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A Kiss Before Dying signals its intent with a score befitting a light musical or frothy romantic comedy headlined by youthful heartthrob Robert Wagner. For the uninitiated, the story is based on Ira Levin’s novel and remains all but prepared to plunge into the depths of deceitful drama. This read more

“It’s so stupid and pointless to be alive in the morning and dead in the afternoon.” There’s a lovely contradiction in crafting a De Luxe noir in Cinemascope. It’s visually luscious and still shot on the kind of cheapo budget Richard Fleischer was able to make sing ear read more

Although it was distributed by Columbia, The Long Haul is a bit unique from your typical Hollywood offerings. Victor Mature is an American G.I., who settled in England with his English wife following the end of the war. He has a cross-cultural marriage in a post-war landscape and since this is a Br read more

“For the night is already at hand and it is well to yield to the night.” There’s immediate traction to Yield to The Night’s opening visuals. We look on at pigeons scuttling about, outdoor waterfalls, and Diana Dors’s heels clicking across an open plaza. Of course, we d read more

The Burglar is instantly established with a pleasing visual geography. In fact, this kind of pervasively engaging visual landscape is constantly being reinforced, and in his first feature, director Paul Wendkos shows off his perceptive eye. Though he was a workhorse in television, it does lead one read more

The Sound of Fury opens with a kind of portent. A demonstrative street preacher yells out at the pedestrians walking by to “Prepare to meet thy God and Repent of their sins.” He pretty much gets trampled with all his pamphlets ending up on the ground in a sea of humanity. It’s rea read more

“You know what’s inside of ivy Mike? Little crawling things. You should feel right at home there.” The Underworld Story is full of these wild narrative beats forming the foundation of a new normal. It’s like playing an unwieldy game of connect the dots. Take the opening scene read more

I’ll say it again, but Richard Conte is one of the unsung heroes of film noir. He could play ominous villains (Big Combo) or charismatic everymen caught in the pincers of fate (Call Northside 777). But the most important piece is that we buy him in either, whether he’s earnest or simply read more

“From the ashes of Phenix City has risen the symbol of democracy at work. The power of the ballot will always be the voice of the American People.” The cut of the film I watched had a rather unique opening prologue complete with interviews by esteemed reporter Clete Roberts (You might r read more

The movie opens briskly with a man and a woman racing through Middle America in their car. The shots provide a lovely, claustrophobic framing and closeups of our characters making the moment especially palpable. From what I can glean, this was actually attributed to a man named Hoge, a former grip read more

This is my Entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association’s Fall Blogathon Movies are Murder! Although no one knew it at the time, Confidentially Yours would become the makeshift curtain call to Francois Truffaut’s career as he died of a brain tumor shortly thereafter. The movie in no way read more

Like many of the directors of his day and age, Robert Wise cut his teeth on noirish material on his way up the industry totem pole toward more prestigious projects. House on Telegraph Hill supplants a Belsen Concentration Camp survivor named Karin Dernakova (Valentina Cortese) who emigrates to San F read more

He Walked by Night is akin to T-Men or Border Incident in its pervasive use of “Voice of God” narration. Today, all of this feels blase and staid like newsreel footage without much substance. Over time, the voice feels a bit like a pesky mosquito not so much in tone or frequency but sim read more

It’s easy to imagine Steve Randall (Steve Brodie) has the life of many men circa 1947. He’s a war vet, and he makes an honest wage as a truck driver. Brodie and the effervescent Audrey Long are stars befitting the budget of the film, but I rather like them for it. There’s nothing read more

These old Jack Arnold films are a perfect example of how expectations don’t always meet reality. Because if you’re like me, you have a certain preconception about how these movies will go — how they will look — and thus you may have written them off. Part of this might be th read more

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and they were without form or void.” This not only the beginning of the book of Genesis and the creation story but also the film Creature from the Black Lagoon. If this sounds like a curious inclusion, it fits the way the story is read more

It Came From Outer Space looks to check all the boxes when we consider prototypical 1950s Sci-Fi. Based on a treatment by Ray Bradbury, it was shot by director Jack Arnold in black and white to utilize 3D. These are only some of the trappings it offers up in line with much of what you would expect read more

Masculin Féminin (1966) Hello to everyone who has taken the time to read this film blog! First off, thank you so much for reading! I’m really bad at self-promotion so the fact that anyone would take time to look over something I’ve written still humbles me. I’ve been amazed to see read more

“Times had changed. It was the age of James Bond and Vietnam.” The film opens with a casual conversation between two young people: the young man, Paul (Jean-Pierre Leaud), bugs the girl, Madeleine (Chantal Goya), sitting across the way. Then, this conversation between young people in a read more

“Photography is truth, and cinema is truth 24 times a second.” Although Le Petit Soldat was released in 1963 — no thanks to the censors — it was actually filmed in 1960. This context is all-important because Jean-Luc Godard is still fresh off the sensibilities of Breathless, read more