Tomorrow is Another Day: Time for a Face-off

This post is doing triple duty in multiple ways. It's a noir film review, a tick off my Cinema Shame 2018 list, and a comparative face-off -- of three films, no less! Cinema Shame: To be honest, I can't remember...

Face-off: La Chienne v Scarlet Street

I'm thrilled to return to my blog with discussion of two movies that deserve our attention. I've seen Scarlet Street (Lang 1945) many times, and yesterday I saw La Chienne (Renoir 1931) for the first time. Now I have a great fondness for both...

Screwball Comedy Face-off

In addition to noir, I love screwball comedy. In both Hollywood genres, gender roles are under scrutiny, "proper" behavior and appearance are questioned, and the issue of trust between the sexes is central. I could say more about the history...

The Scarlet Hour and Pushover: The Double Indemnity Knock-off Face-off

Double Indemnity (1944) is perhaps the best-known and most loved picture in the classic Hollywood A film noir cycle. Ask someone to name a great noir, and Double Indemnity is likely to be the film of choice -- or in the top...

Mr. Holmes vs. Gods and Monsters

Because the term hasn't begun yet and I have a little free time, I caught a cold after babysitting a friend's sniffly kid. My head stopped up and feeling wonky, I took drugs, drank tea with cinnamon schnapps in it,...

Brit Noir, Jean Simmons, and a Face-off

I love postwar British noir. There's a romantic edge to much of it, a mood of darkness but with a touch of hope. The British vs. American experience of WWII is likely part of the difference, as well as British...

Face-off: Key Largo vs. The Racket

Imagine a Hollywood film identified today as film noir but more precisely defined as a throwback gangster picture. Unlike noir, good and evil are clearly defined, even if some characters have to make an extra effort to take the risks...

Noir Face-off Winner

Well dearhearts, if you're boiling down noir favorites among the film blogging crowd, regardless of approach or method, the same movie will inevitably win... If I do another face-off poll, it's going to be a more specific one, like favorite...

Two Noirs about Houses: Face-off

  Yesterday afternoon and evening (before and after #BNoirDetour), I treated myself to viewings of two very different noir films that share a focus in title and concept on a particular house: Robert Wise's House on Telegraph Hill (1951) and Fritz...