Soho Bites 49: Noose (1948)

February 6 · 1 hr 14 min · Episode 49 · 107.6 MB

0:00-1:14:43

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Spiv Noir.

According to the billing, the stars of 1948's Noose (known as The Silk Noose in the US) are Carole Landis, Joseph Calleia & Derek Farr, but the real star of the film is Nigel Patrick who is cast against type as Bar Gorman, a sharply dressed, fast talking spiv.

Set firmly in Soho, it tells the story of how the police, the press & a group of normal citizens, try to loosen the choke-hold of gangsters on the city. The film is one of a group of films known as "the spiv cycle".

The director, Edmond T. Gréville, also directed Beat Girl which is straight from the fridge daddio.

Dr Josephine Botting, curator at the BFI, joins us to talk about Noose, Edmond T. Gréville and the spiv cycle.

Interesting article about the spiv cycle of films.

In the first half of the show we were joined by the mighty Steve Hayes to talk about the life and death of Carole Landis.

Steve has a brilliant YouTube channel, Tired Old Queen at the Movies and, rather like Morgan Freeman, George Burns and John Huston, he once played God in a movie.

In our interview, Steve mentioned those two famously bitchy and competitive Hollywood gossip columnists, Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons.

Here's the listing for the 1947 stage version of Noose on the Theatricalia website and also a copy of the programme.

We're fans of vintage lobby cards on Soho Bites - here's a couple of colourised ones for Noose.

Friend of the show, Rob Baker, wrote an article about British post-war gangster films on his Flashbak website.

A News Chronicle article from September 13th, 1945 by Bill Naughton - "Meet the Spiv".

There's plenty of stuff online about Carole Landis and her suicide, most of which is pretty salacious and muck-rakey. This one is too, but written slightly better than the rest.

A Carole Landis tribute site.

Carole did not appreciate being called The Ping Girl.

Booking for the monthly Projecting the Archive at the BFI is highly recommended.

At the time of writing this, the Museum of Soho website is under redevelopment - check back soon. In the meantime you can follow their Instagram.

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