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Category Archives: Noir on Tuesday
The Man in Room 17 (1965-67)
Created by Robin Chapman, this glorious 1960s TV show was big in its day and deserves to be rediscovered. The eponymous room is the secret centre of operations for the Department of Special Research. And the man is Edwin Oldenshaw … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, Noir on Tuesday
22 Comments
Last Resort
When is a submarine thriller not just a submarine thriller? Well, in this case, when it’s also an allegory of right-wing American imperialism – which is definitely what I liked most about Last Resort. In this short-lived TV show (only 13 … Continue reading
Posted in Noir on Tuesday
20 Comments
The Marseille Contract (1974)
This unpretentious thriller, running just under 90 minutes and released in the US as The Destructors, was shot on location in France and features Michael Caine as a professional assassin, Anthony Quinn as a US intelligence agent and James Mason … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, France, Noir on Tuesday, Paris, Tuesday's Overlooked Film
28 Comments
Smile Jenny, You’re Dead (1974)
This is was the second of two feature-length TV Movies that ultimately served to launch the short-lived private eye series Harry O (1974-76) starring David Janssen, which in its first season may have got as good as this genre ever … Continue reading
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1943) by James M. Cain
It is possible that the public conception of Noir owes more to the success of this book than any other. On the face of it, author James M. Cain just rewrote The Postman Always Rings Twice (click here for my review … Continue reading
Justified (Season 1)
While we now live in the era of binge viewing with ‘box sets’ available from Netflix, Prime etc, I have been watching this show steadily in weekly episodes when I go visit my folks. Its mixture of a modern-day Western … Continue reading
Johnny Staccato
Today’s post is dedicated to a show that lasted just one season but which deserves to be remembered. Filmed in LA but set in New York, the half-hour adventures of Johnny Staccato (Revue/NBC; US 1959-60) featured great jazz music, some amazing … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, New York, Noir on Tuesday, Private Eye
48 Comments
No Way Out (1987) is now on Blu-ray!
No Way Out, adapted from Kenneth Fearing’s classic suspense novel, The Big Clock (which I previously reviewed here), is a terrific thriller starring a young Kevin Costner and quirky and beautiful Sean Young as young lovers who get caught in a … Continue reading
The Thrilling Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann
This small detour is dedicated to the great Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975). He is the composer who, when I was a pre-teen, first got me into serious music via the movies, along with the likes of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Dmitri Shostakovich … Continue reading
Posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Film Noir, Noir on Tuesday, Tuesday's Overlooked Film
Tagged Bernard Herrmann
18 Comments
FIFTY-TWO PICKUP (1974) by Elmore Leonard
This was the novel that put Elmore Leonard on the map as a crime writer – and was filmed twice in very quick succession, which is some kind of compliment! Having appeared as The Ambassador in 1984, it was re-made … Continue reading
Strangler’s Web (1965) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
This whodunit was originally marketed as an “Edgar Wallace mystery thriller” but in fact was an original screenplay by Fedora favourite, George Baxt. We begin in ultra traditional fashion with a woman in a nightgown being pursued in a park at night by … Continue reading
Double Confession (1950) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
This terrific Film Noir, missing for decades but finally released last year on DVD, co-stars Peter Lorre in his first British film since his Hitchcock thrillers of the 30s. It was directed by the eclectic Ken Annakin, who would make … Continue reading
Lone Star (1996)
This is one of my favourite films and I am always slightly appalled that more people haven’t heard of it. I was reminded of it again when it was announced a few days ago that the versatile American actress Elizabeth … Continue reading
The Missing Person (2009) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
On screen and on paper, the private investigator remains, for me, perhaps the most attractive of detectives to be found in fiction. You can keep your twinkly-eyed spinsters and your upper-class amateurs, for me PIs are often as interesting as … Continue reading
Posted in Chicago, Film Noir, Hollywood, New York, Noir on Tuesday, Tuesday's Overlooked Film
Tagged Amy Ryan, Michael Shannon
41 Comments
Farewell, My Lovely (1975) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Robert Mitchum plays Raymond Chandler’s immortal private eye Philip Marlowe in this beguiling valentine to the classic 1940s detective yarn. Charlotte Rampling is the beautifully coiffed leading lady who is more than she seems, David Shire supplies the lustrous musical … Continue reading
Marlowe, Private Eye: season 1
Powers Boothe starred in this 1980s TV show that took Raymond Chandler’s early pulp stories and replaced their original protagonists with the detective from his later novels. The brainchild of British writer-producer-director David Wickes, the first season was made in … Continue reading
Suture (1993) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
This complex mystery is in a literal, thematic and metaphorical sense, a true piece of black and white cinema. An experimental indie movie that riffs smartly on the Film Noir genre, this is a cleverly plotted murder mystery about amnesia and identity … Continue reading
Posted in Film Noir, Los Angeles, Noir on Tuesday, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film
Tagged Dennis Haysbert
33 Comments
Women of Twilight (1953) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Nothing to do with Stephenie Meyer, this stark social drama (aka Twilight Women) was based on Sylvia Rayman’s groundbreaking all-female play. The up-and-coming Lois Maxwell and Laurence Harvey co-star, though the film is dominated by René Ray as unlikely heroine Viviane and Freda Jackson … Continue reading
Joseph Losey’s crime movies
In the 1940s and early 1950s Joseph Losey established himself as a new director of rare intelligence and technical dexterity in Hollywood. His promise however was curtailed by the McCarthy witch hunts that destroyed the lives of hundreds of men … Continue reading
Intimate Stranger (1956) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Richard Basehart plays a Hollywood movie maker who, after being run out of town, heads to a UK studio but continues being persecuted. Also known as Finger of Guilt, it’s hard not to see autobiographical connotations in this modest but … Continue reading
Posted in England, Film Noir, Joseph Losey, Noir on Tuesday, Scene of the crime, Tuesday's Overlooked Film
Tagged Blacklist
38 Comments
Top 12 Mystery Movie Remakes
As the movie summer starts to wind down, the sheer number of sequels, remakes and ‘reboots’ certainly can make for a dispiriting summing up. But it is worth remembering that, at least in our genre, there are a great many great … Continue reading
Posted in 'Best of' lists, 'In praise of ...', Chicago, Ernest Hemingway, Film Noir, James M. Cain, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Mexico, Miami, Michael Curtiz, New York, Noir on Tuesday, Parker, Philip Marlowe, Private Eye, Raymond Chandler, Richard Stark, San Francisco, Texas, Top 10, Washington DC
52 Comments
The Big Night (1951) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
This unusual Film Noir, based on the Stanley Ellin book Dreadful Summit (click here for my review) was the last Hollywood project for director Joseph Losey before being forced to flee to Europe to escape the McCarthy witch hunt. Set … Continue reading
The Big Sleep (1978)
Michael Winner, the pugnacious British filmmaker (and restaurant critic), died in January at age 77. He dabbled in almost every genre (Westerns, musicals, horror, costume melodrama, war movies etc.) though was most at home with ironic comedies during the 1960s … Continue reading
The Spiritualist (1948) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Also known as The Amazing Mr X, this beautifully shot and gently mocking ‘Gaslight-meets-Rebecca‘ mystery melodrama also has a Noir style all its own. It also sports a charming performance from the late Turhan Bey who, in what appears to … Continue reading
Two O’Clock Courage (1945)
Something of a forgotten semi Noir, this mixture of comedy and thrills marked the RKO debuts of director Anthony Mann and Jane Greer (here billed with her full name, ‘Bettejane’). The leading man is Tom Conway, already established at the studio … Continue reading
Dying Room Only (1973) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
In 1953 Richard Matheson published ‘Dying Room Only’, a vanishing spouse variant on the Paris Exposition story. Like in his Twilight Zone episode ‘Nick of Time’, a young couple stop at a cafe and find their lives unraveling as unexpected … Continue reading
Hickey and Boggs (1972) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
A train arrives and a woman in sunglasses gets off and quickly walks away. She passes through LA’s Union Station, still looking largely as it did since it opened in 1939. We dissolve to a street scene – it is … Continue reading
Rollercoaster (1977) – Tuesday’s Forgotten Film
After the hugely successful ‘Sensurround’ processed Earthquake (1974) and with The Hindenburg (1975) and Two Minute Warning (1976) already in various stages of completion, Universal Studios decided to further exploit the burgeoning disaster genre by quickly packaging another high concept movie … Continue reading
Dangerous Crossing (1953)
This is one of the surprisingly few films derived from the work of the great mystery writer John Dickson Carr. It was adapted from ‘Cabin B-13’, his celebrated radio drama originally broadcast in 1943 but subsequently repeated and adapted several … Continue reading
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)
Imagine a 40s Hollywood movie shot in gorgeous black and white, backed by a swelling Miklos Rozsa score and costumed by Edith Head. Add a dream cast featuring Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, James Cagney, Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Lana Turner, … Continue reading
Tipping My Fedora 