to the source text. It has touches of black comedy, of horror and of pure gangster action, shifting more or less effortlessly between them. I found it a very powerful film.