Confidential (1986) Great White North Noir Nightmare

       "Definitely Twisted" (Noirsville)

Here's a Neo Noir set back at the end of the 1940's.

We are in the Great White North, in Toronto and the area to the west on Lake Ontario at the last lake at the head of the St. Lawrence drainage. It's set in the snow encrusted landscapes of a Canadian winter.

During 1970-72 I lived up on Northern New York's slope that drains to  the St. Lawrence River. It was a bump in the road on Rt 30, called Meachum Lake. It was an Inn and Roadhouse with a few cabins the only place along a 44 mile stretch of spruce bogs, leech infested lakes, and meandering rivers between Saranac Lake and  Malone. It was cold in winter. Everybody had engine block heaters. One night it went down to 46 below and it froze foam car seat cushions so it felt like you were sitting on concrete. So keep that in the back of your heads while watching. 

Written and Directed by Bruce Pittman who worked in Canada so unless you lived in a Northern border city and you picked up some CBC you probably never seen any of his other works. The screencaps are from a digitized VHS tape. It's all you can find it could use a restoration its Noir. Cinematography was by John Herzog. Music by Bruce Ley.

The film stars August Schellenberg (Death Hunt, Black Robe, Geronimo. and many more roles I've never seen) as private detective Charles Ripley.

August Schellenberg as P.I. Charles Ripley

Neil Munro is reporter Hugh Jameson, 

Chapelle Jaffe plays Amelia, Neil Munro (known for stuff I've never heard of) is reporter Hugh Jameson, Tom Butler is Edmund Eislin, Antony Parr is Rufus, Linda Goranson, is Mrs. Jameson, and Kate Parr and Sarah Polley are playing Emma Porter. But I have no Idea which is which.  

The Story

Hotel Selby. Toronto, Canada. 1949 

A man in silhouette sits on a bed in a flop hotel and takes a drag on a cigarette. Jazz plays during this montage. It's the  title sequence. A hooker is in the room with him.

It is partly flashback, partly real time, of an evenings encounter that starts at a strip show and ends with the B-girl / hooker. We see a strip tease routine, we see the hooker kissing the man, we see a press card sticking out of his wallet his mane is Hugh Jamison. 

Back to shots of the stripper whirling around, then we see the hooker disrobing, then straddling the man, this is inter cut with the man sitting on the bed lighting the cigarette. The title sequence ends with a fade to black with 1949 superimposed on the frame. 

The lights go on, we hear two a radio comedians, doing a routine, one is using a broken Italian accent. We see a man in a white t-shirt smoking. He sits, and is staring at the headlines of a copy of an old copy the Examiner. "Axe Murder Shocks Town" July 12th 1912.

The paper is next to a typewriter. The man reaches for shot glass and downs its contents. The hooker, bare-assed, passes behind him wearing just her stockings and bustier, while wiggling  her ass as she walks through a doorway. He flips the paper over and it's headline reads "Accused Murderess Weds," then Emma Porter marries noted biographer Franklin Eislin. 

As he types he reads aloud.

Hugh Jamesion:.It's been nearly 40 years since Edwin Porter was brutally murdered, nearly 40 years since his daughter Emma was charged with the hideous crime."

He continues typing but stops reading. The hooker now back in her dress comes out of the doorway and stops to pick up her money off the bureau by the door. 

She slips the cash down the front of her dress into her bra, and then wordlessly slips out into the hall accompanied by the radio blare and the patter of striking typewriter keys. Hugh's M.O. is to apparently get his rocks off before getting his inspiration to start a story, how Noir is that? 

He begins to read again "and so the peaceful small town was shattered." Fade to black.

The sound of wind from here on out dominates the piece emphasizing the bitter cold of Canadian Winters. It's Fargo-esque in this respect. 

We cut to a dead woman laying on white tiles wedged between the toilet and the the tub. Shotgun-ed down in the john.

Outside the house ,Begliardo, a Toronto homicide cop is griping to Jamison, that he gets dragged out of a warm bed to scrape some dip off the wall. 

The story as he tells us is that it seems like a guy came home to find his wife diddling her favorite tenor sax player. He blows them away one, two, with the double barrel, but he was a lousy shot when it came to blowing his own brains out. So it goes.

When the police photographer comes out Jamison slips him $30 for two prints. They've done business before. He's working both stories.

Cut to a guy playing a licorice stick, up close. Jamison is in a dark bar now, having a drink and  asking the bartender if he remembers Emma Porter, he doesn't.

Jamison, pops up next, sitting in a small newsreel theater watching the only newsreel they have of Emma Porter. Its his first view of her. I think its mentioned that she's the youngest ever to be charged with murder and if I remember right she's 12 at the time. 

Emma Porter at 12

Jamison next goes in to see his boss and tells him he may have a story if he can follow up on Emma. The boss tells him it used to be hot but now nobody is going to remember it. 

The boss tells Jamison  he heard a rumor that a well known Canadian star is a junkie, it must be bait, the kind of story Jamison must excel at. 

Jamison is undeterred, tells his boss he'll work it on his own, plus, he's got vacation time coming up. The boss tells him Ok go ahead, and then they get interrupted by a copyboy with a breaking headline about some ex Canadian ex con murderer who got the chair in Sing Sing in the states. The headline (I don't remember the name of the con) the editor settles on is - "Blank - blank FRIES!" Nice!

Jamison goes to the hospital where Mrs. Nora Porter, Emma's mother was basically institutionalized for shock. The nurse he talks to Jamison and explains him that even Emma's mother didn't know where she went. The nurse also mentions that there was a brother involved too.  

The nurse tells him that Mrs. Porter received letters while she was there, but never answered them and they may still be on file. Jamison asks if he could see them. When the nurse brings them out she tells him the last one came 6 years ago, and as far as she knows they all came from the same place. Jamison see's the return address and takes off. 

We cut to Jamison throwing a suitcase into his 49 Chevy two door coupe and drives off. We see his  wife as she watches him pull out and drive off down the road. 

At the Richroad Asylum he has to get the date of Emma's release by slipping some money to an orderly It was about 18 months ago. Jamison is back on the road again.

He's driving through rural areas to the West of Toronto, and he makes his was to the Eislin House, the return address. Once there he gets out of his car and starts taking photos. 

An outraged Franklyn Eislin comes out of the house. Jamison asks if Emma Porter is there. Eilsin angrily, tells him to leave. Jamison gets chased off  back into his car by Eilsin who was making a grab for his camera. Jamison shuts the door and drives away,

Jamison heads into the nearby town of Shakespeare and finds a place advertising tourist rooms. He drives over to the address, and rents a room for two nights for 12 dollars. 

He's determined to get his story.  He drops off his negatives at the only photographer in town. and then heads to a lunch counter.

He calls his wife from a lunch counter telling her he should be back on Tuesday.

That night he drives back to the Eislin house, he parks his car off the road out of site some distance away and walks up to the house in the dark. Just after he arrives outside of the house, he sees Franklyn come out alone and get into his blue Ford pickup and drive off. 

Jamison walks up to the front door and knocks. Getting no answer he tries the door handle and it opens. He's got balls. He steps inside and calls out for Emma Porter.

He steps further into the house, and then starts methodically tossing the place for info, He's opening draws and looking at the letters and pictures they contain.

He find a photo of a blonde wearing pearls who we don't get identified .  

A photo of Vera Gilbert

"Emma? Emma Potter"?

 He steps further into the house, and then starts methodically tossing the place for info, opening draws and looking at the letters and pictures they contain. While he's so engaged a door slowly opens behind him, and when Jamison notices he walks over to the doorway. In a reverse shot we see him remove his hat and ask "Emma?, Emma Porter?' 

We cut to an outside shot of the Eislin house. A shot goes off, and a light goes out in an upstairs room. This is the end of the first section. 

Cut to Private Eye Charles Ripley walking down an office building hallway while a Voice Over of Mrs.  Jamison is giving the facts as she knows them. She is concerned about the disappearance of her husband. Been missing a week. 

We cut to Ripley now sitting with Mrs. Jamison. She tells Ripley about the last phone call she got from Hugh. She relates that he was a very private man and his work kept him involved. She tells Ripley that "I love you" was the last thing he said and that she doesn't even know if he meant it. 

Linda Goranson as Mrs. Jamison

We cut to Ripley now sitting with Mrs. Jamison. She tells Ripley about the last phone call she got from Hugh. She relates that he was a very private man and his work kept him involved. She tells Ripley that "I love you" was the last thing he said and that she doesn't even know if he meant it. 

Ripley asks if she's been to the police and she tells him yes, but they didn't pay much attention to it because they have a lot of missing person cases. He asks her for a picture of Hugh Jamison, which she supplies. He knows he was working on a story but she doesn't know what about. She also tells him to check the Selby Hotel, he sometimes stayed there when researching and working up a story. 

Ripley next heads back to to his office. His partner Robert is sitting at his desk flipping through photos of two people in bed, cheating spouses.  Ripley tells him he thinks Jamison is gonna be just another divorce case. "A bucket of shit with the handles on the inside." Ripley continues telling Robert that they should have stayed downtown with the boys in blue. Looks like they're basically bedroom dicks.

Ripley next heads to the newspaper and rummages around Jamison's office trying to get a lead on what Jamison was working on until a secretary coming in with mail chases him out, but not before he grabs an envelope with a return address on it.

Now here, once Ripley splits, The editor of the newspaper comes in and they open an envelope  addressed to Jamison. inside is a clipping from a paper with the headline "Actress Vera Gilbert Vanishes" husband Edmond Eislin held for questioning. 

This is the same photo on the clipping of the same woman, that Jamison saw just before he disappeared he didn't know who it was. So Ripley has no idea who she is either.

Next stop is to the hot sheet Hotel Selby. He passes the clerk a fin shows him a photo, and finds out that Jamison always stays a couple nights on a regular basis, and he always brings his typewriter. but he hasn't been around for two weeks. Dead end. 

When Ripley gets back to the office he finds his counterpart, a female detective, who picked their office lock and is seated down waiting for him. She tells him she needs him for a case she's working. She tells Ripley she needs somebody with class, but not much. lol. A rich client wants them to break up the impending marriage of his daughter to a low life, $20 a day plus expenses. Ripley tells her no.

A rich client wants them to break up the impending marriage of his daughter to a low life, $20 a day plus expenses. Ripley tells her no.

When she leaves he pulls out the letter envelope and reads the post mark and says, funny name for a town. Shakespeare,

He ends up at the only place to stay in Shakespeare, the same rooming house Jamison stayed at. When Ripley tells the landlady that anything he said that she remembers can help. Then the landlady mentions that the town photographer stopped by and dropped off an envelope of prints that he developed for Jamison, but Jamison never returned. Ripley asks if he could see them since he was hired by Jamison's wife to find out what happened to him. They open the envelope and both look through the prints. It all starts to go Noirsville when the landlady identifies the Eislin house from the photographs.  

Noirsville

Bruce Pittman created a Noir Mystery that fits pretty well into our Visual Noir Universe. This film will not be for all tastes for differing reasons, its for adults, and it's got a true Noir ending. 

It was released in 1986 so I'm sure is wasn't originally shot in Academy ratio. This VHS is likely panned and scanned. So we can only judge it by this existing digital copy of a an edited for TV VHS tape. 

Confidential is not strictly conventional because there's more pieces to the mystery equation that never get plugged in. It doesn't help that the sheriff walks into the house and tells Ripley's partner what obviously must have happened, all wrong. 

Sort of searching for answers with too many clues that don't make sense. Not all the clues are obvious either, a couple come from newspaper clippings, that we see, and are made aware of that the central characters, in the story are oblivious too. 

There's also the possibility that some characters are not who our two protagonists think they were. I've watched it a couple of times and have seen more the second viewing than the first go round. 

Both Neil Munro and August Schellenberg carry the load, and do well. The actress playing who we think is Emma Porter is great. The cast lists two Emma's and one is a blonde in the newsreel but a brunette when Ripley thinks he meets her at the Eislin house later, is she the same woman? She masters that far away disconnected look. 

I'd like to see a restoration if possible, I doubt any film would have been shot in Academy ratio in 1985-86, but there's also no IMDB info. The probably pan and scan VHS edit has too many closeups that are square on faces that were probably counterbalanced by something in any of the most common wide screen formats. The edit creates an enhanced claustrophobic mood, though. But what did we loose, and would it still be there? Judgement is out for now.  A sort of Fargo-ish / Giallo / Noir.

It's an interesting watch. Screencaps are from a YouTube streamer.  As is a 7/10.

A Perfect Chiller for a Winters Eve.

Imagine if you will, the clouds begin to gather. Your breath shimmers in the blackness of the night. You look up into the sky and see the first fallings of snow.

Keep that image in mind when you watch "Confidential" a truly superior low budget noir thriller written and directed by Bruce Pittman, whose only other film i had seen was "The Haunting Of Hamilton High - Prom Night 2, a sequel far better than the original.

What Pittman's film offers the viewer, is a parade of characters, well represented by the landscape that surrounds them, Cold and calculating. I've always been a fan of film noir's that present a puzzle before your very eyes, even more so when you reach the final frame and find yourself still scratching your head, you just gotta love those kind of movies.

Bruce Pittman really cooked up a perfect brew, an excellent script, perfect casting, everyone involved aided by their period costumes, really looked like they belonged, and dare i say August Shellenberg, long before his encore with a certain sea mammal really rocks with a cool subtlety.

Your probably wondering so where is the review for this movie, as is the rule of thumb with a dark edged thrillers, you can never give more than what you'll get and with "Confidential" all i can say is wrap up warm, turn up the fire, and when the movie is finished and you find yourself looking out over your own cold covered landscape.

Think about the mystery of Emma Porter, the titular character within the confines of "Confidential" and baffle just like i did, but like i always have every time i sit down to watch this thriller from Canada with the coldest of hearts, but with the most intriguing of stories. (IMDb)