You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?
I’m cataloging every noir scene where coffee plays a role — rote and ritual, soul-dark or cream and sugar, served from dingy diners to shiny penthouses.
Our first coffee sighting is during a terse conversation between colleagues.
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Later, Joe Morse (John Garfield) orders a cup for himself, and a glass of milk for his brother Leo (Thomas Gomez), who drinks only milk through the film, as his stressed-out stomach can’t handle anything stronger.
Joe doesn’t mind that the coffee’s cold — and he’s right. Lukewarm espresso is no good, but once drip coffee or a long black / americano gets chilled, it’s delicious all over again.
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Joe pays for both but never takes a sip, because Leo storms out right before Doris Lowry (Beatrice Pearson) — the irresistible dame and the Madonna of the film’s faint Madonna/Whore dichotomy — walks in.
And then!
In coffee’s real starring scene, Joe and Doris prep a siphon together.
After the water is sorted the contraption sits mostly out of frame — the better for continuity — but as Joe scoops the grounds in he talks of measuring, then pleads his case and waxes poetic about midnights and morals. It’s all thematically entwined.
They leave the pot on the stove and move to the living room, at which point the brewing beverage is quickly forgotten amidst kisses and declarations of ‘not-yet-love’.
No resolution as to whether they let the pot boil dry — and thus broke the siphon — but we can use our imaginations.