“We were out to lunch at a restaurant in Los Angeles, long before we had started shooting and he had already memorized half the script. He suddenly said, ‘I’m going to do this one like Edward G. Robinson,’ and he just did an entire scene.”
Performing the script in the manner of the star of greats such as Little Caesar, Scarlet Street, and Double Indemnity only further endeared Cage to Uziel, who got to combine several of his passions while making Spider-Noir.
“I always loved Spider-Man, but I’ve always also loved noir. So when they came to me with the idea of making a standalone Spider-Man show set in 1930s New York City that’s film noir, I felt like I was the obvious person they should be talking to,” confesses Uziel. “I asked them to please let me do this.”
Uziel cites 1949’s The Third Man as a particular favorite. Directed by Carol Reed and written by Graham Greene, with a memorable zither score by Anton Karas, The Third Man stars Joseph Cotton as an American who comes to postwar Vienna in search of his friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), now a criminal running the underground.
Uziel’s fandom comes through when he gushes about his favorite parts of The Third Man. “Orson Welles, and the way it’s shot, the relationships, the intrigue, all in postwar Vienna,” he says with an enthusiastic grin. “It’s just so romantic. There are shots we stole from all our favorite noirs… Well, lovingly homaged.”
For Lamorne Morris, the exciting part is getting to play Joseph “Robbie” Robertson, a vital part of Spider-Man’s supporting cast who has rarely appeared in live action. “He’s the voice of reason,” Morris says of his character, who is not a top-ranking editor in Spider-Noir, but rather a principled journalist.
