Watching Kill Me Again (John Dahl, 1989) again, I was reminded how much I like a certain group of movies. These films appear to be a genre, but it had escaped me if they have been categorised as such and given a name. I was going to call them 'Cactus Noir' but a little digging meant I found out they have already been categorised, they're 'Cowboy Noir'.
A Cowboy Noir film may well start with a sap rolling into a small town. He will be hitchhiking a ride, in a stolen car or ticketless on a train. After he arrives, one of his first stops will be into the bar. The guy behind the counter generally ignores him, despite him being the first customer of the day, week or maybe since the Dustbowl.
The atmosphere in a Cowboy Noir is languid. They often take place in temperatures that near burst out of the top of the thermometer. And if the film isn’t based on a Jim Thompson book, it usually feels like it should be. Actors called Walsh - J.T or M. Emmet are often in support roles.
Right from the get-go, the guy knows he should drink up and move on, even if has to tackle the surrounding desert on foot. But he never does because the femme fatale walks into that bar, his motel or just bends over in the street, right in front of him, to re-tie a strap on her strapless sandals.
And from early on you know he’s not going to walk away from the forthcoming heist, scam or murder into which she is going to ensnare him. He won’t walk away even though it’s clear to all (including him) that it will end with his mugshot in the paper, reporting his conviction or killing, whilst she gets over the border.
The Cowboy Noir films have clear roots in the 40s films where the femme fatale is first seen approaching through the frosted glass or blinds of a private eye’s rundown office. But these movies eschew San Francisco or New York for some small town, often in the South West USA or somewhere else rural.
After Dark, My Sweet (James Foley, 1990) is one of the best. There are several points in the film where you just will Jason Patric’s sap character to move onto to the next town but, a kidnapping and murder later, he's clearly only going to be leaving that town if it's cemetery is full.
Cowboy Noir films seem to have the ability to get the best of actors who should have only ever made it onto the small screen. Nicolas Cage raises his game considerably in Red Rock West (John Dahl, 1992).
Even Don Johnson delivers in The Hot Spot (Dennis Hopper, 1990). Johnson avoids the usual fatal bullet or knife and ‘escapes’ to a life, not with the woman he loves, but alongside the femme fatale, who is going to make every moment from then on feel to him as if he is under the gun.
Kill Me Again (John Dahl, 1989) is perhaps the runt of the litter. Neither Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Val Kilmer nor Michael Madsen can really lift the film although Whalley-Kilmer (all the way from Stockport to sandy deserts) flounces around in Film Noir style dresses. Unusually, the sap, Kilmer's character, gets to keep the money after Whalley-Kilmer’s character has made the usual about turn and taken up again with the thug (Madsen) whom the sap saved her from in the first place.
Some films bubbling around the edge of the genre include The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) which has many of the features but not the location as well as both The Getaway (Roger Donaldson, 1994) and Blood Simple (Joel Coen, 1984) which have the location but with plots that may be beyond the limits of the genre. Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990) glitters brightly, but in a neighbouring constellation.
