"Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without turkey."

Thanksgiving noir + favorite film flops for Turkey Day

Thanksgiving comes in Noirvember, but a Thanksgiving-related noir is a rare bird indeed. The casino heist flick 5 Against the House (1955) takes place over Thanksgiving, during a Reno cowboy celebration, a “Western Mardi Gras,” that conveniently allows the film’s band of collegiate robbers to disguise themselves. While not as tough or engaging as Phil Karlson’s best, 5 Against the House is worth a watch, even an occasional rewatch, for Brian Keith, Kim Novak, and a script so full of wisecracks that enough of them hit the mark.

Repeat Performance, the other notable Thanksgiving noir on my mind, is more associated with New Year’s Eve, when Joan Leslie’s character makes a time-warping wish. However, this supernatural crime melodrama hits all the major end-of-year holidays, starting with a calamitous Thanksgiving banquet in a Broadway theater. Catty matron of the arts Natalie Schafer (yes, the future Mrs. Thurston Howell III) gleefully decides to spice up the proceedings by humiliating the heroine and exposing her cheating hubby.

Back in 1947, some exhibitors would’ve have argued that Repeat Performance itself was a turkey fit to be served with cranberries and mashed potatoes. As one Nebraska theater manager complained, “Our dyed-in-the-wool movie fans, the few who came, could not swallow this one. They will not patronize such pictures and there is no point in running them and wasting everyone’s time.”

Fortunately, not all cinematic turkeys stay cooked. Critical reevaluations and shifts in public tastes can turn yesterday’s turkey into today’s honored classic.

For Turkey Day, I’m featuring a motley assortment of enjoyable* films that might’ve been considered turkeys in their day. From an awkward whodunit to a camp classic, from a goofy celestial comedy to a now-acclaimed noir, all were critical and/or commercial disappointments. Grab the carving knife and let’s dig in.

*Your mileage may vary.

Satan Met a Lady (William Dieterle, 1936)

Director William Dieterle, a devotee of astrology, must’ve been working with some rough transits here. Mercury in retrograde wouldn’t begin to cover it. The second adaptation of Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon seems hellbent on eradicating all of the novel’s hardboiled brilliance. Names and plot details were wantonly changed to overload the film with screwball whimsy à la Thin Man.

The result is an inappropriate, occasionally grating car crash of a movie. All its messiness and pastiche elements add up to fascinating postmodern jumble. The mismatch of tone and material produces an off-kilter mean-spiritedness that reminds me more of neo-noir than classic noir, which the next Falcon adaptation would usher in. Bette Davis obviously considered the film beneath her, yet she can’t help but bring some bite to the femme fatale role. A wild lampoon of the smooth operator private eye, Warren William goofs and mugs his way through the film.

While admitting that Satan is not a good movie, I confess that I’ve had a lot of fun with this flop. It amuses me to speculate about what it could have been with a firmer approach and a better script. I rarely rewatch it in full, but when I see it’s on the WatchTCM app, I’ll skip through and revisit my favorite scenes (the ones with Marie Wilson or Bette Davis). If you do decide to check it out, you’ll be rewarded with some fashion eye candy designed by the great Orry-Kelly. Who doesn’t want to see Queen Bette in a sparkly bow tie?

Why it’s a turkey: According to Warren William biographer John Stangeland, “It fared so poorly at the box office that a Warners executive later insisted that they had to give out dishes wherever Satan Met a Lady was playing.” (That’s the story Davis told too.) Harrison’s Reports rated it only “Fair to Poor” box office. Critics tore it to ribbons.

Rent or buy Satan Met a Lady on Amazon.

The Horn Blows at Midnight (Raoul Walsh, 1945)

An angel is sent to earth with a dire assignment: blow his horn and annihilate the planet. Sounds like a good premise for an Ingmar Bergman movie, doesn’t it? But this is a wacky fantasy-comedy vehicle for the one and only Jack Benny. And the whole apocalypse angle is a dream. A troublesome trumpeter in the Paradise Coffee radio orchestra is lulled to sleep by the sponsor’s ASMR-esque sales pitch and imagines himself a member of the big brass section in the sky. Once dispatched to earth, Benny’s heavenly messenger saves a suicidal cigarette girl, botches his mission, and clashes with gangsters and fallen angels.

Though probably best known as the butt of Benny’s in-jokes, The Horn Blows at Midnight isn’t nearly as bad as it’s cracked up to be. Its visions of a vast divine orchestra are genuinely impressive. Another visual highlight is a sequence built around a giant coffee pot advertisement hanging on the side of a skyscraper. The set piece will certainly look familiar to fans of the Adam West Batman series.

Why it’s a turkey: It’s unclear to me whether this film lost money or simply didn’t perform as hoped. Jack Benny biographer Irving A. Fein wrote that the film “managed to end up in the black,” but on what timeline, I wonder. In any case, this film’s heavy thud continued to reverberate throughout Jack Benny’s career, with numerous in-jokes about the legendary flop on his radio and TV shows. He never made another feature film.

Watch The Horn Blows at Midnight on the Internet Archive. (There’s a Warner Archive sale going on here too if you want to buy the DVD.)

Born to Kill (Robert Wise, 1947)

Some noirs have a femme fatale. Some have an homme fatal. This one has both and may represent a high point in sinister flirting. Gambler/drifter/psycho-brute Sam Wilde kills his two-timing girlfriend and her boy-toy in Reno, then skips town for San Francisco. On the train, he meets unscrupulous divorcee Helen Brent and they coyly bond over their shared psychopathy. Once Sam sniffs out Helen’s rich foster sister, however, he marries the money. As a shady investigator closes in on Sam’s guilty secret, will Helen protect him or betray him?

I can’t entirely fault 1947 audiences for rejecting this one. I didn’t much care for it myself when I first saw it. Blame Claude Chabrol for biasing me with an unfairly harsh assessment on the film and Robert Wise. (See the Bits & Bobs below.) Such are the perils of reading about a film before you see it! When I revisited Born to Kill a few years ago, its rancid twist on amour fou and vicious sense of humor finally won me over. Double Indemnity gives us cynicism. Out of the Past gives us poetry. Born to Kill gives us the finger.

Several scenes, particularly the Reno double murder, the bloodthirsty pantry clinch, and the sand dune chase, deserve to be mentioned among the best of noir. Last but not least, Esther Howard’s boozy, bawdy Mrs. Kraft is noir’s most original avenging angel.

Why it’s a turkey: Born to Kill lost money for RKO, a fact which no doubt made the studio less inclined to forgive rising star Lawrence Tierney’s hell-raising habits. The flop made producer Dore Schary conclude that the film noir movement, as we’d call it today, had run its course and audiences were tired of violent crime movies. As he told a trade paper, “that kind of low-keyed picture is doomed.” Thank goodness (or perhaps badness) he was wrong.

You can rent or buy Born to Kill on YouTube, among other major streaming platforms.

Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968)

Ailing heiress Sissy Goforth rules her private Mediterranean island like a tyrant. She spends her days dictating her memoirs, which she broadcasts over the intercom of her palace. When handsome poet Christopher Flanders washes up on the shore, a potential love affair intrigues Sissy. She’s dismayed to learn that Flanders carries the reputation of an “angel of death” to rich women.

Nothing I could tell you about this movie would prepare you for how magnificently ridiculous it is. Dialogue sounds like AI-generated avant-garde poetry. Richard Burton postures with a katana. Easter Island heads inexplicably peer out from the Mediterranean landscape. Liz Taylor screeches and pushes a portable X-ray machine off a cliff in a fit of pique. Noël Coward yodels, for crying out loud!

Instead of cancelling out its darker undercurrents, Boom’s campiness compliments its eeriness. Sissy Goforth’s outlandish self-indulgence cannot save her, or even distract her, from the fate that faces us all. The film ends on a shuddery note: a cocktail of diamonds and death, a cryptic word intoned over crashing waves.

Why it’s a turkey: Boom! bombed hard, inspiring many a waggish pun on the title in reviews of the era. In Hollywood’s Tennesee, authors Palmer and Bray imply that the film was “bound for box-office disaster” and Losey knew it. After all, its source material had already bombed on the stage. According to John Waters, Losey even bragged that he was the first director ever to lose money with the star couple of Liz & Dick.

Watch Boom! on YouTube. (The quality isn’t great. I own and highly recommend the Shout! Factory Blu-ray.)

Bits & Bobs

• Original Warner Brothers press book for The Horn Blows at Midnight. The ad ideas omitting the word horn in favor of a picture (so they seem to read “Blows at Midnight”) suggest that somebody at WB knew they were plugging a dud but at least had a sense of humor about it. I literally laughed out loud for around 5 minutes upon encountering the images above.

• Flops are sometimes buried in the sands of time, but old fan magazine articles helpfully pointed in the direction of some notable flops I’d like to add to my watchlist. The 1938 Screenland article “How Stars Face the Facts of FLOPS!” put a few lesser-known clunkers on my radar. On the other hand, the 1933 article “Famous Film Flops” cites several box office disappointments that are now considered widely considered masterpieces of silent cinema.

• R. Emmet Sweeney’s essay on The Horn Blows at Midnight: “A group of craftsmen were left to their own devices and created an anarchic absurdity.”

• Angela of The Hollywood Revue published a series of informative articles on the actors infamously branded Box Office Poison by the Independent Theater Owners Association in 1938. Particularly fascinating is her piece on Edward Arnold, a most unlikely target, and analysis of why he might’ve landed on the list. Clearly I must seek out Blossoms on Broadway.

• Claude Chabrol’s 1955 essay “Evolution of the Crime Film.” Stimulating food for thought, even if one doesn’t agree with many of his conclusions.

• John Waters singing the praises of Boom (1968) as only he could. “If I ever had to get a director tattooed on, I think it would be Joseph Losey.”

• Classic Billy Wilder interview (scroll to page 101) in which he discusses why bad movies are released. “We do not bury our dead. They go on smelling,” he remarked.

• Every year I look forward to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day marathon. Between the sacrosanct commitments of the Macy’s Parade and Thanksgiving dinner, I tune in for a few episodes of the classic show. Join me, won’t you?