Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Aug 10, 2010
Let me tell you about you, Al. That badge and a few law books have turned you into a nut. You don’t like anybody. You don’t believe anybody. You don’t trust anybody. You think everybody has a pitch.
Everybody has.
Double Indemnity is a damn good movie. When peop read more
CORNERED (1945)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 24, 2010
In 1945’s Cornered Dick Powell plays a man exhausted, angry, and with little hope for the future. Though almost fatally marred by its serpentine plot, Cornered is worth seeing — it’s even an important film noir. It offers an extraordinarily bleak worldview, precocious even for noir read more
HELL’S ISLAND (1955)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 8, 2010
One of the rewarding aspects of studying film noir is discovering the inventive ways in which filmmakers created exciting and stylish movies in spite of obstacles such as low budgets, less than perfect casting, and cut-rate set design. Of course there are a few iconic noirs that got the A-list studi read more
CODE TWO (1953)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 8, 2010
“Our film tells the story of the men of the Los Angeles police department, whose job it is to keep us from killing ourselves.”
Coming at a time when motorcycles and the image of the leather-clad rebel were popular in youth culture (The Wild One would premiere later the same read more
Deanna Durbin & CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY (1944)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 27, 2010
I became interested in classic film early in my teens. Able to stay up late during summer vacations I passed the time with American Movie Classics. (TCM was still more than a decade away.) Despite being weaned in a house where films such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Rebecca, and Laura were pa read more
HOLLYWOOD STORY (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 20, 2010
Like many of you I’m always surprised by the incredibly inclusive definition some have of film noir. I once cared about whether or not a particular movie “qualified” as a noir — as if there were a checklist of traits used to keep score. It appears that many enthusiasts still read more
WHEN STRANGERS MARRY (1944) (aka BETRAYED)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 10, 2010
By 1944, with the war in Europe raging away, the mania for quickie marriages at home reached alarming levels. Such whirlwind couplings were explored in many Hollywood films at the time. In Vincente Minelli’s 1945 romance, The Clock, Robert Walker and Judy Garland meet, fall in love, and wed ov read more
THE MOB (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 2, 2010
$685.00
How much off for the police force?
Why should I knock off anything just because you’re a policeman?
Thought you might want to try and bribe me, I’m always readin’ about cops being bribed.
I’ve got more influential friends than you in the boy scouts.
It’s Brod read more
TWO OF A KIND (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Apr 6, 2010
Talk about a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Two of a Kind, released by Columbia in 1951, is a perfect example of how a Hollywood ending can completely derail a promising film noir. The premise is enticing — three grifters try to work a complicated inheritance scam on an elderly California cou read more
THE OTHER WOMAN (1954)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Mar 13, 2010
One of the joys of cultivating an interest in film history is in discovering a marvelous yet forgotten film or filmmaker, such as Hugo Haas and his 1954 film noir The Other Woman. The Jewish-born Haas was an established comedic actor in his native Czechoslovakia who also successfully wrote, produced read more
FEAR (1946)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Feb 23, 2010
Released by Monogram in 1946, Fear is a little-remembered film noir that has all the flaws of a typical Poverty Row production, including a low budget, a less-than-stellar ensemble, and a trumped-up storyline. However in spite of the limitations it’s an inventive, exciting, and thought-provoki read more
Edward G. Robinson and BLACK TUESDAY (1954)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Feb 7, 2010
(Note: this is a two-part essay. If you'd just like to read about the film, scroll down to the lobby cards.)
When I first discovered Edward G. Robinson he wasn’t chewing the butt of a cigar in a crime picture. He was employing his other screen persona in a light comedy called Mr. Winkle Goes read more
THE PRETENDER (1947)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jan 25, 2010
We make allowances in our enjoyment of films that we withhold when considering other art forms — movies seem to operate by a different set of standards: so many disparate elements come together from so many different minds and sets of hands, not to mention competing agendas, that audiences can read more
CHAMPION (1949)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Dec 18, 2009
Champion is usually described as a cautionary tale about the bitter price of success and the perils of ruthless ambition. Rubbish. The character of Midge Kelly is heroic, admirable, and downright glorious. A rotten son of a bitch? Certainly. But I envy him, and you should too.
Champion airs from t read more
HUNT THE MAN DOWN (1950)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Dec 3, 2009
Hunt the Man Down is a snappy thriller from the RKO B-Team with Gig Young out in front of a cast of relative unknowns. A cheap, 68 minute quickie, it’s nevertheless an entertaining film that strays into the realm of film noir in unusual ways.
The film opens at an anonymous L.A. watering hol read more
NO QUESTIONS ASKED (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Nov 1, 2009
A black widow without a mate is just another spider.
A man is on the run through the wet and deserted streets of lower Manhattan. He dodges into the shadows of a stairwell just as a prowl car tears by, its siren whining against concrete and brick. As the man hunkers down we hear his voice, “M read more
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951) (2)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Oct 25, 2009
“You worked a whole day just to dance a minute at Dreamland?”
“It was worth it.”
Woody Allen’s most sentimental gesture comes at the end of The Purple Rose of Cairo, when Mia Farrow, kicked around by men and by life, finds joy in the fleeting images of Fr read more
THE FEARMAKERS (1958)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Oct 7, 2009
Dana Andrews is one of the more iconic actors of the film noir cycle, yet in the grand scheme of things he’s one of the most underappreciated in film history. The image of him standing amidst the hulking carcasses of bombers at the end of The Best Years of Our Lives is so viscerally powerful t read more
BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN (1950)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Sep 25, 2009
“A brutal policeman is a terrible thing. He has too much power, too many chances of taking his viciousness out on helpless people.”
Optimism and pessimism fight it out Between Midnight and Dawn, an entertaining and well-crafted crime melodrama from 1950. These competing worldv read more
MURDER IS MY BEAT (1955)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Sep 15, 2009
If we were going to debate the film noir credibility of Ulmer’s Murder is My Beat the argument would hinge upon whether or not Barbara Payton’s character, Eden Lane, is a proper femme fatale. If you read up on the picture, that subject seems to be the jazz. Payton’s Lane gets mixed read more