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When W.C. Fields goes and names his protagonist Egbert Sousé it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to get the joke, although he does spend much of the movie explaining the correct pronunciation. The other half he spends drinking at his favorite bar: The Black Pussy Cat Cafe. His hometown is none ot read more

I was a bit behind on my movie-watching for 2023, but here is a list of a few movies I enjoyed from the past year. I’ve either linked to a previous review or included a short capsule. Enjoy! Past Lives Writer-director Celine Song’s use of time is self-assured and brazen. She’s loose and elasti read more

It’s a Gift is built out of the framework of the domestic lifestyle. This is where it gets its comedy. Take for exhibit A an early sequence. Harold Bissonette (pronounced bis-on-ay) tries to shave with a straight edge despite the interference of his daughter. It leads him to resort to using t read more

“All the women here are named Angela. And all the men are named George.” “Why?” “Why not?” – Jack Okey and Susan Fleming This kind of laissez-faire, anything-goes mentality is one of the obvious strengths of Million Dollar Legs‘ comic tableau. There n read more

Bill Forsyth is a director who has flown under my radar, and yet only after a week’s time and a handful of films, he’s quietly become a new favorite. Now I heartily understand why he’s one of Scotland’s most beloved directors. Part of his appeal is because he wrote and direc read more

On even a cursory level Touch of Evil has all the ready hallmarks of Orson Welles the auteur. Working in tandem with veteran Universal cinematographer Russell Metty (they had collaborated before on The Stranger), they develop the director’s preferred mise en scene from claustrophobic dutch ang read more

Mr. Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report) has the abundance of canted angles and striking visual flourishes one usually attributes to the films of Orson Welles. It also boasts his ever more disorienting sense of space and shot-reverse-shot even as the international cast, financing, and locale read more

The Clay Pigeon is a film that I have spent several years trying to track down, and I’ve finally been able to see it. From the outside, it feels like fairly run-of-the-mill post-war noir fare. It’s directed by an up-and-coming workhorse in Richard Fleischer and stars real-life couple Ba read more

Recently some coworkers were waxing about what they would do if they won the power ball. How they would spend the money, where they would go, and also the drawbacks that come in the wake of what seems like a purely golden opportunity. I’ve never much thought about it, but I do admit for those read more

Although it’s not a highly touted picture, Stranger on The Third Floor feels like an important enough footnote to aficionados of film noir because it embodies a few of the earliest definable features of the movement. It’s not an entirely new concept per se, but it feels like it’s r read more

If you wanted to string together a noir cast with the quintessential mélange of rogues who never quite made it to bona fide A-lister status, Crashout more than fits the bill. It’s a different kind of mission movie for a different kind of mission and a different brand of protagonist. They̵ read more

There’s some instant shorthand at play as the titular woman takes a bus into town to set down some roots for awhile. It’s apropos given the salacious title and the opening ballad looking to capitalize on the first impression. Beverly Michaels steps into view and does the rest, more than read more

The film opens when a little black girl named Carolyn tumbles into a well buried beneath some weeds. There’s a melodramatic handling of the material, but already we see something rather uncommon with the period noir. Normally black characters live on the periphery of film noir if they exist a read more

In a movie like 711 Ocean Drive, Edmond O’Brien proved himself capable of being a cad over the course of his performance. With Shield for Murder, there’s no buildup or pretense. He establishes himself as a stone-cold killer right from the outset before we even get a peek at the credits. read more

It serves the filmmakers to begin with an opening crawl about how organized crime tried to halt production of the movie, and they would have succeeded too if not for the bravery of the police on set. Whether or not it’s true, it plays as easy publicity for the film to feed off of. Today it fe read more

We just lost Robbie Robertson and being an avid fan of The Band, I was genuinely affected by the loss. The relationship between Martin Scorsese and Robertson is hardly a secret from The Last Waltz to their many film score collaborations, but Robertson also has Native American heritage through his mo read more

Gigi (1958) Lerner & Loewe’s adaptation of Colette’s Gigi is a picture accentuating the France of Hollywood’s most opulent dreams and confections frequented by the consummate French people of the movies: Maurice Chevalier, Leslie Caron, and Louis Jordan. Whether it’s Ern read more

If Royal Wedding started off the decade with the auspicious coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, then The Reluctant Debutante depicts another cultural milestone in its own right: the last “Season” before the newly-instated Queen decided to officially disband the social tradition. ThereR read more

The 1950s saw director Vincente Minnelli continually evolving from mostly musicals — a pleasing genre he never totally forsook — into a period of his career ripe with luscious Metrocolor dramas. Movies such as Tea and Sympathy, Some Came Running, and Home from the Hill, don’t get read more

“I don’t care about being respected. I’m trying to live as a true Christian.” – Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh It seems the world over has remained transfixed by the life of Vincent Van Gogh, which is rather ironic since he failed to gain much traction in his own lifetime. F read more