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Saturday, March 21, 2026
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Noirsville Noir Images of the Week
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| Louis Faure |
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| Louise Crawford flashing her nickers - How Noir of her... |
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| Walker Evans |
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| Waiting Room - Greyhound Bus Depot - NYC - 1947 - Esther Bubley |
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| Times Square and the Great White Way - Unknown |
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| 6th Ave. el - Wurts Bros |
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| Virginia Rodgers - Unknown |
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| Pennsylvania Station - Unknown |
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| Avalon Theatre - Catalina Island - Unknown |
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| Service Station with Junkyard - Unknown |
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| Savoy Club - Happy Times - Harlem - Unknown |
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| Warming her buns - Backstage cold theater - Steam heat - Unknown |
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| A round house line up - O. Winston Link |
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| Vienna - Elfriede Mejchar |
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| O'Reilly's Bar - 3rd Avenue - Manhattan - 1942 - Unknown |
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| Vintage beauty - How Noir of her... - Unknown |
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| Las Vegas - Unknown |
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| Bettie Page - Charles West |
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| Coney Island - Brooklyn Pix - Unknown |
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| Bettie Page - How Noir of her - Unknown |
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| Broadway Limited at Pennsylvania Station - Louis Stettner |
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Noirsville Screenshot of the Week
Judy Young and John John Aristedes in Joe Sarno's Transitional Noir Bronx Tale - Flesh & Lace (1965)
Repulsion (1965) Psychological Horror Noir
(Noirsville)
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We then cut to Carol walking to lunch on her break. This sequence has a jazz flute composition.
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A
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Directed by Roman Polanski (Knife in the Water, Rosemarys Baby, Chinatown, Frantic, Bitter Moon).
Screenplay by Roman Polanski, Gérard Brach, and David Stone, from a story by Roman Polanski and Gérard Brach.
Cinematography by Gilbert Taylor (Yield to the Night, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Cul-de-sac, The Avengers TV Series, Frenzy, Flash Gordon, The Bedroom Window) and Music by Chico Hamilton
The film stars Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour, La sirène du Mississipi, The Last Metro) as Carol Ledoux, Ian Hendry (Get Carter) as Michael, John Fraser (The Desert Rats, Dam Busters, Secret Agent aka Danger Man and Dr. Who TV Series) as Colin, Yvonne Furneaux (The Mummy, La Dolce Vita, Secret Agent aka Danger Man TV Series) as Helen Ledoux.
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| Catherine Deneuve as Carol Ledoux |
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| Ian Hendry as Michael |
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| John Fraser as Colin |
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| Yvonne Furneaux as Helen Ledoux. |
The rest of the cast inclusdes, Patrick Wymark as landlord, Renée Houston as Miss Balch, Valerie Taylor as Madame Denise, James Villiers as John, Helen Fraser as Bridget, and Hugh Futcher as Reggie.
I first saw this on TV back in the 80s or 90s. It didn't do it justice. Watching it restored in the correct aspect ratio lets you get the full Visual Style impact, and you see that it's a highly significant method used by Polanski to tell the story visually.
If your not familiar with Deneuve or John Fraser think of say Inger Stevens and the icy characters she was good at and, Dean Jones' nice guy type characters. Ian Hendry remined me of a more serious Leonard Rossiter.
Story
We hear a loud percussive dominated score with an almost siren like whine. We see a giant eyeball. A woman's eyeball the lashes are mascaraed the opening credits run.
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The eye is moving about quite naturally. We back further out and more of the woman's features. When the director credit is done we back out to the full face of Carol Ledoux. She has a vacant stare.
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She is employed as a manicurist in what amounts to a huge, two story beauty salon. We eventually see that she is holding the hand of an older woman. An older woman having a facial.We hear a pan flute.
Its a slightly bizarre sequence because from Carol's face we cut to a close up of the woman having the facial. Her head is wrapped in a towel and she's covered with the sheet, her eyes are protected by eye patches and the clay mask completes the mummy like appearance of the client.
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We back further out and Carol is motionless. Finally the client stirs and asks Carol if she is asleep. Another beautician comes into the room and begins to remove the mask.
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The client asks Carol for a different color nail polish, and when she goes to Madame Denisse, the matronly owner, to get the color requested we get a tour of the enormity of the beauty salon.
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| Valerie Taylor as Madame Denise |
We then cut to Carol walking to lunch on her break. This sequence has a jazz flute composition.
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She is very cute in her street clothes and she catches the eye of a lot of the workmen when she passes a sewer crew taking their own break. When she passes The Hoof & Toy a public house, Colin, seated by the window gets excited when he spots her and rapps on the pane as she passes.
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She is very cute in her street clothes and she catches the eye of a lot of the workmen when she passes a sewer crew taking their own break. When she passes The Hoof & Toy a public house, Colin, seated by the window gets excited when he spots her and rapps on the pane as she passes. Carol either blows him off or doesn't see him and continues down the street.
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Colin can only take so much of the ribbing and after leaving the pub he spots Carol sitting on a bench still staring at at the same crack. Colin breaks the spell when he steps upon the crack.
It ends at a greasy plate of fish and chips on a table in a restaurant.
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| fish & chips |
Carol is again sitting and staring vacantly. It's here where Colin catches up to Carol. He knocks on the plate glass window to get Carols attention. He mimes if he could come in and join her. Carol nods.
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Colin is very persistent by not very observational, he's obsessed with Carol. We, the audience have been getting all the visual clues and signs that Carol is not quite all there. Colin is obviously clueless. Colin probably assumes that Carol is just a very shy woman.
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He walks her back to the salon and tries to make a date for the evening. Carol replies that she's eating with her sister, so the ever persistent Colin switches the date to tomorrow. Carol doesn't say no, and Colin takes that as an encouraging yes, while the audience already knows that Carol is off in space.
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Cue the flute music and we see Carol riding in an elevator on her way up to the apartment she shares with her big sister Helen. In the apartment we watch as she slips out of her shoes, removes her skirt and top, then walks in just her slip to the bathroom where she washes her feet off in the sink.
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While she is washing off her feet she gets annoyed that Helens boyfriend John has put his toothbrush and straight razor in "her" glass. She takes them out, and lays them on the glass shelf.
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In the kitchen Helen is peeling potatoes. Carol comes in and asks if she's still going away.
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Helen attempts to tell Carol a funny story but Carol cuts in aksing "why does he have to put his toothbrush in may glass?" Helen replies "please." Carol then changes the subject remarking that we have to get this crack fixed. But at this point we have no idea what she is talking about.
The doorbell rings. Carol runs to her room. It's John showing up early.
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John gives Helen a little squeeze on her ass as she walks by him after opening the door.
Helen reads the recipe and announces that it will take about an hour and a half before the rabbit will be ready for their dinner. John counters by inviting her out to dinner instead telling her to get dressed.
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Carol is never happy to see John. She slips past him to go into Helen's room. There she asks if Helen is still going away on holiday with John. Helen answers her, as if she has been asked the same question a thousand times. Helen is getting a bit frustrated with her.
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John has definitely picks up on the signals that not all is well with the little sister Carol. "Cinderella," is what he calls Carol. In the elevator going down with Helen. John mentions that Carol doesn't like him. Helen replies that Carol is just "sensitive." John remarks that she should go see a doctor.
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John definitely picks up on the signals that not all is well with the little sister Carol. "Cinderella," is what he calls Carol. In the elevator going down John mentions that Carol doesn't like him. Helen replies that Carol is just "sensitive." John remarks that she should go see a doctor.
When we cut back to Carol. She is seated by a table looking at her distorted image reflected in a chrome teapot.
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Then we get a sequence where a pan allows us to see all the trinkets of her life strewn on the fireplace mantel.
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Carol weighs putting on a record but decides not to and at the end of another pan, we zoom on a childhood photo which, later we find is a clue to the why of the whole film. fade to black.
Clocks. We hear clocks. We now see a window, a night breeze lightly rustles the curtains.
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Carol is awakened at night by the sounds of, heavy breathing, lovemaking and Helen's loud amplified climax.
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Carol finally rolls over and covers her head.
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The next morning Helen is up and in the kitchen, and Carol walks in on John shaving in the loo.
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When John splits Carol asks Helen with her hands on her hips, if John is going to be there. every night?
Helen replies that it's no affair of hers. This little argument continues into Helens room but is interrupted by a phone call from the landlord asking again for the late rent. Helen says she'll have it and that he can pick it up from Carol since she is leaving on a holiday.
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We get more goings on at the beauty salon, and afterwards on Carol's way (either home or to her date with Colin) she sees a crack in the sidewalk and it stops her dead cold.
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| the crack |
Colin, at the Hoof and Toy is getting ribbed by his buds at the pub, at Carols no show. We find out here that Colin is somehow related to Carol (a distant cousin), through the conversations he's having.
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| Colin's pub pals |
Colin can only take so much of the ribbing and after leaving the pub he spots Carol sitting on a bench still staring at at the same crack. Colin breaks the spell when he steps upon the crack.
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He asks her what happened telling her that he been waiting over an hour, and she replies "What for?" Colin just doesn't pick up on these subtle hints that Carol is "wound a bit too tight."
He takes her to his 1964 Triumph TR4, and they drive off. It starts going Noirsville when, stopped at a light Colin leans over and steals a kiss from a now horrified Carol, who hops out of the car and runs off.
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When Carol gets back to the elevator in their building we see her still vigorously wiping off her lips.
Noirsville
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Polanski does a great job using all the tools in the Noir Visual Style toolbox to visually tell the story depicting Carol's obvious symptoms of PTSD. He also nicely juxtaposes Deneuve's icy beauty with her blank expressions. Beautiful but deadly, a destroying angel. Bravo! 8/10