Film Noir
CHINATOWN
“Forget it, Jake … it’s Chinatown.” “Water is the life blood of every community.” With this statement, the Owens Valley History Site still does, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power‘s website once used to begin its biography of William Mulholland, the real life model of two of this movie’s characters, water department […]
Read More
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
“It’s not the jury’s judgment that worries me. It’s mine.” “No more murder cases,” is the doctor’s strict prohibition upon reluctantly releasing renowned barrister and recent heart attack survivor Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton) from hospital. (Although even the word “release” seems to be a matter of some dispute here, because according to Sir Wilfrid’s […]
Read More
SE7EN
Septenary of Horror “At first sin is a stranger in the soul; then it becomes a guest; and when we are habituated to it, it becomes as if the master of the house.” – Tolstoy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Although not originating from the bible, the concept of deadly sins is almost as old as Christian doctrine itself. […]
Read More
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Web of Evil “Round up the usual suspects.” And so they do – and ending up in the lineup are career criminals Michael McManus, Fred Fenster and Todd Hockney (Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro and Kevin Pollack), ex-cop gone bad gone good again Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) and small-time con man Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). […]
Read More
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Hush-Hush What is a good cop? One who joined the police force because he was unable to save his mother from being killed by an abusive husband, but who now uses violence not only against wife-beaters but whenever called for by his superior officers; be it to beat a confession out of a suspect or […]
Read More
THE MALTESE FALCON
The Birth of Hollywood’s Original Noir Anti-Hero Like few other actors, Humphrey Bogart ruled the Hollywood of the 1940s and 1950s – epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf and looking unbeatably cool in his fedora and trenchcoat, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth; endowed with a legendary aura several […]
Read More
THE BIG SLEEP
Murder, mystery and the magnetism of Bogart and Bacall They were one of Hollywood’s all-time legendary couples, both on screen and off; producing celluloid magic in the four films they made together between 1943 and 1948 as much as by their off-screen romance, which in itself was the stuff that dreams are made of. He […]
Read More
CASABLANCA
You must remember this … Aaaahhh … Bogey. AFI’s No. 1 film star of the 20th century. Hollywood’s original noir anti-hero, epitome of the handsome, cynical and oh-so lonesome wolf (with “Casablanca”‘s Rick Blaine alone, one of the Top 5 guys on the AFI’s list of greatest 20th century film heroes); looking unbeatably cool in […]
Read More
Jeannie Come Lately Post: BookLikes Round Robin — Favorite Pre-1980s Movies
Pretty much everybody has seen it at this point I guess, but anyway, here is Book Cupidity’s idea: “Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. The list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The parameters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980, I sort of […]
Read More