It was while watching 1947 noir Crossfire that I realized it would be strange to be in a bar or restaurant in someplace like New York City and see Military Police at the door of every such place.  We see a lot of that in this movie, as police and MP’s together try to find […]

I had been having a rough week, which was rougher than the week before that, and so on.  Basically, it hasn’t been a great year for me up to this point, though I still have blessings I am counting.  I thought I had already relaxed a bit before starting 1949’s Whisky Galore!, only to find […]

I was shocked to recently learn the G, or “all audiences”, rating has been all but abandoned.  It still technically exists, but it is rarely bestowed upon any film nowadays and, when it is, those films are inevitably nature documentaries or fare for the youngest of children.  Apparently, PG is now the new G, and […]

For roughly half of the time I was in the third grade, we lived in Tucumcari, New Mexico.  I do not want to throw shade on the town, as I have not been there in several decades, but there was nothing to do there even at that young age but to go looking for trouble […]

I have the good fortune to live fairly close to a truly world-class opera company.  A couple of decades ago, we used to attend fairly regularly, seeing the complete seasons for a couple of years.  For reasons that elude even myself, my go-to attire for these events was a white suit and straw fedora.  I […]

I used to be a pretty big fan of the original Axe Cop comic, where a 28-year-old artist illustrates the strange and rambling stories spun by his five-year-old brother.  2006’s The Fall has a feel like that, as a partly paralyzed man in a hospital in 1920’s L.A. improvises an epic tale of adventure to […]

When I was just a teen, and my job duties for a community newspaper included that of movie critic, I sometimes found myself at screenings with the other critics, all of whom worked for larger media outlets and who excluded me outright from any conversations.  At one such screening, the critic for the city’s largest […]

Robert Young is the definition of failure to commit in 1947’s They Won’t Believe Me.  He juggles wife Rita Johnson, her friend Jane Greer and co-worker Susan Hayward.  I’m not exactly sure what any of them see in him.  I don’t think any of the three have made good life decisions, as evidenced by at […]

One of the most famous headlines in the history of the New York Post (if not print journalism, period) is “HEADLESS BODY FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR”.  A journalist played by Ted Healy in 1935’s Mad Love doesn’t have quite the same wit in creating headlines, as he envisions a front page topped with “MAN WITHOUT […]

In real life, Barbara Payton was American-born, had a brief Hollywood career, during which time she had some romantic liaisons which received a great deal of negative press and which resulted in her relocating to England to make pictures there.  In 1953’s Four Sided Triangle, she plays a Brit who goes to America, fails to […]

I have been strongly opposed to the death penalty for a few decades now and can’t imagine my opinion changing.  It bewilders me when people express outrage over the cost to incarcerate a person for life, when I am more worried about the possibility of an action being taken against a person which cannot possibly […]

For a while, I made my living manning a video camera at various events.  I enjoyed the work for the most part but was always bemused at how many attendees succumbed to the urge to act superior and belittle others.  While there’s no shortage of people in high social circles who are complete asshats, a […]

There was a time a couple of decades ago, when my musical tastes learned towards the more low-brow and were less expansive than I hope they are today.  I definitely no longer use as a yardstick how much a particular track “rawks”.  And yet, it is only relatively recently I have allowed myself to like […]

The world of newspapers is one of the great settings of noirs, and 1952’s Scandal Sheet is no exception.  The twist here is ace reporter John Derek doesn’t realize the murderer he’s looking for is his boss, editor Broderick Crawford. Derek is clearly a frustrated would-be detective.  Visually, he made me wonder if this is […]