Joe MacBeth - An Intense Film Noir

I'd never heard of Joe MacBeth until TCM aired it during their Star of the Month series with Ruth Roman in November. It apparently bombed on release in 1955. Maybe it was too dark and intense for the audiences back then. It is a very violent, gritty story with some unlikable characters. But, it IS based on the Shakespeare play MacBeth, so what did they expect?

Paul Douglas is the title character, a gangster with a mean streak and an evil, ambitious wife, played by Ruth Roman. She talks him into rubbing out his boss while the man is staying at their house. The scenes of his death, and the wife's retrieval of the murder weapon are chilling, and not because they take place in a lake. There's also a scene, thankfully not shown, of a double murder of innocents that drives MacBeth's wife insane. Both she and Joe are deranged, no doubt. And their end is deserved. But in this story, there are very few actual sympathetic souls. You wind up kind of worn out by the finale, but it's a compelling tale, one that I'd watch again if the opportunity arises.

Joe MacBeth was filmed in England. I had an idea it might have been, a lot of the rough gangsters looked like faces I'd seen in British films, like Sid James, Bonar Colleano and Gregoire Aslan. Colleano died very young, at 34, in a car accident. Tragic end to a promising career.

Joe MacBeth is a must-see film for anyone interested in obscure Film Noir.