Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 254: Is 'Jail Bait' (1954) film noir?

A moody moment from Ed Wood's semi-obscure crime thriller Jail Bait.

"It has always been easier to recognize a film noir than to define the term."

-James Naremore, film scholar

If you look up Edward D. Wood, Jr. on the Internet Movie Database (as I have done many hundreds of times while writing this column) and sort his credits by genre, you'll see that only two of his films have been designated "film noir" by the site's users: Jail Bait (1954) and The Violent Years (1956). I'd have thought The Sinister Urge (1960) would qualify, too, but currently that one is designated simply a drama. Not moody enough, I suppose. Or maybe no one thought to label it as such.

Noir namer Nino Frank.

Whatever the case, we have just lived through another November or, as film writer Marya E. Gates has famously dubbed it, Noirvember. This is the time each year when cinephiles are encouraged to study and appreciate film noir (literally "dark film"), a genre first named by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946. Appropriately, in keeping with the gloomy spirit of the season, Mike White's podcast The Projection Booth just did four noir-themed episodes last month, and YouTuber James Rolfe posted a thoughtful 23-minute video essay called "Why I Love Film Noir" to his Cinemassacre channel. 

All of this material has been buzzing around in my brain recently, and I started to think about how Ed Wood fits into this whole picture. That's my curse. I have to apply everything to Eddie's career. It's become the prism through which I see the world. He's not thought of as a "noir director," but certainly these movies had an effect on him. It's a topic worth exploring. Should I have done this article back in November? Yes. But I had other articles I was working on at the time, so this one had to wait. I'm getting to it now. We'll call it Noircember, okay?

Since Ed Wood did not direct The Violent Years himself -- those duties were handled by one-and-done director William Morgan -- I am concentrating my attention on Jail Bait, Eddie's oft-overlooked sophomore feature. As I've said before, it remains the neglected middle child of his 1950s films, likely because it does not feature flying saucers, graveyards, or men in angora sweaters. Criswell, Bela Lugosi, and Tor Johnson are AWOL as well. (Since Bela was busy with his Vegas revue, his part was given to the wheezing Herbert Rawlinson.) Even though Eddie made this bleak crime thriller between Glen or Glenda (1953) and Bride of the Monster (1955), the biopic Ed Wood (1994) skips right over it, as if it never existed. Well, it did and does. But is it film noir?

To answer that, we have to know what exactly defines film noir as a genre. The trouble is, no two film scholars agree on exactly what the parameters of noir even are, let alone which movies qualify for the term. On the plus side, this gives us some wiggle room when we are trying to argue that a movie is noir. However, it does make this scavenger hunt of ours a little trickier. As Conrad Brooks famously said in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), "It's tough to find something when you don't know what you're looking for." But let's agree that there are a few basic tenets of film noir that critics and fans are generally looking for. Does Ed Wood's Jail Bait have them? Let's see.

1. An urban setting

The film's opening shot.

Film noir tends to feed on the alienation and anxiety experienced by 20th century city dwellers, people living in close proximity yet separated from each other. Many noir movies are set in Los Angeles, a sprawling city divided into innumerable neighborhoods and sub-communities that barely feel like they belong to one cohesive place. L.A. is also laid out in such a way that people are very reliant on automobiles to get from one part of the city to another. Therefore, they spend a lot of their time in their cars, which again puts them together (in traffic) while keeping them apart (in their individual vehicles).

The exact geographical setting of Jail Bait is unknown, since the characters never outright state where they live or where these events are taking place. The film was shot in various places within Los Angeles County: Alhambra, Temple City, Monterey Park, and Hollywood. The story seems to waver between urban and suburban locations, and the conflict of the story may be described as the city and the suburbs pulling a character in two different directions simultaneously. 

The plot revolves around doomed Don Gregor (Clancy Malone), an impatient young man who lives with his plastic surgeon father Dr. Boris Gregor (Rawlinson) and straightlaced sister Marilyn (Dolores Fuller) in a cozy suburban home. But he is dissatisfied with this life and seeks excitement elsewhere, specifically some downtown area where he commits burglaries with sneering small-time hoodlum Vic Brady (Timothy Farrell). 

Eventually, Don kills a security guard named Mac (Bud Osborne) during a botched theater robbery. Wracked with guilt, he promises his father to turn himself into the police. But, before he can do that, Vic murders him and stuffs his body into the pantry of his apartment. Pretending that Don is still alive, Vic blackmails Boris into performing plastic surgery on him to disguise his appearance. But Boris finds Don's body in the kitchen and uses his surgical skills to make Vic look exactly like Don. Since Don is actually the one wanted for murder, the police (led by Lyle Talbot and Steve Reeves) shoot and kill Vic Brady outside his apartment. He dies and collapses face-down in a swimming pool, in a scene clearly swiped from Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950).

In many ways, it is the city (or at least the downtown area of this unnamed community) that is Don Gregor's downfall. Had he only stayed in the suburbs with his family, he might have avoided his unpleasant fate. And since car scenes are, in my opinion, integral to film noir, I will point out that Jail Bait contains numerous driving sequences, including a lengthy chase scene with Vic and Don fleeing from the police in Vic's 1952 Ford.

Does Jail Bait have it: Yes.

2. Stark black-and-white cinematography with dramatic shadows

Steve Reeves and his shadow.

Perhaps more than any other factor, it is the look of film noir that defines the genre. Even viewers who haven't seen many noir movies will have seen noir parodies in cartoons, sitcoms, and other places. Noir was made by directors heavily influenced by German Expressionism. This meant that they used light and shadow to highly dramatic effect, giving us in the audience a distinct visual representation of the two powerful forces (good and evil) pulling at the characters. If there is one trademark visual gimmick of film noir, it is the image of venetian blinds making stripes across the set and (typically) across the characters' faces.

The word noir is literally French for black, and noir films traditionally take place in a fallen world where darkness (evil) is conquering light (goodness). Many of the scenes thus take place at night or in dimly-lit places, so the screen is continually dominated by shadows. The gloom is always encroaching upon the characters in film noir, threatening to devour them entirely.

Ed Wood's Jail Bait conforms to this template fairly well. Most of the movie takes place at nighttime, and I don't believe we ever once see daylight during the film. Nearly every indoor location in this movie is shadowy and ominous as well: the police station, the Hunter's Inn (a depressing bar frequented by both cops and robbers), the theater itself (once the show is over), Vic Brady's apartment, and even seemingly benign places like the Gregor home or the medical building where Dr. Gregor works.

To my knowledge, Jail Bait is the only Ed Wood movie with a credited lighting technician (Harl Foltz). You might think that this gentleman would have worked closely with cinematographer William C. Thompson to create those famous dramatic shadows associated with German Expressionism. But these are not too much in evidence here, apart from a scene in which Dr. Gregor and Marilyn visit Vic Brady's apartment and an offscreen lattice or trellis casts a strange shadow across the scene. (A similar effect is visible at the Gregor household earlier in the movie.) Meanwhile, there are venetian blinds visible in the background during many scenes at the police station, but these are never employed in the classic noir fashion. Points off for that.

Does Jail Bait have it: Yes, for the most part.

3. Archetypal characters

Theodora Thurman: A femme fatale?

As a genre, film noir is often defined by its use of a few stock characters who appear again and again in various incarnations. However, Jail Bait lacks the most classic of these archetypes: the jaded, cynical private detective. There just isn't one in this story. While Ed Wood eventually made a detective movie, the decidedly non-noir Take It Out in Trade (1970), Jail Bait is yet another of Eddie's police procedurals. Basically all of Eddie's "classic era" films -- Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, The Sinister Urge, and Plan 9 from Outer Space, plus Night of the Ghouls (1959) -- follow police officers as they investigate a case. Jail Bait is just another example.

So we don't have a Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe here. Instead, we have two hard-working cops, Inspector Johns (Talbot) and Lt. Lawrence (Reeves), investigating a series of robberies committed by Vic Brady and his accomplice, Don Gregor. Don gets arrested on a weapons charge early in the film, but the cops release him to the custody of his goody-two-shoes sister, Marilyn. Johns is more experienced than Lawrence, but neither one is jaded or cynical. And the script treats them as unambiguous heroes. These are good, honest men doing a good, honest job. That is never in question. 

"My job doesn't seem important to a lot of people," Inspector Johns says in one scene, "but it's important to me."

Often, film noir policemen will be corrupt and fallible -- on the take and more than willing to look the other way when it comes to professional ethics -- but Johns and Lawrence are above reproach. Neither do we have any corrupt government officials in evidence here, perhaps politicians being paid by Brady for protection.

According to an article I found by Ken Miyamoto, the innocent bystander is another stock character in film noir.  Here is how Miyamoto describes this archetype:

Often caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, the innocent bystander provides a contrast to the moral ambiguity of other characters. They are the every-man or every-woman who suffers because of the machinations of others. Their character arc usually involves a transformation from naivete to a more hardened, realistic view of the world, usually because of the betrayal or violence they witness or endure.

Now, this could describe several characters in Jail Bait. Most obviously, we have poor Miss Willis (Mona McKinnon), an employee at a theater being robbed by Vic and Don. She witnesses the two criminals emptying the safe and flees in terror, only to be winged by Vic. Just a flesh wound. She survives and later identifies Vic (after he's been surgically transformed into "Don") as Mac's killer. In a broader sense, both Marilyn and Dr. Gregor are innocent bystanders to this story. They certainly suffer because of the machinations of Vic Brady, and they undoubtedly lose some of their innocence over the course of the story. Note that, in the earliest scenes, Marilyn defends her brother: "Don's no criminal!" She'll know better by the end.

Jail Bait does not really contain any examples of the fallen hero or antihero archetype. There is little heroic about Don, despite his noble (and ultimately unfulfilled) vow to turn himself into the police for Mac's murder. The cops, as described earlier, are just plain heroes. Nothing "anti" or "fallen" about them. But we do have a possible femme fatale in this story: Vic's long-suffering girlfriend Loretta (Theodora Thurman). Strikingly beautiful and fashionable, she at least looks like a femme fatale in the classic sense. But there is nothing sneaky, duplicitous or manipulative about Loretta. She remains foolishly, blindly loyal to Vic for no real reason, and she does not use her considerable feminine wiles to corrupt either Don or the police. 

What we do have in this movie, without question, is a gangster. This character type is another staple of the genre, and Jail Bait has a doozy in Vic Brady. He's greedy, cynical, violent, and dishonest. And in keeping with the rules of film noir, Brady meets a sudden and dramatic downfall without ever having undergone any moral introspection or moments of self-doubt. If there's a character keeping Jail Bait noir, it's Vic Brady.

Does Jail Bait have it: Yes and no.

4. Complex narratives full of moral ambiguity

Here is where we run into some real trouble when trying to categorize this movie (or any Ed Wood movie) as film noir. "Moral ambiguity" was not really Ed Wood's thing, nor was narrative complexity. The plot of Jail Bait is certainly convoluted and far-fetched, but that's not quite the same thing as complex. We're not really meant to ponder the meaning of right and wrong during this film, and we're never in doubt as to who is good and who is evil in Jail Bait. Dr. Gregor, Marilyn, and the police are the honorable people in this cinematic dreamworld. Vic is the dishonorable one, and he drags Don and Loretta down with him. If there is ambiguity here, it's whether Don is truly evil or merely misguided and restless.

Does Jail Bait have it: Not really, no.

5. A sense of pessimism and/or fatalism

Doomed from the start.

Okay, now we're back on track. Jail Bait is, unquestionably and undoubtedly, a pessimistic film. The mood here is one of unrelieved despair from beginning to end. The notoriously intrusive score, borrowed from Mesa of Lost Women (1953) and combining flamenco and discordant free jazz, lends to the uneasiness of the movie and never relents. Apart from Vic Brady, who briefly revels in being evil, no one is having a good time in this movie. Everyone is glum... or worse. Part of this may be that, as indicated earlier, no one ever sees sunlight in this world.

But what about fatalism, the sense that our destinies are predetermined and that we are powerless to change them? Well, that's in evidence throughout Jail Bait as well, principally through the central character of Don Gregor. From the very moment we meet him, Don's fate seems to be sealed. Marilyn goes to the police station to bail Don out. Upon confirming this fact, Inspector Johns nods grimly to a uniformed officer. The officer nods back at him and walks offscreen to some back room. He's gone for a while, allowing Marilyn and the cops to have a conversation.

Johns: Of course, you realize, Miss Gregor, that if your brother fails to show up for trial, you will forfeit the bail money.

Marilyn: Inspector, Don is no criminal!

Johns: Hmm. Well, that'll be established later. He was carrying a gun.

Marilyn: There are much worse crimes!

Johns: Carrying a gun can be a dangerous business.

Marilyn: So can building a skyscraper!

Lawrence: Your brother had no license to carry that gun, Miss Gregor. It's against the law.

By now, Don has finally emerged from that back room, and he's a sight. His too-big suit hangs crookedly on him, he's missing his necktie (it's soon returned to him), and his shirt is unbuttoned past his clavicle with the collar jutting out on one side. He looks like he hasn't slept, ate, or bathed in a week. As he grimly fills out some paperwork, Marilyn and Lt. Lawrence stare at him solemnly, as if they are watching a condemned man on his way to the gallows.

The question of the movie is: what's to become of Don Gregor? Boris and Marilyn, as well as the police, try to guide this troubled young man back to the straight-and-narrow, but every last one of them seems resigned to the fact that Don is doomed. Don himself seems resigned to it. In one scene, we see that Don and Vic are out on the town and up to no good. Cut back to the Gregor household, where the elderly and infirm Boris sits slumped in his chair, looking like a discarded rag doll. Marilyn (wearing a lacy nightgown I'm sure Ed Wood picked out) approaches him. She's worried.

Marilyn: But, Dad, he's out there somewhere with a gun! 

Boris: Oh, I know I should have called the Inspector and told him, but I... I just couldn't make up my mind to do it. I just can't see Don doing anything wrong! I just can't make up my mind to believe it! Where have I failed? 

Marilyn: (stroking his brow) You haven't failed, Dad. 

Boris: Words, my daughter, just words. The proof is in the fact!

And the fact is that this is the very night that Don will ruin his life. His story is like a slow-motion trainwreck or car crash where the bystanders watch from a distance but fail to intervene in any helpful or meaningful way. Everyone in this story seems to understand that Don is a lost cause, and they begin to mourn him while he is still alive. Don may be mourning himself the first time we see him. Notice that when he stumbles into his father's office and confesses to killing Mac, Boris is deeply disappointed but not exactly shocked.

Does Jail Bait have it: In spades, brother. In spades.

6. Unhappy endings

Vic/Don's pathetic end.

Noir movies do not have happy endings. They just don't. The characters never get what they want, not truly. At most, some semblance of justice is restored, but it always comes at a terrible price. And so it goes in Jail Bait. Vic Brady, the menace, has been killed. His body floats in the swimming pool like a drowned racoon. But no one should be in a celebratory mood this night. Before being killed himself, Vic managed to shoot and kill a uniformed police officer. Besides that, both Mac and Don are dead. There's no bringing them back. Is the world safer without Vic Brady in it? Maybe a little. But there's nothing to indicate that Brady was anything special. There might be a dozen more just like him in this city alone.

It is Inspector Johns who fires the shot that takes Brady down, but our intrepid policeman takes no satisfaction in his work. The last we see of him, he looks dismayed, perhaps even pitying Brady a little. (The gangster's death is prolonged and pitiful. He writhes on the deck of the pool before finally falling in.)  Meanwhile, back in Brady's apartment, an equally-miserable looking Dr. Boris Gregor puts his arm around his daughter. They look like two people who will never smile again.

Dolores Fuller indicated in interviews that her character, Marilyn, was supposed to have a romance with Lt. Lawrence. The two characters vaguely flirt in a couple of scenes, but their "relationship" does not progress beyond that in the finished film. Frankly, I'm glad that this subplot has largely been scrubbed from Jail Bait, as it would have been a distraction from the main story. And, honestly, would Marilyn and the lieutenant ever want to see each other after this?

Does Jail Bait have it: Most assuredly.

We started this article with the question of whether Ed Wood's Jail Bait qualifies as film noir. I am comfortable labeling it as such. True, we don't have a detective. And we don't have the tricky moral questions that usually come with the genre. But what we have -- and in great quantities -- is dread. And dread is the lifeblood of noir.