Noir on Tuesday: THE SPIRITUALIST (1948)

The Spiritualist (1948), also known as The Amazing Mr X, has recently been rescued from public domain hell in the US and been added to the library of MOD (Manufactured On Demand) titles from the Warner Bros Archive and can be ordered through Amazon or directly from their website. It’s a beautifully shot, highly atmospheric mystery and a testament to the sadly curtailed directorial career of Bernard Vorhaus. Continue reading →

DVD review: THE CHINESE DETECTIVE (1981-82)

Although awesomely prolific in the crime and mystery genre, Ian Kennedy Martin will probably be best remembered as the creator of The Sweeney, even though he didn’t write a single episode of the actual series leaving immediately after setting up the template in the feature-length pilot, Regan. More recently one could still see its influence in the ‘Gene Hunt’ character from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. Robbed of the post-modern and fantasy trappings surrounding him, Hunt is very much recognisable as a pastiche of the kind of tough coppers played by Patrick Mower, Lewis Collins and Dennis Waterman in 1970s shows like Target, The Professionals and most potent of all, The Sweeney. Martin however went on to create several other shows with which he was much more intimately involved including the long running feminist procedural Juliet Bravo and perhaps most interesting of all, The Chinese Detective. Continue reading →

DVD Review: CSI GRAVE DANGER (2005)

After helming a thoroughly self-referential episode of E.R. and an occasional acting role in Alias, Quentin Tarantino continued his flirtation with television drama by bringing his full talents to bear on this two-part finale to the fifth season of CSI, the long-running glitzy forensic cop drama that plays like a endoscopic version of Quincy. Employing the buried alive motif from his own Kill Bill, as co-writer and director Tarantino has come up with a 90-minute story that never strays from the series’ ground rules but which is none the less recognisably full of his own obsessions. Continue reading →