After the war noirs a gallery of reactions to a cosmic view forever tainted Cornell Woolrich

http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/recess-noir.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+filmsnoir%2FHiCj+%28Films+Noir%29
The Chase and Bury Me Dead:Here are the Amazon Reviews:





Editorial Reviews
Volume two in our series of Film Noir double-bills features three stars better known for their TV personas - Robert Cummings (Love That Bob), June Lockhart (the mom on Lassie) and Hugh Beaumont (the 'Beave's' dad on Leave it to Beaver) - but whose hard-boiled performances here are nothing like those TV characters. The Chase (1946) has Robert Cummings playing an ex-GI who by chance is hired to be the chauffeur for a ruthless gangster. He is soon drawn into a twisted nightmarish plot involving the gangster's unfaithful wife and a charge for a murder he did not commit. The second feature, Bury Me Dead (1947), starts off with a bang when a woman (June Lockhart) shows up as a mourner at her own funeral! With the help of her family lawyer (Hugh Beaumont) the woman begins an investigation to uncover who's really buried in her place and who wanted her dead in the first place. Features cinematography by John Alton. Two film noir gems for the price of one! Bonus Features: Commentaries by Jay Fenton, Film Restoration Consultant Scene Selection Bios & Filmographies Film Noir Movie Poster Gallery Film Noir Trailers Bonus: 'Noirish' Superman Cartoon "Showdown" (1942) - the man of steel takes on gangsters! Specs: DVD9; Dolby Digital Mono; 153 minutes; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - NR; Year - 1946, 1947; SRP - $9.99.





The Chase reverts to a theme of a perverted justice that trails a character in a meaningless universe of fate or perverse designed coincidence.Notice the technical info on the two films and the tv stars listed with their hard boiled performances ,their versatility of roles brought to the fore.



Here's the Amazon review of Shock:




Amazon.com
Shock is an enjoyable film noir that belongs in a subgenre--let's call it the psychoanalytic murder melodrama--which flourished after the success of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. Here, the set-up is delicious: nervous wife Anabel Shaw, already anxious about her soldier husband's delayed return home, witnesses a murder in a neighboring hotel room. Going into a deep state of--you guessed it--shock, she needs the care of San Francisco's leading psychiatrist, who just happens to be staying at the same hotel. Unfortunately, said analyst is none other than the murderer himself (Vincent Price), and he quickly realizes that if the lady comes out of her catatonic state, he'll be exposed for killing his wife. Things slow down once the action shifts to Price's private sanitarium, but Lynn Bari is fun to watch as his va-va-voom assistant/mistress/femme fatale, and Price himself indicates his young aptitude for the kind of sinister, tortured roles that would make him a mainstay of Edgar Allan Poe stories. There's also fun in listening to the psychoanalytic jargon spouted along the way, a distinctly Hollywood version of Freud. All in all, this unheralded 1946 picture counts at least as a minor rediscovery in the noir canon. --Robert Horton
Product Description
Film noir, a classic film style of the ‘40s and ‘50s, is noted for its dark themes, stark camera angles and high-contrast lighting. Comprising many of Hollywood’s finest films, film noir tells realistic stories about crime, mystery, femmes fatales and conflict.
This post-World War II suspense thriller sets off an emotional roller coaster after the psychologically fragile wife of a POW (Anabel Shaw) witnesses a brutal murder from a hotel window while waiting to be reunited with her husband (Frank Latimer). By the time he arrives, she’s nearly comatose with shock. The hotel’s psychiatrist (Vincent Price) is called in to help. But just as she begins to recognize him as the murderer she saw, he realizes she was a witness to his crime. So he arranges to take her to his private sanitarium where he and his nurse-mistress (Lynn Bari) can insure that no one takes the young woman’s ravings seriously and they can secretly administer enough "treatment" to silence her forever. Meanwhile, her husband and the police begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems and as they get closer to the truth, this complex mystery takes some unexpected twists!


Strange Illusion (45) the review


Strange Illusion (Enhanced) 1945
This film has been enhanced using a Video Enhancement Program that reduces noise and enhances video quality.
When Paul Cartwright (James Lydon) has a nightmare about his father s death, it is only the beginning of real life nightmares for Paul and his family. In the dream Paul sees the crash that killed his father - only it looks to be on purpose. When Paul meets his mother s new boyfriend, Brett Curtis, Paul sees the man from his dream. As Paul compares more of the dream to real life events he realizes that Brett is the man who killed his father. However, Brett is also realizing that Paul is on to him.
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, Strange Illusion is a suspense filled journey to bring a guilty man to justice. Also starring with James Lydon are Warren William as Brett Curtis, Sally Eilers as Paul s mother Virginia, and Jayne Hazard as Dorothy, Paul s sister. If you enjoy Strange Illusion, check out Ulmer s big hit Detour by Triad Productions.

The Unsuspected directed by Michael Curtiz, famed for Casablanca and prolific screen director .
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039941/

Noir City 7—Eddie Muller’s Introductory Remarks to The Unsuspected and Desperate
2 February 2009 5:19 PM, PST Twitch See recent Twitch news »
It is a tradition at Noir City, Eddie Muller reminded his audience, that they screen one film at each festival that is utterly incomprehensible. “Tonight,” Muller grinned, “is the night.” The Unsuspected claims the honor, which is not to say that the film isn’t fantastic, but no one will be asked to recapitulate the plot on their way home on Muni. To attempt so would mean possibly riding to the end of the line (“which ends up in, like, Hell”). The Unsuspected is based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong. Armstrong is a terrific writer also responsible for the Marilyn Monroe noir Don’t Bother to Knock, based on Armstrong’s novel Mischief.
Muller conceded his program notes for The Unsuspected were slightly incorrect. He billed the film as “lustrous studio filmmaking at its finest”; but, the film is actually an independent Michael Curtiz production distributed by Warner Brothers. »
- Michael Guillen

I could not find the film sold on Amazon but my research led me to find the following on this little known noir of Curtiz: Book - The Casablanca Man .... James C Robertson, Routledge 1993-4 . A complete index of Curtiz' film titles appears and The Unsuspected appears on the following pages from chapter 6 "The Twilight Warner Years", pp 97-100 ,138.142-3,150,163,166, 172,187.
Woman on the run
"I'm not a bad guy when you get to know me...a little obnoxious, but pleasant." Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe in a fine noir, February 27, 2009
By
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews(TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
What a pleasure it is to come across an old suspense noir you've either forgotten about or never heard of and discover it's a solid and engrossing movie. Woman on the Run, starring Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe, is that movie. It's the story of a man out walking his dog one night in San Francisco who witnesses a mob-related killing...and realizes the killer saw him. The cops plan to take him into protective custody but he doesn't trust them to keep him alive. He has another idea. He disappears. And when the cops visit the man's wife, they discover a woman who seems not to care one way or the other. Her marriage has been on the skids for quite awhile. She won't hinder; she won't help. She just wants out. But as she learns more about her husband, she decides he at least needs a fair chance. So before long she starts looking for the guy. And so are the cops. And so is a newspaper reporter after a scoop. And so is the killer. But no one knows where he's hiding. She decides to team up with the reporter to beat the cops and the killer to her husband. When half way through the movie we realize what's going on, and she doesn't, the tension escalates briskly. It all comes together in a beach-front amusement park at night. It may be 1950 and there's no neon, but there's lots of lights, a giggling, life-size mechanical clown, cotton candy stands, a movie house playing The Big Lift, a boardwalk filled with laughing people, pitch black shadows under the piers and the roller-coaster from hell. Woman on the Run was an indie picture. No one would confuse it with an A movie from one the crumbling major studios, but it's way above a B programmer. I'd match the last 17 minutes in the amusement park against any film.

Night Editor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Editor

Plot
Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation.
In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach.
The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime.

Radio program
The radio program the film was based upon ran from 1934 until 1948.
Sponsored by Edwards Coffee, this featured Hal Burdick as the "night editor." Hal Burdick would receive readers’ requests for stories, in a "letter to the editor" format, which would tell on the program. Burdick played all characters in the program. The stories varied greatly including tales of war, adventure, crime, and an occasional ghost story.

Note the reference to the long run of this radio prgram ,the basis for the film, and that radio served noir in this capacity as sources for story materials.

The Killer that Stalked New York (1950)

The Killer That Stalked New York is a 1950 black-and-white film noir starring Evelyn Keyes. The film, shot in a semi-documentary style, is about diamond smugglers who unknowingly start a smallpox outbreak in the New York City of 1947. It is based on the real threat of a smallpox epidemic in the city the previous year. The story is taken from a Cosmopolitan magazine article.
It was shot on location in New York City.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 DVD Release
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
//
[edit] Plot
Arriving at New York City's Pennsylvania Station after a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who is smuggling $50,000 worth of diamonds into the country, realizes she's being followed by the authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), instead of carrying them around, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent following her.
Feeling sick, Shelia nearly faints on the street, so a cop takes her to a local clinic. While there, she enounters a little girl and inadvertently infects her. Shelia is misdiagnosed as having a common cold, and she leaves and returns home. After the girl is admitted to the hospital, she is found to have smallpox.
Meanwhile, Matt has been cheating on Sheila with her sister, Francie (Lola Albright), and then attempts to take off without either of them when the diamonds finally arrive through the mail. Unfortunately for him, the fence cannot buy the diamonds because they are too hot. Matt will have to wait for ten days for the cash, so he cannot leave New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who kills herself afterward due to Matt's betrayal of them both. This gives Sheila more reason to get revenge on him.
Finding a growing number of smallpox victims, city officials decide to vaccinate everyone in New York to prevent an epidemic, but quickly run out of serum. This causes a panic in the city. Tracking the victims, agents realize that the disease carrier and the diamond smuggler are one and the same. However, an increasingly sick Sheila continues to elude capture. Still unaware that she has smallpox, she returns to the doctor at the clinic to get more medicine. The doctor explains her illness and tries to talk her into turning herself in, but she shoots him in the shoulder and escapes.
Sheila eventually catches up with Matt, who tries to escape from the police, but falls from a building ledge to his death. Sheila nearly attempts to drop herself from the ledge, until the doctor tells her the little girl she met had died. Remorseful, Sheila turns herself in and, before succumbing to the disease, provides authorities with a badly-needed list of those she contacted.

Noir subplots of cheating and a crime pattern, amid the bigger backdrop of a small pox epidemic has a modernity which strikes home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_of_a_Kind_(1951_film)

Two of A Kind (1951)

[edit] Plot
Lefty Farrell (O'Brien) links up with con artists Brandy Kirby (Scott) and Vincent Mailer (Knox). The three concoct a scheme to rob a rich couple out of ten million dollars by having O'Brien pose as the couple's long-lost son. When the husband refuses to change his will, Kirby and Mailer decide to kill them. When Farrell confesses the scam to the elderly couple it prompts Mailer to add him to his list of potential victims

http://www.flixster.com/movie/bad-for-each-other Bad for Each Other

The Glass Wall is a black-and-white 1953 film directed by Maxwell Shane. The film was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Contents[hide] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Wall
1] Plot
The psychological drama tells the story of Peter, a European desperate to enter the United States. Because he doesn't have the proper papers for asylum, he jumps ship and sneaks into New York City. While in New York, he's aided by down-on-her-luck factory worker Maggie (Grahame) and a World War II vet, now jazz musician, who Peter helped when he was shot down in the war. Peter hopes to obtain legal papers when he can prove that he was instrumental in aiding Allied underground activities during the war. He has only 24-hours to prove his case.

http://www.answers.com/topic/one-girl-s-confession One Girl’s Confession (1953

PlotFilmmaker Hugo Haas unfolds his usual cautionary "old man-young woman" story in One Girl's Confession. Perennial Haas leading lady Cleo Moore stars as Mary Adams, whose first step on the road to ruin is a $25,000 robbery. Mary hides the money, then confesses to the crime, secure in the belief that she can dig up the loot upon her release from prison. A few years later, Mary is placed on probation, whereupon she takes a waitressing job at the seaside eatery run by Dragomie Damitrof (Haas). A chronic gambler, Damitrof is on the verge of losing his café when Mary offers to loan him money. When Damitrof begins spending cash like a sailor, Mary is convinced that he's located her hidden loot, whereupon she hits him on the noggin and leaves him for dead. Deciding that the money is too much trouble, Mary donates the rest of the loot to an orphanage and confesses to Damitrof's murder. But that's not the end of the story .... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

OVEREXPOSED 1956 http://www.answers.com/topic/over-exposed-1

PlotThis forgettable piece of 1950s sleaze stars Cleo Moore as a voluptuous blonde who becomes a successful commercial photographer. Richard Crenna, making a major break from his TV image as Our Miss Brooks' Walter Denton, plays a reporter who takes a special interest in Moore's career. The beauteous picture taker becomes involved in a blackmail plot when she goes to work for a Confidential-type magazine, nearly losing her life to mobsters. It was the opinion of many contemporary reviewers that the title Over-Exposed referred not to the photographs taken by Moore but to the generous amounts of cleavage displayed by the actress' low cut gowns. Though Cleo Moore has become a "cult" favorite thanks to her appearances in the turgid melodramas directed by Hugo Haas, Over-Exposed demonstrates that her minimal acting talent vanished altogether without Haas' guiding hand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

http://www.moviefone.com/movie/womens-prison/1080844/synopsis

Synopsis
With the exception of the vastly superior Caged, Columbia's Women's Prison was the quintessential "babes behind bars" drama of the 1950s. Ida Lupino (who else?) stars as Amelia VanZant, the sadistic supervisor of the titular prison. Unable to establish any sort of relationship with a man, Amelia takes it out on her long-suffering inmates. When prison psychiatrist Clark (Howard Duff) tries to improve conditions for the women, he too is targetted for destruction by the vituperous Ms. VanZant. The cast includes such perennial "hard-boiled dames" as Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter, Gertrude Michael and Mae Clarke. Not taken very seriously in the first place, Women's Prison was elevated to the level of "high camp" by youthful film buffs of the 1960s and 1970s. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Reckoning_(film)

Plot DEAD RECKONING
Just after World War II, paratroopers Captain Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) are mysteriously ordered to travel to Washington, DC. When Drake learns that he is to be awarded the Medal of Honor (and Murdock the Distinguished Service Cross), he disappears before newspaper photographers can take his picture. Murdock follows the clues and tracks his friend to Gulf City, where he learns Drake is dead – burned to death in a car accident.
Murdock finds out that Drake joined the Army under an assumed name to avoid a murder charge. He was accused of killing a rich old man named Chandler because he was in love with his beautiful young wife Coral (Lizabeth Scott). Murdock goes to a nightclub to question Louis Ord (George Chandler), a witness in the murder trial. Ord reveals that Drake had given him a letter for Murdock. Murdock also meets Coral and Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky), the club owner, there. Murdock's drink is drugged. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Ord's dead body planted in his hotel room. He manages to dispose of the corpse before police Lieutenant Kincaid (Charles Cane), responding to an anonymous tip, shows up to question him.
Murdock teams up with Coral. Suspecting that Martinelli had Ord killed in order to get the letter, Murdock breaks into his office, only to find the safe already open. Just before he is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant, he smells jasmine, the same aroma as Coral's perfume. When Murdock awakens, Martinelli has him roughed up by his thug, Krause (Marvin Miller), to try to find out what is in the coded letter. However, Murdock manages to trick his captors and escape.
Now suspicious of Coral, Murdock goes to her apartment to confront her. She claims to be innocent, but finally admits that she shot her husband in self defense. She gave the murder weapon to Martinelli to dispose of, but he has been blackmailing her ever since. In love with her himself, Murdock agrees to leave town with her, but decides to retrieve the incriminating weapon first, despite Coral's fears. He threatens Martinelli with a gun, eliciting some startling revelations. The club owner reveals that Coral is his wife. He killed Chandler and framed Drake so that Coral could inherit the estate before the bigamy could be discovered. Murdock gets what he came for and forces Martinelli to precede him out of the building. As he opens the door, Martinelli is shot and killed.
Murdock jumps into the waiting car and drives off with Coral. As they are speeding away, he accuses her of having just tried to kill him. When she shoots him, the car crashes. He survives, but she suffers fatal injuries. In the hospital, Murdock comforts her in her final moments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Racket_(1951_movie)

The Racket is a 1951 remake of the 1928 film of the same name. This film noir-style black-and-white film was directed by John Cromwell with uncredited directing help from Nicholas Ray and Mel Ferrer. The police crime drama is based on a popular Bartlett Cormack play. (Edward G. Robinson played the racketeer in the original Broadway production.)
[edit] Plot

Robert Mitchum as Police Captain Thomas McQuigg in The Racket
The plot of the film is very close to the original play and 1928 movie. Racketeer and mobster Nick Scanlon (Ryan) has managed to buy several of the local government and law-enforcement officials of a large midwestern American city. However, he can't seem to touch the incorruptible police captain Tom McQueeg (Mitchum), who refuses all attempts at bribery. The city’s prosecuting attorney, Welch (Collins), and a police detective, Turck (Conrad), are crooked and make McQueeg's job as an honest officer nearly impossible. McQueeg persuades a sexy nightclub singer (Scott) to testify against Scanlon which makes her marked for death from the mob. McQueeg not only wants to nail Scanlon, but also stop all the mob corruption in the city - without getting himself or his witness killed.

The Big Heat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Heat
Directed by
Fritz Lang
Produced by
Robert Arthur
Written by
William P. McGivern (serial)Sydney Boehm
Starring
Glenn FordGloria GrahameLee Marvin
Music by
Henry Vars (uncredited)
Cinematography
Charles Lang
Editing by
Charles Nelson
Studio
Columbia Pictures
Distributed by
Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)
October 14, 1953 (US)
Running time
89 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
The Big Heat is a 1953 film noir directed by Fritz Lang, starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin. It is about a cop who takes on the crime syndicate that controls his city after the brutal murder of his beloved wife. The film was written by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm based on a serial by William P. McGivern which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and was published as a novel in 1952.

Homicide detective Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is an honest cop who investigates the death of fellow officer Tom Duncan. It would seem to be an open-and-shut case, suicide brought on by depression. However, Bannion is then contacted by the late cop's mistress, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), who claims that it could not have been suicide. From her, Bannion learns that the Duncans had a second home which would not have been possible on his salary.
Bannion visits Mrs Duncan (Jeanette Nolan). He asks for particulars on the second home and she resents the implication of his suspicions. The next day Bannion gets a dressing-down by Lieutenant Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey) who is under pressure from "upstairs" to close the case.
Chapman is later found dead after being tortured and covered with cigarette burns. Bannion sets about investigating her murder even though it is not his case or his jurisdiction. After receiving threatening calls to his home, he confronts Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), the local mob boss. It's an open secret that Lagana runs the city, even to the point that he has cops guarding his house while his daughter hosts a party. Lagana resents Bannion's accusations in his own home during such an event: "I've seen some dummies in my time, but you're in a class by yourself."
Bannion finds that people are too scared to stand up to the crime syndicate. When warnings to Bannion to leave things alone go unheeded, his car is blown up and his wife (Jocelyn Brando) is killed in the explosion. Feeling that the department will do little to bring the murderers to justice, Bannion resigns the force and sets off on a one-man crusade to get Lagana and his second-in-command Vince Stone (Lee Marvin).
When Stone viciously "punishes" a girl in a nightclub — by burning her hand with a cigarette butt — Bannion stands up to him and orders him and his bodyguard out of the joint. This impresses Stone's girlfriend Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). She tries to get friendly with Bannion who keeps pointing out that she gets her money from a thief. Marsh states: "I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better." But when she unwittingly reminds him of the time he courted his late wife he sends her packing, to which she retorts: "Well, you're about as romantic as a pair of handcuffs."
Marsh was seen with Bannion, and when she returns to Stone's penthouse, Stone accuses her of talking to Bannion about his activities and throws boiling coffee in her face. She is taken to hospital by none other than Police Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell) who was playing poker with Stone and his friends at the flat. When Higgins warns that he will have to file a report, Stone reminds him that he pays him to deal with that sort of thing.
With her face half-scarred, Marsh returns to Bannion who agrees to put her up for a while. Bannion's enquiries have led him to conclude that a man called Larry hired a mechanic to set the dynamite in the car that killed his wife. Marsh tells him that it is Larry Gordon (Adam Williams), one of Stone's associates. Bannion confronts Gordon and forces him to admit to the bombing of his car. This whole thing has started because Bertha Duncan, widow of the cop who committed suicide, has papers he collected that could expose Stone and Lagana. They were really intended for the DA, but Mrs Duncan has kept them for herself and is collecting blackmail payments from Lagana.
Heeding Marsh's entreaties that killing for revenge would make him no better than those who killed his wife, Bannion refrains from killing Gordon, instead spreading the word that he talked. Gordon is seized and murdered by Stone's men before he can make his escape. Bannion now confronts Mrs Duncan, accusing her of betraying Chapman to her death and of protecting "Lagana and Stone for the sake of a soft plush life", but then cops sent by Lagana make him leave.
Stone decides to try and kidnap Bannion's little daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett) who is staying with her aunt and uncle with a police guard outside their flat. When the guard suddenly leaves, the uncle calls in a few army buddies to take over. Satisfied that she is in good hands, Bannion sets off to deal with Stone. On the way he meets Lieutenant Wilks, who is now prepared to make a stand against the mob, admitting that, in spite of his own wife's pressure over what will happen to his pension, "It's the first time in years I've breathed good clean air."
Debbie Marsh goes to meet Mrs Duncan. Noticing that they are wearing the same expensive coats, she remarks that they are both "sisters under the mink" and the fact that they have benefited from their association with gangsters. She then kills Mrs Duncan, thus starting the process that will see Tom Duncan's evidence surface and bring about Stone and Lagana's downfall. When Stone returns to his penthouse, Marsh throws boiling coffee over him just as he had done to her. Stone shoots Marsh and after a short gun battle is captured by Bannion who had followed him to the flat. As Marsh lies dying, Bannion describes his late wife to her in terms of their relationship rather than the physical "police description" he gave earlier: "You and Katie would have gotten along fine," he tells her.
Stone is arrested for Marsh's murder. When Duncan's evidence is made public Lagana and Commissioner Higgins are indicted. Bannion returns to his job at Homicide.

This Noir was directed by Fritz Lang which is sufficient to stamp it with his quality and excellency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Desire This is also a Lang production based on a novel by Emile Zola.

Human Desire (1954) is a black-and-white film noir directed by Fritz Lang, and based on the novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola. The story was made twice before in film: La Bête humaine (1938) directed by Jean Renoir and Die Bestie im Menschen (1920).[1]
Contents[hide]

Critical reception
Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the look of the film and wrote, "Cinematographer Burnett Guffey is relentless in capturing the spiritual desolation of the characters with ominous shots of the myriad railroad tracks interweaving and separating in a train yard at night. It becomes a metaphor for the human paths criss-crossing each other. Penetrating and searing, Human Desire is a nagging allegory about the darkness of human motivation and the corruption of the soul, and of desperate characters who live unfulfilled lives. It's not one of Lang's great pictures (it becomes too heavy-handed in parts), but anything Lang does has a power that is hard to forget. This one entertains as a riveting melodrama."[2]
Critic Dave Kehr wrote of the film, "Gloria Grahame, at her brassiest, pleads with Glenn Ford to do away with her slob of a husband, Broderick Crawford...A gripping melodrama, marred only by Ford's inability to register an appropriate sense of doom."[3]

Plot
Hard-drinking Carl Buckley is a railroad worker fired from his job. His seductive wife pays a visit to a railroad official to try to get his job back. When Buckley suspects that his sexy, younger wife Vicki (Grahame) has done more than just talk with a railroad official, he first brutally beats her then he tracks down the railroad man and eventually stabs him to death in a jealous rage. Train conductor, and Korean War vet, Jeff Warren (Ford) knows that Vicki was a witness at the murder scene, but because of mutual attraction, refuses to testify against her. The two begin an affair with each other. Vicki then decides Warren should kill her violent husband and comes up with a plan

99 River Street
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99 River Street

Directed by
Phil Karlson
Produced by
Edward Small
Written by
Phil Karlson (uncredited)John Payne (uncredited)Robert SmithGeorge Zuckerman (story)
Starring
John PayneEvelyn KeyesBrad DexterFrank FaylenPeggie Castle
Music by
Arthur LangeEmil Newman
Cinematography
Franz Planer
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
October 2, 1953 (U.S. release)
Country
United States runtime = 83 min.
Language
English

99 River Street is a 1953 black and white film. The film, starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, and Peggie Castle. 99 River Street, considered film noir, was directed by Phil Karlson, produced by Edward Small, with cinematography by Franz Planer.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Critical reaction
4 References
5 External links
//
Plot
The film takes place over one night in New York City. Ernie Driscoll is a former boxer who had to give up fighting after sustaining an injury in the ring. He is now a New York taxi driver. His wife, Pauline, unhappy living a poor life, is having an affair with a richer man who happens to be a criminal. The criminal, after being unable to sell some stolen diamonds, kills Pauline and then attempts to frame her husband with the crime.
The Prowler is a 1951 black-and-white thriller film directed by Joseph Losey. The film, considered film noir, was produced by Sam Spiegel (as S.P. Eagle).
[edit] Plot
Van Heflin plays Webb Garwood, a disgruntled cop called to investigate a voyeur by Susan Gilvray (played by Evelyn Keyes). Her husband works nights as an overnight radio personality. The cop falls in love with the young and attractive married woman. Obsessed, he woos her despite her initial reluctance. After they fall in love, Garwood, who finds out about an insurance policy on the man's life, dreams up a scheme in which a phantom "prowler" would be a good scapegoat if her husband should happen to die mysteriously. After becoming a prowler himself, Heflin murders the husband and makes it look like self-defense.
The woman, now pregnant, and the cop take it on the lam.

The writer Cornell Woolrich ism also featured in this post, a most prolific and essential writer in the world of film noir and whose works have been turned into many and numerous films:

STREET OF CHANCE, THE LEOPARD MAN, PHANTOM LADY, MARK OF THE WHISTLER, DEADLINE AT DAWN, FALL GUY, THE CHASE, THE GUILTY, BLACK ANGEL, FEAR IN THE NIGHT, I WOULDN’T BE IN YOUR SHOES, NIGHT HAS 100O EYES, THE WINDOW, REAR WINDOW, OBSESSION, NIGHTMARE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Woolrich

BIO Woolrich's parents separated when he was young. He lived for a time in Mexico with his father, a civil engineer, before returning to New York City to live with his mother, Claire Attalie Woolrich.
He attended Columbia University, but left in 1926 without graduating, when his first novel, Cover Charge, was published. Cover Charge was a Jazz Age work inspired by the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He soon turned to pulp and detective fiction, often published under his pseudonyms. For example, William Irish was the byline in Dime Detective Magazine (February, 1942) on his 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder," (source of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window) and based on H. G. Wells' short story Through A Window. François Truffaut filmed Woolrich's The Bride Wore Black and Waltz Into Darkness in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as Mississippi Mermaid. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" and its use for Rear Window was litigated before the United States Supreme Court in Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207 (1990).
Woolrich was homosexual, and quite promiscuous in his youth.[1] In 1930, whilst working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Woolrich married Violet Virginia Blackton (1910-65), daughter of silent film producer J. Stuart Blackton. They separated after three months, and the marriage was annulled in 1933.
Woolrich returned to New York where he and his mother moved into the Hotel Marseilles (Broadway and West 113th Street). He lived there until her death on October 6, 1957, which prompted his move to the Hotel Franconia (20 West 72nd Street).[2]
Alcoholism and an amputated leg (caused by an infection from a too-tight shoe which went untreated) left him a recluse, although he did socialize on occasion with young admirers such as writer Ron Goulart. He did not attend the premiere of Truffaut's film of his novel The Bride Wore Black in 1968, even though it was held in New York City. He died weighing 89 pounds. He is interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Woolrich bequeathed his estate of about $850,000 to Columbia University, to endow scholarships in his mother's memory for journalism students.

Hi! Tony,I hope that you and your family have a pleasant journey. (Adventure)Now
I will address each film…individually…
The Chase (1946)
Insane hoods pursue shell-shocked vet. Totally surreal obscure noir melodrama
(?) like no other movie you have ever seen.Oh! Yes, I have watched this film and
your critiquesums this film up for me…By the way, I purchased this film (which
is on a double feature DVD with afilm entitled…Bury Me
Dead.Below is a comment left over there on Amazon.com by an Amazon.com
customer about the film…“The Chase” is unusually violent, even
by 1940’s film noir standards. There’s two scenes where women get slapped or
punched, one where a man gets killed by a big dog, one with a woman getting
stabbed, two scenes of people getting shot, and one with a car getting destroyed
(with two people inside) by a speeding train!”
I Love Trouble (1948)
Hot-jive noir. Laughs and smooth-as-nylons repartee, while guys get
slapped hard, drugged, and slugged from behind.Now, if only the power-that-be
would restore this film and place it on DVD…(Just like they recently did with
the hard-to-find 1946 film Night Editor.)
I Married a
Communist (1949) Commies as hoods. Never flags. Erotic
fission and violent noir pyrotechnics make for enthralling & wild ride.Once
again, you summed in up in a Twitter second!(By the way it was just released as
part of the WB DVDr collection.)
Shock (1946) Perverse
b-noir. Murder witness goes catatonic. Her shrink is the killer. A dark
Lynn Bari smolders. Enticingly preposterous! Agreed…enough said…I have to
purchase this film just to add to my Fox DVD Collection. Because I all ready own
the 1946 film “Shock” on DVDr.
Strange Illusion (1945)
Bizarre Hamlet remake. Edgar Ulmer turns PRC b into camp expressionist noir of
foul villains with a knockout finale. Once again, you summed this film up in a
Twitter second!
The Unsuspected (1947) Camp noir! Curtiz directs,
Woody Bredell lenses, Waxman scores, Claude Rains over-acts, and Audrey Totter
is a hoot!Oh! Yes, this is one of my favorite film noir…, which was just
released as part of the Warner Bros. DVDr releases. I will probably rewatched
this film later today.

__________________________________________________________
Woman on the Run (1950)
Intelligent b-thriller set on the streets, tenements, dives, and wharves of
Frisco, with a roller-coaster climax. Author Eric Beetner, wrote an article (for
the Film Noir Foundation) comparing overrated film (noirs) to underrated film
(noir) and guess which film that he thought was overrated.Answer: The Woman in
the Window and can you guess which he film thought was underrated?
My
closing words…Tony; I hope you and your family have a pleasant break and
Godspeed!Take care!DeeDee
Comment by DeeDee —
December 5, 2009 @ 2:45
am

___________________________________________________________
Hi! Tony,Oh! Yes, Sony plan to release the 1946 film Night
Editor finally, a restored print of this classic film noir.
I’am so
sorry, but no images of both box sets are available yet…unfortunately, for me I
have only watched 2 films from these 2 boxsets and they are: The Killer that
Stalked New York (1950) and Night Editor (1946).

___________________________________________________________
WHAT:Bad Girls of Film
Noir, Vol. 1WHEN:February 9thSTUDIO:SonyPRICE: Retail $24.96, Our:
$19.99TITLES:The Killer that Stalked New York (1950), Two of a Kind (1951), Bad
for Each Other (1953) & The Glass Wall (1953)

______________________________________________________________
——————————————————WHAT:Bad
Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2WHEN: February 9thSTUDIO:SonyPRICE: Retail $24.96,
Our: $19.99
TITLES:Night Editor (1946), One Girl’s Confession (1953),(One
Girl’s Confession (1953),will be screened at NoirCity next month) Over-Exposed
(1956) & Women’s Prison (1955)

______________________________________________________________
——————————————————
With Rita Hayworth
and Film Noir Classics, Vol. 2 sets also expected in the first half of next
year, Sony is kicking of the new year right with the announcement of their Bad
Girls of Noir Collections for release on February 9th.
Each collection
(above) is a two-disc set with minimal bonus features. Details below.
They
will retail for $24.96 each, but are available at ClassicFlix.com for only
$19.99 each.
Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 1
In the 40’s and 50’s
the juiciest roles for actresses in Hollywood were often in B-pictures that
explored the dark side of life: starring roles as cool, calculating gals who
could stick a knife in a man’s back and make him like it. Lizabeth
Scott, Gloria Grahame, and Evelyn Keyes were some of the best of the period, and
are among Noir fans’ favorites for their roles in
such classics of the genre as Dead Reckoning and The Racket (Scott), The Big
Heat and Human Desire (Grahame), 99 River Street and The Prowler
(Keyes).
Here’s your chance to see them at work in some
great films straight out of the vault, newly restored and re-mastered, for the
first time on DVD. Co-starred with the likes of Edmond O’Brien, Charlton Heston,
and Vittorio Gassman these dames shine a like the brightest stars in Hollywood,
and each film packs in plenty of the best bad girl behavior.
BONUS FEATURES:
Terry Moore on Two of a KindThe Payoff-All Star
Theatre EpisodeBad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2
Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Jan
Sterling, Ida Lupino and Janis Carter. Forgery, adultery, theft, blackmail and
murder. The Bad Girls of Noir are back, in Volume 2, and these gorgeous gals
with malice in their hearts are sure to thrill hard-boiled fans of Noir.
Fan favorite Cleo Moore finally gets her due in three films
that highlight the talents of the beauty who was compared to Marilyn Monroe, but
whom fans love for her earnest, if stilted portrayals of dim-witted gals who
can’t catch a break. Four films, restored and re-mastered are all new to DVD,
and sure to provide plenty of excitement for the noir aficionado. Watch out for
these gals, they’re dangerous–which makes them oh, so fun to watch.
By the
way, I see the “great” Lou Boxer, is following you on Google.
DeeDee
_________________
Comment by DeeDee —
December 5, 2009 @ 2:57
am
Hi! Tony,Here goes some more FYI…Perhaps
the most important writer to the world of film-noir, Cornell
Woolrich, would have been 106 today. His work was turned into numerous
films and tv episodes.Mr. Woolrich’s work…STREET OF CHANCE, THE LEOPARD MAN,
PHANTOM LADY, MARK OF THE WHISTLER, DEADLINE AT DAWN, FALL GUY, THE CHASE, THE
GUILTY, BLACK ANGEL, FEAR IN THE NIGHT, I WOULDN’T BE IN YOUR SHOES, NIGHT HAS
100O EYES, THE WINDOW, REAR WINDOW, OBSESSION, NIGHTMARE.This post was copied
and pasted and the credit for it goes to another true noiraholic…Thanks,
DeeDee
Comment by DeeDee — December
5, 2009 @ 7:09 am
Thanks so much DeeDee for your fantastic contribution here.
Great to hear that so many neglected noirs are finding their way on to DVD.
Looking forward to your next undercover report!
Comment by Tony D'Ambra — December
5, 2009 @ 10:24
am
A fantastic contribution indeed here by Dee Dee, and one I’m afraid I
can’t match even one-tenth of the way, not that I would want to. Tony, have a
wonderful trip up north, I can’t wait to hear all about it, and maybe even a
post will go up appraisaing us of the partculars. Of course I will jot down
these noirs you recommend, but again I wish you a fabulous time!
Comment by Sam Juliano — December 7, 2009 @ 12:21
pm

Enlightenment spanning traditions

http://www.realitysandwich.com/vedanta_and_kabbalah

Enlightenment does span across religious traditions and so does the understanding of non dual truth . Enlightenment is not exclusively Eastern .The comparison of notions of "awakening" to supersenisble worlds, and to the "one truth of being has many similarities between Advaita Vedanta's conception in Hinduism to non dual Hasidic Judaism. In fact, while there are important differences in how the Jewish mystical and Hindu mystical traditions depict non duality, there are many illuminating similarities as well. Enlightenment as awakening takes many different forms also.

1. Non duality in Chassidic Judaism- -Jewish mystics inquiry into the meaning of Daniel 12:3 The enlightened (maskilim) will shine. -The role of the Zohar - Despite appearances we are ripples in a single pond. -The self is a mirage, a phenomenon. -G-d encompasses all and there is nothing outside G-d. The true reality is Ein Sof ,one, non-duality, and we do not exist as we think we do. -Non duality is found in nearly all mystical traditions of the world. The boundaries of our world are fleeting and have no separate existence.Ultimately everything is one.


2. Ein Sof, a G-d beyond G-d but Ein Sof, Being and Nothingness, without end or limit, and thus filling every molecule of this page and every synapse in the brain. God is who is reading these words and writing them, who is thinking and what is thought. This is the world without an observer, with no inside and no outside, in which That (what seems to be without) and You (what seems to be within) are the same. And with this radically different conception of God come very different expressions of Judaism: elite, often hidden traditions quite unlike the mass religion of rituals, myths, and dogmas.


3. It flies in the face of all we see and demands knowledge beyond belief a sort of gnostic knowledge by experience, There are bonds of connection to the ancient gnosticism in their conception of G-d beyond G-d. Moreover, because non duality so flies in the face of everything we see -- which is dualistic, divided into subject and object, self and other, and a thousand other antinomies - mere belief is insufficient, and a different kind of knowing is required, a more intimate intercourse with the truth. As a philosophical view, non duality is but an interesting and debatable proposition. Internalized as a psychological reality, however, it can be transformative; it is the very content of enlightenment.


4. It can also be quite disorienting; if there are no distinctions in the absolute (e.g., forbidden and permitted, self and other, light and darkness, body and mind), then the religion of the relative, with its rules and prohibitions, suddenly becomes incoherent. This is true for all mystical traditions: mysticism blurs the boundaries which religion seeks to enforce. Thus non dual Judaism, like those other traditions, has been, for almost a millennium, carefully guarded and hidden.
   Mysticism is the great leveller and obscures the ethics of "relative religion and theology, and dogma".


5. On a simple level, this sentence conveys the doctrine of omnipresence, and it was taken literally by Chabad Hasidism: "The meaning of ‘He fills all the worlds and there is no place devoid of Him' is truly literal," says one text. Yet perhaps the simple is not so simple-if omnipresence truly includes every particle of being, every synapse in the brain, every place of beauty and ugliness. Indeed, the entire circle of the Zohar is filled with pantheism This statement is the doctrine of pantheism,pure and simple.


6. And Rabbi Azriel of Gerona (1160-1238), arguably one of the founders of Kabbalah as we know it, presented one of the first clear expositions of non duality in the Jewish context: "If someone asks you 'What is God,' answer: He who is in no way deficient. If he asks you: 'Does anything exist outside of Him?' answer: nothing exists outside of Him. If he asks you, 'How did he bring being from nothingness, for there is a great difference between being and nothingness?' answer: He who brings forth being from nothingness is thereby lacking in nothing, for the being is in the nothingness after the manner of the nothingness and the nothingness is in the being after the manner of being . . . the being is the nought and the nought is the being . . . Do not take on too much in your speculation, for our finite intellect cannot grasp the perfection of the impenetrable which is one with Ein Sof." These tenets of being and nothingness are not to be grasped by our intellect.


7. The identity of being and nothingness is, as R. Azriel states, a confounding of logic. Yet as we will see in the next chapter, the dialectical interdependence of being and nothingness (the theme of coincidentia oppositorum that runs throughout mystical thought) can be understood as a matter of perspective; the All is, or is Not, depending on how you (or You) look at it. The principle, says R. Azriel, also applies to the sefirot: "The nature of sefirah is the synthesis of every thing and its opposite. For if they did not possess the power of synthesis, there would be no energy in anything. For that which is light is not dark and that which is darkness is not-light." Elsewhere, R. Azriel states clearly that "if [the Ein Sof] is without limit, then nothing exists outside of Him. And since He is both exalted and Hidden, He is the essence of all that is concealed and revealed."The propositions of being and nothingness confound logic ,are dialectically interdependent and understood as a matter of perspective.


8. The most clearly non dualistic statements in traditional Judaism, though, appear in the 18th and 19th centuries with the advent of Hasidism. "Nothing exists in this world except the absolute Unity which is God," the Baal Shem Tov is reported to have said (Sefer Baal Shem Tov, translated by Aryeh Kaplan in "The Light Beyond").


9. His disciple, the Maggid of Mezrich, wrote that "God is called the Ein Sof. This means that there is nothing physical that hinders God's presence. God fills every place in all worlds, both spiritual and physical, and there is no place empty of God." (Torat HaMagid, trans Aryeh Kaplan) A later Hasidic master, R. Aharon of Staroselse, wrote that "Just as God was in Godself before the creation of the worlds, so the Blessed One is alone [l'vado] after the creation of the worlds, and all the worlds do not add to God (may he be blessed) anything that would divide God's essence (God forbid), and God does not change and does not multiply in them, and the worlds (God forbid) do not add anything additional to God." (Shaarei haYichud v'HaEmunah, 2b) In the Yiddish of one lesser-known Hasid, R. Yitzhak of Homel, "Es is mehr nito vie Ehr alein un vider kehren altz is Gott ." That is: There is nothing but God alone and, once again, all is God.
10. Neo-Vedanta In the last century and a half, there has been a remarkable resurgence in Advaita Vedanta, in both India and the West. Vedanta philosophy had already influenced the American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's "Over-soul" is essentially Hinduism's Atman. But the growth of Vedanta in the West is largely the legacy of, one the one hand, Ramakrishna (1836-1886) and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), and on the other, teachers such as Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950), Nisargadatta (1897-1981), and others, who have inspired a "neo-Advaita" that is popular, and sometimes controversial, today. Other figures, such as Muktananda (1908-1982) who founded the Siddha Yoga global community (and who is the root guru for Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love), Satchitananda, Meher Baba, and, in our times, Deepak Chopra, have further developed and popularized Vedanta, attracting hundreds of thousands of Western followers. Resurgence of neo-Vedanta in the last 150 years has influenced American transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau and they beautifully poeticize nature even in their prose and essays as well as poetry.
11. Vivekananda was a remarkable figure, whose life included periods as a monk, political leader, galvanizing orator, transmitter of Hinduism to the West, and prolific writer. Vivekananda's Western Vedanta also influenced such figures as the writers Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley, who in turn greatly influenced the 1960s spiritual revival and thus contemporary nondual Judaism. Vivekananda produced a huge volume of work, and tended toward the jnani (wisdom) rather than the bhakti (devotional) side of Vedanta. A few representative quotations are included here, taken from an anthology of his teachings called "Living at the Source"..
12. Nisargadatta's views are similar: "In the ocean of pure awareness, on the surface of the universal consciousness, the numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise and subside beginninglessly and endlessly. As consciousness, they are all me. As events they are all mine. There is a mysterious power that looks after them. That power is awareness, Self, Life, God, whatever name you give it."
13. Satchitananda's method was no accident. Contemporary Vedanta, one of the primary sources of 1960s and New Age spirituality, was itself a "renewed" tradition.
14. Neo-Vedanta presented a popular, accessible form of mysticism, which emphasized the nondual core of Vedanta teaching, which resonated with both contemplative and entheogenic experiences of the time. Reb Zalman called it "Vedanta for export."
15. Nondual neo-Hasidism adapted this model. Where Kabbalah was obscure and text-centered, neo-Hasidism became experience-centered-like neo-Vedanta. Where Kabbalah insisted both on outward performance and inward intention (shell and kernel), neo-Hasidism emphasized the latter over the former-like neo-Vedanta. Where Kabbalah (and even Hasidism, for most of its history) was elitist, neo-Hasidism was populist-like neo-Vedanta. Therein lies the danger of populist mysticism which elaborates the inward over the outward minimizing performance and quite possibly responsibility in the offing.
16. And where Kabbalah was particularist and even ethnocentric, neo-Hasidism was universalistic and ecumenical-like neo-Vedanta ("they filtered out all the ethnic stuff," Reb Zalman told me). The embrace was not total, however. Neo-Hasidism regarded engagement with the this-worldly as a kind of litmus test of right spirituality, often projecting a quietistic, monastic "Hinduism" to serve as a kind of foil -- notwithstanding Vivekananda's intense social and political activism. Neo-Hasidic sources sometimes described nondual Judaism is "hot," theistic, and devotional, in contrast with a "cool," nontheistic, and contemplative Vedanta -- notwithstanding Ramakrishna's insistence on devotion. ("Cry to the Lord with an intensely yearning heart and you will certainly see Him," he says at one point.) And neo-Hasidism never fully embraced acosmism -- even though it is found in some Hasidic sources -- again ascribing it to an imagined Hinduism, notwithstanding Ramakrishna's similarly "both-and" theological stance: "Brahman is neither 'this' nor 'that'; It is neither the universe nor its living beings . . . What Brahman is cannot be described . . . This is the opinion of the jnanis, the followers of Vedanta philosophy. But the bhaktas [devotees] . . . don't think the world to be illusory, like a dream. They say that the universe is a manifestation of God's power and glory. God has created all these-sky, stars, moon, sun, mountains, ocean, men animals. They constitute His glory. He is within us, in our hearts . . . The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, not to become sugar." The trends are emphases of engagement of the disciplines themselves-- this worldly engagement as a litmus test and quietistic monasticism as a foil for it.

___________________________________________________________

"Enlightenment" is often regarded as a purely "Eastern" concept, foreign to
the Western monotheistic religions and to non-Western indigenous and shamanic
traditions. In a narrow sense, this conception is accurate: Hinduism and
Buddhism, in particular, are generally more interested in individual awakening
to truth, and the attendant transformation brought on by that awakening, than
are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet if we step back for a moment and
recognize that "enlightenment" may take many forms, surely this claim collapses.
Indeed, not only is the grammar of enlightenment often shared across traditions,
but its vocabulary is as well.
Here, I will compare Advaita Vedanta's
conception of the awakening to nondual truth with that of nondual Judaism, as
expressed in Kabbalistic and Hasidic sources (both contemporary and modern). (On
December 9th, Reality Sandwich is sponsoring a panel discussion of just these
issues in New York City -- I hope you'll come and see us.) In fact, while there
are important differences in how the Jewish mystical and Hindu mystical
traditions depict nonduality, there are many illuminating similarities as well.

1. Nondual Judaism
First, what is Jewish Enlightenment? Well before
the term entered common usage, and centuries before it became associated with
rationalist philosophy, Jewish mystics inquired into the prophet Daniel's
(Daniel 12:3) prediction that "the enlightened (maskilim) will shine like the
radiance (zohar) of the sky." The Zohar, the masterpiece of Kabbalah which takes
its name from that verse, explains that the enlightened are those who ponder the
deepest "secret of wisdom." (Zohar 2:2a) What is that secret? The answer varies
from text to text, tradition to tradition, but in the Zohar and elsewhere, the
deepest secret is that, despite appearances, all things, and all of us, are like
ripples on a single pond, motes of a single sunbeam, the letters of a single
word. The true reality of our existence is One, Ein Sof, infinite, and thus the
sense of separate self that we all have -- the notion that "you" and "I" are
individuals with souls separate from the rest of the universe - is not
ultimately true. The self is a phenomenon, an illusion, a mirage.
This view
is called "nonduality" ("not-two"), and it is found at the summit of nearly
every mystical tradition in the world. Nonduality does not mean we do not exist
-- but it does mean we don't exist as we think we do. The phenomena, boundaries,
and formations which constitute our world are fleeting, and empty of separate
existence. For a moment, they appear, patterns of gravity and momentum and
force, like letters of the alphabet, momentarily arrayed into words - and then a
moment later they are gone. In relative terms, things are exactly as they seem.
But ultimately, everything is one -- or, in theistic language of the Kabbalists,
everything is God.
To be sure, this is a God very different from the
ordinary one -- a "God beyond God," as it were, neither a paternalistic judge
nor a partisan warrior, but Ein Sof, Being and Nothingness, without end or
limit, and thus filling every molecule of this page and every synapse in the
brain. God is who is reading these words and writing them, who is thinking and
what is thought. This is the world without an observer, with no inside and no
outside, in which That (what seems to be without) and You (what seems to be
within) are the same. And with this radically different conception of God come
very different expressions of Judaism: elite, often hidden traditions quite
unlike the mass religion of rituals, myths, and dogmas. Moreover, because
nonduality so flies in the face of everything we see -- which is dualistic,
divided into subject and object, self and other, and a thousand other antinomies
- mere belief is insufficient, and a different kind of knowing is required, a
more intimate intercourse with the truth. As a philosophical view, nonduality is
but an interesting and debatable proposition. Internalized as a psychological
reality, however, it can be transformative; it is the very content of
enlightenment.

______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________
It can also be quite disorienting; if there are no
distinctions in the absolute (e.g., forbidden and permitted, self and other,
light and darkness, body and mind), then the religion of the relative, with its
rules and prohibitions, suddenly becomes incoherent. This is true for all
mystical traditions: mysticism blurs the boundaries which religion seeks to
enforce. Thus nondual Judaism, like those other traditions, has been, for almost
a millennium, carefully guarded and hidden.
One Kabbalistic formulation of
nondual Judaism is that God "fills and surrounds all worlds"-memaleh kol almin
u'sovev kol almin. This formulation is found in the Zohar (for example, in Zohar
III:225a, Raya Mehemna, Parshat Pinchas) and other medieval texts, such as the
twelfth century "Hymn of Glory" which says that God "surrounds all, and fills
all, and is the life of all; You are in All." The aspect of memaleh, filling, we
have already explored: it is that every particle of being is filled with God. As
the Zohar continues: "He fills all worlds . . . He binds and unites one kind to
another, upper with lower, and the four elements do not cohere except through
the Holy Blessed One, as he is within them."
Another Zoharic passage favored
by nondualistic Hasidim is the statement that leit atar panui mineha, "there is
no place devoid of God." This phrase is found in the Tikkunei Zohar (57), a
later addition to the Zoharic literature, but accorded great respect by
subsequent generations of mystics. On a simple level, this sentence conveys the
doctrine of omnipresence, and it was taken literally by Chabad Hasidism: "The
meaning of ‘He fills all the worlds and there is no place devoid of Him' is
truly literal," says one text. Yet perhaps the simple is not so simple-if
omnipresence truly includes every particle of being, every synapse in the brain,
every place of beauty and ugliness.
Indeed, the entire circle of the Zohar
is filled with panentheism. Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla, among the most prominent
members of that circle, is recorded as saying "he fills everything and He is
everything." Moshe de Leon wrote that his essence is "above and below, in heaven
and on earth, and there is no existence beside him." And Rabbi Azriel of Gerona
(1160-1238), arguably one of the founders of Kabbalah as we know it, presented
one of the first clear expositions of nonduality in the Jewish context:
"If
someone asks you 'What is God,' answer: He who is in no way deficient. If he
asks you: 'Does anything exist outside of Him?' answer: nothing exists outside
of Him. If he asks you, 'How did he bring being from nothingness, for there is a
great difference between being and nothingness?' answer: He who brings forth
being from nothingness is thereby lacking in nothing, for the being is in the
nothingness after the manner of the nothingness and the nothingness is in the
being after the manner of being . . . the being is the nought and the nought is
the being . . . Do not take on too much in your speculation, for our finite
intellect cannot grasp the perfection of the impenetrable which is one with Ein
Sof."
The identity of being and nothingness is, as R. Azriel states, a
confounding of logic. Yet as we will see in the next chapter, the dialectical
interdependence of being and nothingness (the theme of coincidentia oppositorum
that runs throughout mystical thought) can be understood as a matter of
perspective; the All is, or is Not, depending on how you (or You) look at it.
The principle, says R. Azriel, also applies to the sefirot: "The nature of
sefirah is the synthesis of every thing and its opposite. For if they did not
possess the power of synthesis, there would be no energy in anything. For that
which is light is not dark and that which is darkness is not-light." Elsewhere,
R. Azriel states clearly that "if [the Ein Sof] is without limit, then nothing
exists outside of Him. And since He is both exalted and Hidden, He is the
essence of all that is concealed and revealed."
In the sixteenth century,
Moses Cordovero, the great systematizer of the Kabbalah, wrote similarly:
"The essence of God is in every thing, and nothing exists outside of God.
Because God causes everything to be, it is impossible that any created thing
exists except through Him. God is the existence, the life, and the reality of
every existing thing. The central point is that you should never make a division
within God . . . If you say to yourself, "The Ein Sof expands until a certain
point, and from there on is outside of It," God forbid, you are making a
division. Rather you must say that God is found in every existing thing. One
cannot say, "This is a rock and not God," God forbid. Rather, all existence is
God, and the rock is a thing filled with God . . . God is found in everything,
and there is nothing besides God." (Perek Helek, Modena ms. 206b, translation
mine)
"God is all reality, but not all reality is God . . . He is found in
all things, and all things are found in Him, and there is nothing devoid of
God's divinity, God forbid. Everything is in God, and God is in everything and
beyond everything, and there is nothing else beside God." (Elimah Rabbati
24d-25a, translation mine)
The most clearly nondualistic statements in
traditional Judaism, though, appear in the 18th and 19th centuries with the
advent of Hasidism. "Nothing exists in this world except the absolute Unity
which is God," the Baal Shem Tov is reported to have said (Sefer Baal Shem Tov,
translated by Aryeh Kaplan in "The Light Beyond"). His disciple, the Maggid of
Mezrich, wrote that "God is called the Ein Sof. This means that there is nothing
physical that hinders God's presence. God fills every place in all worlds, both
spiritual and physical, and there is no place empty of God." (Torat HaMagid,
trans Aryeh Kaplan) A later Hasidic master, R. Aharon of Staroselse, wrote that
"Just as God was in Godself before the creation of the worlds, so the Blessed
One is alone [l'vado] after the creation of the worlds, and all the worlds do
not add to God (may he be blessed) anything that would divide God's essence (God
forbid), and God does not change and does not multiply in them, and the worlds
(God forbid) do not add anything additional to God." (Shaarei haYichud
v'HaEmunah, 2b) In the Yiddish of one lesser-known Hasid, R. Yitzhak of Homel,
"Es is mehr nito vie Ehr alein un vider kehren altz is Gott ." That is: There is
nothing but God alone and, once again, all is God.
___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________

2. Nondual Hinduism
Advaita Vedanta -- literally, the "nondual end of the teachings"-- is
arguably the world's most elaborately constructed, radical, and influential
iteration of nonduality. The most important Advaita sage was Shankara, who lived
in southern India from 686 to 718 C.E. Shankara's philosophical outlook, which
rested both on philosophical exposition and contemplative experience, is a
straightforward one: "Brahman -- the absolute existence, knowledge, and blis --
is real. The universe is not real. Brahman and Atman (the ultimate Self) are
one." (See Shankara, Crest Jewel of Discrimination, Prabhavananda/Isherwood
trans., pp. 72-73.) This is as radical as it sounds: all the universe is like a
dream in the Divine consciousness, which is your consciousness. The whole world
really is all in your head -- only, it isn't your head, it's God's.
Really,
this was not Shankara's innovation. It is contained already in the Mahavaky as
(the four "Great Sayings") of the Upanishads: Prajnanam brahma (Consciousness is
Brahma), Ayam atma brahma (Atman is Brahma), Tat tvam asi (You are that) and
Aham brahmasmi (I am Brahman). However, Hinduism, like Judaism, has its many
branches and agendas, some of which emphasize the acosmic and unitive aspects
and others of which emphasize the devotional and theistic ones. Shankara made
the recognition of nonduality central. As he restated the famous utterance of
tat tvam asi:
"The scriptures establish the absolute identity of Atman and
Brahman by declaring repeatedly: "That art Thou" [tat tvam asi]. The terms
"Brahman" and "Atman," in their true meaning, refer to "That" and "Thou"
respectively . . . "Brahman" may refer to God, the ruler of Maya and creator of
the universe. The "Atman" may refer to the individual soul, associated with the
five coverings which are effects of Maya. Thus regarded, they possess opposite
attributes. But this apparent opposition . . . is not real . . . "The apparent
world is caused by our imagination, in its ignorance. It is not real . . . It is
like a passing dream." (Crest Jewel, p. 73)
For Shankara, and for most
Advaita Vedantins, knowledge of the nondual is liberation: "The state of
illumination is described as follows: There is a continuous consciousness of the
unity of Atman and Brahman. There is no longer any identification of the Atman
with its coverings. All sense of duality is obliterated. There is pure, unified
consciousness."
Advaita is more stark than most other traditions, including
Judaism, in its presentation of nonduality, acosmism, quietism, and its radical
insistence that Mind is all there is. Advaita is insistent; it demands an
awakening from the illusion of separation. It is a rigorous philosophy,
argumentative, logical, and fierce.

3. Neo-Vedanta
In the last
century and a half, there has been a remarkable resurgence in Advaita Vedanta,
in both India and the West. Vedanta philosophy had already influenced the
American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau;
Emerson's "Over-soul" is essentially Hinduism's Atman. But the growth of Vedanta
in the West is largely the legacy of, one the one hand, Ramakrishna (1836-1886)
and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), and on the other, teachers such as Ramana
Maharshi (1879-1950), Nisargadatta (1897-1981), and others, who have inspired a
"neo-Advaita" that is popular, and sometimes controversial, today. Other
figures, such as Muktananda (1908-1982) who founded the Siddha Yoga global
community (and who is the root guru for Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat,
Pray, Love), Satchitananda, Meher Baba, and, in our times, Deepak Chopra, have
further developed and popularized Vedanta, attracting hundreds of thousands of
Western followers.
Vivekananda was a remarkable figure, whose life included
periods as a monk, political leader, galvanizing orator, transmitter of Hinduism
to the West, and prolific writer. Vivekananda's Western Vedanta also influenced
such figures as the writers Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley, who in turn
greatly influenced the 1960s spiritual revival and thus contemporary nondual
Judaism. Vivekananda produced a huge volume of work, and tended toward the jnani (wisdom) rather than the bhakti (devotional) side of Vedanta. A few
representative quotations are included here, taken from an anthology of his
teachings called "Living at the Source":
"The whole universe is one. There
is only one Self in the universe, only One Existence, and that One Existence . .
. Everything in the universe is that One, appearing in various forms . . . The
Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it
appears behind this little universe, the body, is the soul."
You, as body,
mind, or soul, are a dream, but what you really are, is Existence, Knowledge,
Bliss. You are the God of this universe. You are creating the whole universe and
drawing it in.
"There is but One, seen by the ignorant as matter, by the
wise as God."
Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta, two independent Advaita
masters who were far more quietistic than the globetrotting Vivekananda, taught
similarly. Said Ramana: "There is no greater mystery than the following:
Ourselves being the Reality, we seek to gain reality. We think there is
something hiding our Reality, and that it must be destroyed before the Reality
is gained. That is ridiculous."
Nisargadatta's views are similar:
"In
the ocean of pure awareness, on the surface of the universal consciousness, the
numberless waves of the phenomenal worlds arise and subside beginninglessly and
endlessly. As consciousness, they are all me. As events they are all mine. There
is a mysterious power that looks after them. That power is awareness, Self,
Life, God, whatever name you give it."

4. Neo-Hasidism encounters
neo-Vedanta, or, West meets East
As told by critics of New Age Judaism, the
usual story is of a Jewish spiritual seeker being entranced by "Eastern" ashrams
and meditation, and then creating "Jewish" versions of these other traditions.
In fact, however, the historical narratives of contemporary neo-Hasidic nondual
Jewish leaders are quite different. Some, indeed, are seekers, finders, and
returners. Others, such as Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, were traditionalists concerned
about Jews leaving traditional Jewish practice and who promoted Jewish
alternatives to Zen, Vedanta, and 1960s spirituality. And some, like Rabbi
Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Rabbi Arthur Green, were knowledgeable "insiders"
taking inspiration from how other traditions presented spiritual, experiential
aspects of their religions. "I was very excited," Reb Zalman told me, "to find
out how they were dealing with spirituality and the questions that Ramakrishna
raised about how to deal with monism and dualism, and everything that he had to
say really made a lot of sense to me." Green reported that
"I marveled at
the way the Indian teachers coming to the West seemed to be ready to shed so
much of their particularity. I remember meeting Satchitananda and realizing that
he was not interested in making people Hindus or teaching them Sanskrit. He
said, 'Close your eyes and chant om shantih om with me, that's all you have to
do-be present in the moment.' But [in the Jewish community,] it was, 'Keep
shabbos and kashrus and fifteen years later we'll talk to you about mysticism.'
The Jewish way in was an arduous way in."

____________________________________________________________
Satchitananda's method was no
accident. Contemporary Vedanta, one of the primary sources of 1960s and New Age
spirituality, was itself a "renewed" tradition. Vivekananda presented Vedanta
for Western audiences, stripped of Hindu particularism, ritual requirements, and
technical language, and deliberately positioned as a kind of post-religion
religion. Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, and others translated Vedanta
texts and teachings, adapting them for Western ears and concerns. In fact, by
the time Vedanta encountered the 1960s, we may speak of a "neo-Vedanta" as much
as a neo-Hasidism. Neo-Vedanta presented a popular, accessible form of
mysticism, which emphasized the nondual core of Vedanta teaching, which
resonated with both contemplative and entheogenic experiences of the time. Reb
Zalman called it "Vedanta for export."
Nondual neo-Hasidism adapted this
model. Where Kabbalah was obscure and text-centered, neo-Hasidism became
experience-centered-like neo-Vedanta. Where Kabbalah insisted both on outward
performance and inward intention (shell and kernel), neo-Hasidism emphasized the
latter over the former-like neo-Vedanta. Where Kabbalah (and even Hasidism, for
most of its history) was elitist, neo-Hasidism was populist-like neo-Vedanta.
And where Kabbalah was particularist and even ethnocentric, neo-Hasidism was
universalistic and ecumenical-like neo-Vedanta ("they filtered out all the
ethnic stuff," Reb Zalman told me).
The embrace was not total, however.
Neo-Hasidism regarded engagement with the this-worldly as a kind of litmus test
of right spirituality, often projecting a quietistic, monastic "Hinduism" to
serve as a kind of foil -- notwithstanding Vivekananda's intense social and
political activism. Neo-Hasidic sources sometimes described nondual Judaism is
"hot," theistic, and devotional, in contrast with a "cool," nontheistic, and
contemplative Vedanta -- notwithstanding Ramakrishna's insistence on devotion.
("Cry to the Lord with an intensely yearning heart and you will certainly see
Him," he says at one point.) And neo-Hasidism never fully embraced acosmism --
even though it is found in some Hasidic sources -- again ascribing it to an
imagined Hinduism, notwithstanding Ramakrishna's similarly "both-and"
theological stance:
"Brahman is neither 'this' nor 'that'; It is neither the
universe nor its living beings . . . What Brahman is cannot be described . . .
This is the opinion of the jnanis, the followers of Vedanta philosophy. But the
bhaktas [devotees] . . . don't think the world to be illusory, like a dream.
They say that the universe is a manifestation of God's power and glory. God has
created all these-sky, stars, moon, sun, mountains, ocean, men animals. They
constitute His glory. He is within us, in our hearts . . . The devotee of God
wants to eat sugar, not to become sugar."
Ironically, even the supposed
"East/West" dichotomy that many suppose divides Buddhism and Hinduism on the one
hand from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam on the other is itself already
internalized here by Ramakrishna -- just as Kabbalists and Hasidim understood
the oscillation between a personal and depersonalized God. The mystics already
know the dividing lines, and already transgress them.
My claim here is not
the naïve perennialist one, that all traditions are saying the same thing.
Rather, the claim is that both differences and similarities are deeply
informative to contemporary postmodern spiritual seekers. After all, if all we
are doing is pointing fingers at the moon, then the more fingers are pointing,
the better our odds are of seeing the target.

Image by smontagu, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
12-8-09
Jay Michaelson's
blog
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