Tag: noir

I have never found Reefer Madness as funny as a great many seem to think it is.  Maybe it’s because I have never smoked pot, and I never intend to.  I say this even after the state I reside in recently legalized it for recreational use.  I don’t have any specific reasons for my apathy […]

I was too old for it when it was a thing, but I remember Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? was big thing with kids at one time.  1957’s Pickup Alley is like Where In the World Is Trevor Howard?, which I doubt would be as popular.  Also, Howard plays an international narcotics trafficker, […]

1957’s The Long Haul is a UK noir starring Victor Mature as an American who, upon getting his discharge from the service, finds himself making house in Liverpool with his wife (Gene Anderson) and son (Michael Wade).  She arranges a job driving long-haul trucks for her uncle (Wensley Pithey). Mature is less than thrilled with […]

Mill Creek is a media distributor which gets a great deal of cinema and television onto DVD and bluray, much of which would be unlikely to find release on physical media if not for them.  They get a lot of flak for most of their releases being bare bones.  I have also read complaints about […]

The term “toxic masculinity” has been in vogue for the past few years.  While I think it is correct to call men out on our bullshit, films such as 1950’s The Capture reveals some weird expectations society has put on men to be “macho”, and I think that environment is partly responsible for some of […]

There are so many character actors I have seen in so many old movies that I’m starting to wonder if I will eventually find a movie where the entire cast is actors like Eugene Pallette, William Demarest and Patsy Kelly.  One such actor is Elisha Cook.  I suspect four randomly picked noirs from that genre’s […]

Now here is one odd noir.  1956’s The Boss begins as US soldiers are returning home from fighting in the first world war.  That’s earlier than when most such films are set. Also, this is a thinly-veiled biopic of a real public figure, ala Citizen Kane, which is odd for the genre.  Not sure why […]

Barbara Stanwyck is a newspaper columnist being pressured by a misogynist cop to surrender the location of a woman who murdered her husband.  Her face says “you and what army?” while her mouth says, “Make me.” This happens early in 1956’s Crime of Passion.  This is a picture usually labelled as a film noir, but […]

On October 3, 2027, I will have gone twenty years without a drink.  I look forward to celebrating that anniversary with a round of shots.  I kid!  Well, about the shots, at least.  About the temperance, not so much.  I guess since I write under an alias, I really put the “anonymous” in Alcoholics Anonymous. […]

Many movies stumble to some extent in their second acts.  On rare occasions, a picture might hit its stride in the second half, only for me to be let down by the third.  Such is the case with 1950’s One Way Street. This curious noir stars James Mason as a doctor who flees gangster Dan […]

Except in melodramas, women were rarely top billed in features in 1950.  Alexis Smith is the lead of that year’s Undercover Girl, as the title character.  That this is a female-led noir is a reason to seek this out, but there is more of interest here than that. When we first meet Smith, at the […]

It is often hard to decide whether a film is noir or not.  In many regards, the 1952 feature Angel Face has the trappings of that genre.  On the other hand, it is very heavy on the melodrama.  That doesn’t automatically disqualify a film from being noir but, in my mind, it makes it more […]

I don’t know much about Richard Basehart except for a recurring gag on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 where Gypsy, one of the bots, is obsessed with him.  Not sure why she’s obsessed with this actor, only that I was reminded of this while watching him in 1950’s Outside the Wall. Basehart is a man who […]

I’m still surprised William Castle, famous for his gimmicky horror films, started out making noirs.  Pretty good ones, too, from what I have seen so far.  The first one I saw was 1949’s Johnny Stool Pigeon and now I have seen that same year’s Undertow.  Both films are similar in that each is solid, but […]

Train stations make for great locations in noir pictures, and I love to see real locations used in such films.  In a way, these films serve as a time capsule of an era not long before rail stopped being the primary mode of long-distance travel in the US. 1950’s Union Station takes place largely in […]