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Film noirs have always leaned into the darkest impulses of human existence, and the desire for revenge has long been a cornerstone of the genre. From widowed cops tirelessly pursuing those who harmed their loved ones to old enemies emerging from the protagonist's past in search of vengeance, sinister tales of revenge included some of the greatest film noirs ever made. As corrupt crooks, fatalistic femme fatales, and vilified victims become embroiled in conspiracies of murder and deceit, its inevitable that those who have been wronged wish to seek revenge.

Plenty of must-watch film noirs explore themes of revenge, as classic noir actors like Robert Mitchum excelled at playing morally corrupted characters who would stop at nothing for a chance at vengeance. These stories echo the fears and anxieties of their era, as the aftermath of the Second World War and fears around impending nuclear conflict led to many depictions of darkly sinister characters.

The entire canon of American film noir history is littered with iconic imagery of the meanest, scariest, and most horrifying villains the mind can conjure up. Jimmy Cagney's lopsided hat and rye smile in The Public Enemy, Robert Mitchum's tattooed knuckles in The Night of the Hunter, the white-brimmed hat and dress of Jane Greer in Out of the Past, and John Huston's suspenders in Chinatown are some of the most instantly recognizable visages of cinematic villainry and would strike terror into the hearts of any viewer. But there is one Oscar-nominated film noir performance that chills the bones possibly more than any other: Richard Widmark's turn as the terrifying Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death from 1947. Widmark's place in the hall of infamy is as well deserved as any, and it is a shame his performance isn't talked about as frequently as the others aforementioned or...

If Valentine cards are too lame and saccharine for your taste, then maybe you need something a little more hard-boiled for this lovers’ holiday. Perhaps, “What do I call you besides stupid?” or “We go together like guns and ammunition” are more in line with the romantic sentiments you’d like to express to your gumshoe or femme fatale. If that’s the case, then here are some lethally attractive film noir romances with the cynical bite your cold heart craves.

Marriage vows state, “till death do us part.” But in noir, that death is very rarely of natural causes. I mean, there’s a reason women in noir are referred to as femme fatales – they can be deadly.

Here’s a list of the 10 best classic American films noir to celebrate with on Valentine’s Day.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t already figured it out, I will be...

Spoiler Alert! This post contains details from Episode 2 of The Idol on HBO.

Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) is supposed to be preparing for her big comeback, but Episode 2 of HBO’s The Idol calls into question whether she’s ready to step back into the spotlight.

Episode 2, titled “Double Fantasy,” opens with Jocelyn trying to convince her team to release a different (and far more sexualized) version of her upcoming single “World Class Sinner” — one that she said felt more authentic but her manager shuts down the idea. Authentic or not, it’s not as commercial as the track they’ve already recorded. She reminds Jocelyn that she needs all the help she can get since she canceled her last tour due to a mental breakdown after she lost her mom to cancer. And anyway, they’re already prepared to shoot the music video for the song as it is. That...

Vintage high-end Film Noir from the classic year 1947! Low Mileage too — this long cut hasn’t been seen since the early laserdisc days. I didn’t know it needed restoring until George Feltenstein talked about it a couple of years ago. It’s a domestic noir crossed with Double Indemnity with a little An American Tragedy thrown in for good measure. Normally squeaky-clean Robert Young throws his hat into the ring with the lowest of noir hero-villains: in this one he double-crosses three terrific noir leading ladies. We can now spell ‘Unspeakable Cad’ with the initial Ry. The most amazing thing about The Warner Film Archive’s new disc is that it restores a full fifteen minutes — Eddie Muller screened They Won’t on his Noir City show not long ago, with no mention that it was the short, edited version.

They Won’t Believe Me

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 95 min.

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“A Likable Cad”

By Raymond Benson

Robert Young had a career of playing mostly trustworthy nice guys—after all, one could say he was born to play Marcus Welby, M.D. on television. But in 1947, he took the chance of portraying an all-around heel, a no-good philanderer who married for money and looks for every opportunity to score with someone new. And yet, Young’s admirable qualities are still there, making his character of Larry Ballentine in the film noir drama, They Won’t Believe Me, a likable cad. He pulls it off, too.

Audiences didn’t take to the change, though, and the picture was a box office dud. However, the lack of profits when a movie is released is never a true indication of its quality. They Won’t Believe Me is an artfully crafted, well-acted, twisty tale about lies, fate, and luck.

Spoken today, such a statement might arouse contention and debate, but it is far from unthinkable or even impertinent—as it might have been, say, in 1954, the year that Truffaut penned his politique; or in 1966, when Jean-Pierre Léaud played a man named “Donald Siegel” in Godard’s Made in U.S.A.; or even in 1968, when Siegel was the subject of a career retrospective at London’s National Film Theatre and an entry in the “Expressive Esoterica” section of Andrew Sarris’ landmark The American Cinema. In a 1971 issue of Film Comment, film critic Jim Kitses was still able to dismiss Siegel as “a good commercial director, no more and no less,” relegating the “subversive idea—that the French... consider Siegel to be Hollywood’s most gifted filmmaker” to the purview of gossip columnist Joyce Haber (“nobody really believes that kind of thing in this town”). But the filmmaker’s reputation in the U.

Martin Amis’ 1984 novel “Money,” inspired by his painful experiences as the screenwriter of the disastrous 1980 sci-fi movie “Saturn 3,” includes a character based on “Saturn 3” star Kirk Douglas: “Lorne Guyland,” an aging but still virile screen legend, “had, in his time, on stage or screen, interpreted the roles of Genghis Khan, Al Capone, Marco Polo, Huckleberry Finn, Charlemagne, Paul Revere, Erasmus, Wyatt Earp, Voltaire, Sky Masterson, Einstein, Jack Kennedy, Rembrandt, Babe Ruth, Oliver Cromwell, Amerigo Vespucci, Zorro, Darwin, Sitting Bull, Freud, Napoleon, Spider-Man, Macbeth, Melville, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Methuselah, Mozart, Merlin, Marx, Mars, Moses and Jesus Christ.”

And while “Money” is not, on the whole, particularly kind to Kirk Douglas, this list does reflect the breadth and scope of a screen career that started in 1946 and culminated in the early 21st century.

On screen, Douglas was the epitome of the square-jawed leading man, whether he was playing a Roman slave,...

Now that we can read the real story of the great silent actor and makeup magician Lon Chaney, the inaccuracies are fairly glaring in this well-received biopic about his career heights and difficult personal life. But it remains a compelling James Cagney movie, allowing the actor to try on different acting styles (and even a dancing style). The dramatic conflicts may be invented, but they’re compelling just the same. The movie works even as it represents Chaney’s original fantastic makeup creations with a series of ever-worsening rubber masks. Excellent supporting performances from Dorothy Malone, Jane Greer and Celia Lovsky. This one carries a good Tim Lucas commentary as well.

Man of a Thousand Faces

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1957 / B&w / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 122 min. / Street Date October 29, 2019 / Available from Arrow Video / 34.95

Starring: James Cagney, Dorothy Malone, Jane Greer, Marjorie Rambeau, Jim Backus, Robert Evans, Celia Lovsky, Jeanne Cagney, Jack Albertson.

Serenity opens like a well-worn noir seduction with Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. Where it ends will shatters that spell.

She walks into the bar, long blonde hair and large sparkling jewels. Surrounded by drinkers, fishers, and every other type of sad sack who’s surrendered on life, she is literally the diamond in the rough—and one with a poisoned edge aimed at the man who can never forget her. This is the early hook of Serenity that is unapologetically derivative of a legion of noirs from decades past, perhaps most notably Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past (1947), only now with Matthew McConaughey as Robert Mitchum and Anne Hathaway as Jane Greer. Well, I love noir and I like derision of its form, so when Steven Knight’s twisty post-modern reinvention leans into tradition, you can almost see a great thriller.

Almost, because what Serenity is really about...

Jane Russell heats up an Arizona mining town but she’s just trying to help her new husband with his ethnic identity issues, Jeff Chandler. Superb color cinematography (forget the B&W photos here) and beautiful desert locations help, but the real appeal is seeing Russell and gorgeous co-star Mara Corday in all their glory.

Foxfire

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1955 / Color / 2:00 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date , 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jane Russell, Jeff Chandler, Dan Duryea, Mara Corday, Barton MacLane, Frieda Inescort, Celia Lovsky, Eddy Waller, Robert F. Simon, Charlotte Wynters, Robert Bice, Arthur Space, Beulah Archuletta, Dabbs Greer, Grace Lenard, Vici Raaf.

Cinematography: William Daniels

Film Editor: Ted. J. Kent

Original Music: Frank Skinner

Written by Ketti Frings, from the novel by Anya Seton

Produced by Aaron Rosenberg

Directed by Joseph Pevney

A medium-wattage relationship soap, Foxfire is an Eisenhower-era blueprint for consensus attitudes about race and class...

Allright movie fans, it’s still fairly warm outside, so why not enjoy a bit of escapist fun before the days get shorter and colder, just ahead of these big “high-falutin'” awards contenders? Yes, we know that kale and broccoli is better for you, but sometimes you just want to dig in to a big sloppy burger, perhaps with a dash or two of hot sauce to make it extra naughty, just like this new flick. It’s steamy and salacious, concerning a scheming seductress who’s up to no good, in one of those pricey, plush suburban “mini-mansions”. It’s a movie adaptation of a good “beach read” (it is based on a novel) starring a trio of our most photogenic film stars, perfectly coiffed and tailored. And what director is calling on the shots on this sexy, stylish modern, noir-ish, who and how “dun it”? Wait, whoa… it...

Trouble Is My Business with Brittney Powell. Co-written by actor/voice actor Tom Konkle, who also directed, and Xena: Warrior Princess actress Brittney Powell, Trouble Is My Business is a humorous homage to film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s, among them John Huston's The Maltese Falcon and Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. Konkle stars in the sort of role that back in the '40s and '50s belonged to the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Dick Powell, and Alan Ladd. As the femme fatale, Brittney Powell is supposed to evoke memories of Jane Greer, Lizabeth Scott, Lauren Bacall, and Claire Trevor. 'Trouble Is My Business': Humorous film noir homage evokes memories of 'The Maltese Falcon' & 'Touch of Evil' A crunchy, witty, and often just plain funny mash-up of classic noir tropes, from hard-boiled private dicks to the easy-on-the-eyes femme fatales – in addition to dialogue worthy of Dashiell Hammett and, occasionally...

David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.

Portrait of Jennie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.

Cinematography: Joseph H. August

Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt

Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann

Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by William Dieterle

Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...

Everyone notices the eyes first, languid, those of a somnambulist. Robert Mitchum, calm and observant, is a presence that, through passivity, enamors a viewer. His face is as effulgent as moonlight. The man smolders, with that boozy, baritone voice, seductive and soporific, a cigarette perched between wispy lips below which is a chin cleft like a geological fault. He’s slithery with innuendo. There’s an effortless allure to it all, a mix of malaise and braggadocio, a cocksure machismo and a hint of fragility. He’s ever-cool, a paradox, “radiating heat without warmth,” as Richard Brody said. A poet, a prodigious lover and drinker, a bad boy; his penchant for marijuana landed him in jail, and in the photographs from his two-month stay he looks like a natural fit. He sits, wrapped in denim, legs spread wide, hair shiny and slick, holding a cup of coffee. His mouth is...

Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...

Edgar G. Ulmer movies on TCM: 'The Black Cat' & 'Detour' Turner Classic Movies' June 2017 Star of the Month is Audrey Hepburn, but Edgar G. Ulmer is its film personality of the evening on June 6. TCM will be presenting seven Ulmer movies from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, including his two best-known efforts: The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). The Black Cat was released shortly before the officialization of the Christian-inspired Production Code, which would castrate American filmmaking – with a few clever exceptions – for the next quarter of a century. Hence, audiences in spring 1934 were able to witness satanism in action, in addition to other bizarre happenings in an art deco mansion located in an isolated area of Hungary. Sporting a David Bowie hairdo, Boris Karloff is at his sinister best in The Black Cat (“Do you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead”), ailurophobic (a.

David Lynch and Mark Frost's 1990 TV series looks better than ever, while the 1992 feature prequel digs deeper in Laura Palmer's unpleasant final days without as many rewards. CBS's 9-disc retrospective is a setup for the highly awaited series continuation -- delayed by 25 years. Twin Peaks: The Original Series, Fire Walk with Me & The Missing Pieces Blu-ray CBS / Paramount 1990 & 1992 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame & 1:78 widescreen / 25 hours + 134 min. / Street Date September 20, 2016 / 72,99 Starring (series) Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Ontkean, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, Ray Wise, Sheryl Lee, Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Richard Beymer, Warren Frost, Peggy Lipton, James Marshall, Everett McGill, Jack Nance, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Kimmy Robertson, Eric Da Re, Harry Goaz, Michael Horse,Russ Tamblyn, Kenneth Welsh, Wendy Robie, Miguel Ferrer, David Lynch, Heather Graham, Dan O'Herlihy, Billy Zane, James Booth, Michael Parks, Lenny von Dohlen, Hank Worden, David Duchovny, Walter Olkewicz, Jane Greer, David L. Lander,...

John Flynn's The Outfit (1974), a brutally efficient bit of business based glancingly on Richard Stark’s procedurally inquisitive and poetic crime novel of the same name, is a movie that feels like it’s never heard of a rounded corner; it’s blunt like a 1970 Dodge Monaco pinning a couple of killers against a Dumpster and a brick wall. I say “glancingly” because the movie, as Glenn Kenny observed upon The Outfit’s DVD release from the Warner Archives, is based less on the chronologically unconcerned novel than an idea taken from it. On the page Stark's protagonist, the unflappable Parker, his face altered by plastic surgery to the degree that past associates often take a fatal beat too long to realize to whom it is they are speaking, assumes the detached perspective of a bruised deity, undertaking the orchestration of a series of robberies administered to Mob-run businesses...

By John M. Whalen

Howdy, pardners. It’s western movie roundup time at Cinema Retro today. Here are a handful of oldie westerns recently released on DVD by the Warner Archive- and which are now available in the Cinema Retro Movie Store. And a rootin’, tootin’, downright interesting bunch of movies they are.

Station West

First up, “Station West” with Dick Powell and Jane Greer. Ever wonder what would happen if private dick Philip Marlowe traveled back in time to the old west and tried to solve a murder case? That’s essentially what you have with Station West, an offbeat western filmed in black and white that plays like film noir, except all the men wear wide-brimmed Stetsons instead of Fedoras, and shoot Colt Peacemakers and Winchesters instead of snubbed nosed .38s. To further mix up the western and detective genres Jane Greer, the most fatale of all femme fatales,...

What a way to start off the week! The formidable cast list for Showtime's forthcoming Twin Peaks revival series was revealed this morning, and man, is it a doozy. In addition to boasting such key returning players as Kyle MacLachlan (Dale Cooper), Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer/Maddy Ferguson) and Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne), there are a number of surprising A-listers in the mix including Michael Cera, Trent Reznor, Amanda Seyfried and Naomi Watts. On the downside, a not-insignificant number of cast members from both the original series and the 1992 prequel film Fire Walk with Me are completely absent from the list. Where, for instance, is Lara Flynn Boyle (or Moira Kelly, for that matter)? Michael Ontkean? Piper Laurie? Joan Chen? Anyone from the mill? (Literally, there is no one from the mill.) So while I'm thankful that most of the major players are back in action, I can't help but...

Army investigator John Haven is out to catch some crooks using stealth, his wits and a limitless supply of marvelous hardboiled dialogue. Dick Powell trades a trench coat for a cowboy hat, while luscious Jane Greer swaps a .38 snubnose for a dance hall dress. A great cast, a witty script and Burl Ives' singing voice make this a delightfully different noir-inflected oater. Station West DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 80 min. / Street Date January 12, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Dick Powell, Jane Greer, Agnes Moorehead, Burl Ives,Tom Powers, Gordon Oliver, Steve Brodie, Guinn Williams, Raymond Burr, Regis Toomey, Olin Howlin, John Kellogg, Charles Middleton, John Doucette . Cinematography Harry J. Wild Film Editor Frederic Knudtson Original Music Heinz Roemheld Written by Frank Fenton, Winston Miller Produced by Robert Sparks Directed by Sidney Lanfield

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Want to discover a 'different,' fun '40s western with clever plotting?...

Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...

Ready for more Anthony Mann? This light comedy thriller / borderline noir leans on amnesia for a plot hook and to motivate an all-night prowl on the streets of Los Angeles the Rko back lot. Tom Conway and Ann Rutherford star, but the real thrill is in the secondary female leads -- Jean Brooks from the Val Lewton movies and dreamy Jane Greer in her billed feature debut. Two O'Clock Courage DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1945 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 66 min. / Street Date June 16, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 18.49 Starring Tom Conway, Ann Rutherford, Jean Brooks, Bettejane Greer, Richard Lane, Lester Matthews, Roland Drew, Emory Parnell. Cinematography Jack Mackenzie Original Music Roy Webb Written by Robert E. Kent, Gordon Kahn from a story by Gelett Burgess Produced by Ben Stoloff Directed by Anthony Mann  

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This disc will get immediate attention from fans of director Anthony Mann. Another...

Susan Hayward. Susan Hayward movies: TCM Star of the Month Fiery redhead Susan Hayward it Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in Sept. 2015. The five-time Best Actress Oscar nominee – like Ida Lupino, a would-be Bette Davis that only sporadically landed roles to match the verve of her thespian prowess – was initially a minor Warner Bros. contract player who went on to become a Paramount second lead in the early '40s, a Universal leading lady in the late '40s, and a 20th Century Fox star in the early '50s. TCM will be presenting only three Susan Hayward premieres, all from her Fox era. Unfortunately, her Paramount and Universal work – e.g., Among the Living, Sis Hopkins, And Now Tomorrow, The Saxon Charm – which remains mostly unavailable (in quality prints), will remain unavailable this month. Highlights of the evening include: Adam Had Four Sons (1941), a sentimental but surprisingly...

James Woods in 'Videodrome.' James Woods in $10 million Twitter lawsuit feud: Crassly vocal right-wing actor goes after two crassly vocal users who attacked him In a letter dated Aug. 21, '15, Twitter attorney Ryan Mrazik ridiculed Surf's Up and Scary Movie 2 actor James Woods, while also highlighting the potentially dangerous precedent of a $10 million lawsuit the 68-year-old entertainer filed against a Twitter user last July. The lawsuit was followed by a subpoena demanding that the social media giant reveal the user's identity and that of another user with whom Woods has been embroiled in the (generally) no-holds-barred Twitterverse. In case you're unfamiliar with the name, these days the two-time Oscar-nominated Woods is best known for a supporting role as a right-wing sociopath in Roland Emmerich's thriller White House Down, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx (as a liberal-minded U.S. president despised by Woods' character), and for his relentless,...

Our weekly feature in which a writer answers the question: if you could force your friends at gunpoint to watch one movie or TV show what would it be? Why do I love film noir? Why does anyone? After all, it's a genre that seems to confirm that people are horrible, that the world is painful, and that we will let each other down given any opportunity. Film noir has a world-weary worldview, but I would stop short of calling it cynical. I am many things as I reach the halfway point of my fourth decade on Earth, but I am not cynical. I love film noir because while it may reflect a cynical world view, the reason it hurts is because there is still some small light, some tiny hope, some sense of optimism. If you're truly cynical, there's nothing the world can do to disappoint you. Me, I...

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Blonde Ice

Written by Kenneth Gamet

Directed by Jack Bernhard

U.S.A., 1948

A wedding day is a joyous occasion to celebrate the unison between two people deeply in love with one another, ready and willing to spend the remainder of their lives together until death do them part. Claire Cummings’ (Leslie Brooks) understanding of what a wedding represents renounces most of those delightful thoughts, only retaining and applying the part about death. Claire is a vixen, a conniving, duplicitous witch who spends her energy on marrying wealthy, important people, only to concoct their demise shortly thereafter, reaping the benefits of fanciful wills in the process. Her matrimonial reunion to a powerful businessman in the film’s opening scene irks polite, clean-cut Les Burns (Robert Paige), with whom Claire to used to work at a newspaper. Deep down he loves Claire, naively unaware of her true intentions. When her hubby...

Christian Petzold took a bold step into history with 2012's Barbara, exiling Nina Hoss's heroine into the diaphanous threats and suspicions of a provincial, 1980s East Germany. With Phoenix, his follow-up, Petzold takes this movement into history even further, striking starkly, deeply at questions of identity in a post-war Germany quivering silently with destitution, rage, and willful blindness. In a spectral sequence opening the film directly evoking the eerie clinical imagery of Georges Franju's lyrical horror film Eyes without a Face, Nelly, a concentration camp survivor, returns in quiet to Berlin after having reconstructive surgery following wartime mutilations. The woman who emerges from under the knife cannot be recognized. She emerges as embodied by Nina Hoss—a true queen in today's cinema—and her slender, lean physique becomes that of a post-war zombie, a ghost embodied, tottering and halting, a body not familiar with movements outside the camp,...

Lizabeth Scott dead at 92: Film noir star of the '40s and '50s Lizabeth Scott, a Paramount star in the 1940s usually cast as film noir heroines, died of congestive heart failure on Jan. 31, 2015, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Scott, born (as Emma Matzo) on Sept. 29, 1922, was 92. (See also: Lizabeth Scott photo at recent The Strange Love of Martha Ivers screening.) Among the two dozen film featuring Lizabeth Scott – whose hair-style and husky line delivery were clearly inspired by Paramount's own Veronica Lake (along with Warner Bros.' Lauren Bacall) – were the following: John Farrow's You Came Along (1945), with Robert Cummings. Lewis Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), with Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and Kirk Douglas. Desert Fury (1947), with Burt Lancaster. Dead Reckoning (1947), with Humphrey Bogart. Pitfall (1948), with Dick Powell. Dark City (1950), with Charlton Heston. The Racket (1951), with Robert Ryan and Robert Mitchum.

'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...

Out of the Past

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Written by Daniel Mainwaring

USA, 1947

Director Jacques Tourneur knew how to make the most out of a little, particularly when he was working in collaboration with producer Val Lewton (see Cat People, 1942, I Walked with a Zombie, 1943, and The Leopard Man, 1943). So when Rko gave this master of the low-budget picture a comparatively larger budget and a top-notch screenplay (by Daniel Mainwaring—as Geoffrey Homes—based on his own novel, “Build My Gallows High”) the result was one of the finest of all film noir.

Starring Robert Mitchum as Jeff and Jane Greer as Kathie, Out of the Past is built on a premise that is one of the defining characteristics of noir: the inevitability of an inescapable past. Such a device was often integral, with the repercussions of one’s recent deeds coming back to haunt them, but relatively rare was...

After watching (and writing about) Out of the Past earlier this week, I had an itch to watch a little more film noir. So, last night, before bed, I started doing a little searching and decided on Edgar G. Ulmer's 67-minute feature Detour starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage. It should be said, before Ulmer started directing films he worked in the art department as set designer on Fritz Lang's Metroplis and M as well as assistant art director on F.W. Murnau's silent classic Sunrise. We've also featured a previous film of his here on this site when Matt Risnes wrote about his 1934 classic Black Cat (read that here) a spectacularly dark and eerie feature featuring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, each of them chewing up the big screen, attempting to outdo one another. That aside, when it comes to Detour, like Out of the Past we're talking about another femme fatale,...

Movies such as Out of the Past are what movie blogging should be all about. While it's undoubtedly important to keep up with the new titles hitting theaters, finding hidden gems within the glut of watered-down, mass audience studio releases, it's just as important to look into the past and find the movies that have shaped cinema into what it is today... or, at least a reminder of what great cinema used to be, and is now mostly (un)seen within the confines of independent releases. As someone who only started delving deep into cinema's rich history about eleven years ago I still pay attention to a variety of sites and bloggers, hoping to hear of films I've never heard of or seen, something to shake up the monotony. Typically this comes in the form of a Criterion Collection release, the gold standard (at least domestically) in ensuring classic cinema remains alive,...

Jeff Bridges spoke of his 19-year journey to bring Lois Lowry’s novel to the big screen at a thoughtful panel hosted by The Weinstein Company on Thursday (24).

Bridges had originally intended to direct The Giver himself and have his father Lloyd play the eponymous role that he himself would eventually take on.

“It was a terrific children’s book but also I enjoyed it so much as an adult and loved its themes and poetry,” Bridges told Hall H.

“I tried to get it made for 18 or 19 years and it proved to be difficult because it was controversial. Lois and I were in Las Vegas at a banned book conference [discussing it.]

“But it was taught in schools. That controversy scared some financiers away but it inspired some and I am so glad The Weinstein Company and Walden had the courage to put this out.”

Lowry seemed to have been taken aback by the way the book has...

There are at least 26 good reasons to straighten your stocking seams, touch up your lip rouge, and queue up for Film Forum's Femmes Noir series, running from July 18 through August 7. Here are just three: Joan Crawford's long-suffering, pie-making matriarch in Mildred Pierce (July 18, 19 and 31); Gene Tierney's ravishing, murderous schemer — one possessed of the most stunning overbite known to man — in Leave Her to Heaven (July 20 and 21); and Jane Greer's predatory faux angel, who comes shimmering along in a saucer-shaped halo of a hat, in one of the most unsparing and bleakly beautiful of all films noir, Out of the Past (also July 20 and 21).

But of all the femmes vying for our attention here, perhaps the most willful and terrifying is p...

The video team here at HitFix constantly impresses me with not only the volume of work that they produce, but also the quality. We've gotten very lucky with the people we've hired, and they make any of our collaborations both easy and fun. Last week, they approached me about a new ongoing feature that they wanted to do, and tomorrow, we're going to shoot the first episode of "Ask Drew," which is exactly what it sounds like. I am constantly asked questions via e-mail and Twitter and in our comments section, and I feel like I never fully answer all of them, something that makes me feel terrible. I am grateful for each and every reader of the work we do here at HitFix, and if I can answer something, I try to. To that end, we are going to try something a little different here starting tomorrow. I want...

Pursued

Written by Niven Busch

Directed Raoul Walsh

USA, 1947

In a small, dilapidated home in the middle of the New Mexico desert, the beautiful but worried Thor Callum (Theresa Wright) arrives to convene with her on-the-run lover Jeb Rand (Robert Mitchum). From whom or what he is fleeing is unclear at first, but he seems convinced that the conclusion to his arduous adventure is near. In the calm before the approaching storm, Jeb recounts the tale from the beginning to fill in Thor and the audience on all the details. As a child, Jeb is adopted by Thor’s mother (Judith Anderson) when the latter found him asleep and alone under a trapdoor in his home, the same place seen in the opening sequence. Unaware of how or why his family died, Jeb is haunted by mysterious visions of the eventful night through much of his life while living on...

Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...

Kirk Douglas movies: The Theater of Larger Than Life Performances Kirk Douglas, a three-time Best Actor Academy Award nominee and one of the top Hollywood stars of the ’50s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured star today, August 30, 2013. Although an undeniably strong screen presence, no one could ever accuse Douglas of having been a subtle, believable actor. In fact, even if you were to place side by side all of the widescreen formats ever created, they couldn’t possibly be wide enough to contain his larger-than-life theatrical emoting. (Photo: Kirk Douglas ca. 1950.) Right now, TCM is showing Andrew V. McLaglen’s 1967 Western The Way West, a routine tale about settlers in the Old American Northwest that remains of interest solely due to its name cast. Besides Douglas, The Way West features Robert Mitchum, Richard Widmark, Lola Albright, and 21-year-old Sally Field in her The Flying Nun days.

Everybody's favorite movie decade: Which ones are the best movies released in the 20th century's second decade? Best Film (Pictured above) Broken Blossoms: Barthelmess and Gish star as ill-fated lovers in D.W. Griffith’s romantic melodrama featuring interethnic love. Check These Out (Pictured below) Cabiria: is considered one of the major landmarks in motion picture history, having inspired the scope and visual grandeur of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Also of note, Pastrone's epic of ancient Rome introduced Maciste, a bulky hero who would be featured in countless movies in the ensuing decades. Best Actor (Pictured below) In the tragic The Italian, George Beban plays an Italian immigrant recently arrived in the United States (Click below for film review). Unfortunately, his American dream quickly becomes a horrendous nightmare of poverty and despair. Best Actress (Pictured below) The movies' super-vamp Theda Bara in A Fool There Was: A little...

Out of the Past

Written by Daniel Mainwaring

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

U.S.A., 1947

Sometimes, there is no eluding one’s past, regardless of how hard one tries. The reasons are numerous. Perhaps the emotional and psychological weight of an event in one’s life are too great to shake off. In other instances the shackles exist because an individual is condemned to spend years actively correcting previous errors in judgement in the hopes of earning long sought after redemption. There exists another set of circumstances, the most deceptively simple of the lot, that being when a person merely walks away from an embarrassing, shameful and deeply regrettable episode, but deliberately creating separation from their history is no guarantee that the old ghosts will acquiesce to letting them be. When one least expects it, a new challenge presents itself from…Out of the Past.

Jeff Baily (Robert Mitchum) has...

Out of the Past

Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Written by Daniel Mainwaring

Starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas

USA, 97 min – 1947.

“I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoked. I didn’t know where she lived. I never followed her. All I ever had to go on was a place and time to see her again. I don’t know what we were waiting for. Maybe we thought the world would end.”

In Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) owns a gas station, in a small California town. He has been courting local girl, Ann (Virginia Huston), despite the disapproval of her parents. Out of nowhere, Jeff’s past comes knocking in the form of a henchman, who orders Jeff to meet with gangster,...

Andrew Sarris, a leading movie critic during a golden age for reviewers who popularized the French reverence for directors and inspired debate about countless films and filmmakers, died Wednesday. He was 83.

Sarris died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell.

Sarris was best known for his work with the Village Voice, his opinions especially vital during the 1960s and 1970s, when movies became films, or even cinema, and critics and fans argued about them the way they once might have contended over paintings or novels.

No longer was the big screen just entertainment. Thanks to film studies courses and revival houses, movies were analyzed in classrooms and in cafes. Audiences discovered such foreign directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, rediscovered older works by Howard Hawks, John Ford and others from Hollywood, and...

By Allen Gardner

Harold And Maude (Criterion) Hal Ashby’s masterpiece of black humor centers on a wealthy young man (Bud Cort) who’s obsessed with death and the septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) with whom he finds true love. As unabashedly romantic as it is quirky, with Cat Stevens supplying one of the great film scores of all-time. Fine support from Vivian Pickles, Cyril Cusack, Charles Tyner, and Ellen Geer. Fine screenplay by Colin Higgins. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Commentary by Hal Ashby biographer Nick Dawson, producer Charles Mulvehill; Illustrated audio excerpts from seminars by Ashby and Higgins; Interview with Cat Stevens. Widescreen. Dolby 2.0 stereo.

In Darkness (Sony) Agnieszka Holland’s Ww II epic tells the true story of a sewer worker and petty thief in Nazi-occupied Poland who single-handedly helped hide a group of Jews in the city’s labyrinthine sewer system for the duration of the war.

Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, The King and I Deborah Kerr Pt.1: What Lies Beneath True, you most likely won’t find Deborah Kerr labeled a sex goddess anywhere, but that’s merely because her sexual allure, apart from the beach scene in From Here to Eternity, was hardly obvious. Unlike overgrown little girls such as Marilyn Monroe, Clara Bow, Jean Harlow, Jayne Mansfield, or Brigitte Bardot, Kerr looked and acted like a mature woman even in her 20s. In other words, there was nothing kittenish about Deborah Kerr; she didn’t pout. Unlike Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Lizabeth Scott, or Susan Sarandon, Kerr’s seething sensuality had nothing to do with sultriness, come-hither looks, or bare body parts. Unlike Simone Simon, Jane Greer, the latter-day Barbara Stanwyck, and other (French or American) film noir dames, or Theda Bara and assorted film...

Decoy

Directed by Jack Bernhard

Written by Nedrick Young (screenplay) and Stanley Rubin (story)

U.S.A., 1946

Film noir is film noir because of a variety of recognized qualities which concern both visuals cues as well as some specific narrative aspects, including stereotypical character traits. It stands to reason that that is how the genre, or any other genre for that matter, is recognized. However, there are some examples of films that, by the very fact that they follow the standards of the genre, somehow manage to create their own special uniqueness. It might be because said movie exemplifies those characteristics particularly well. Other examples prove to be more challenging to evaluate as to what makes them special. The reasons may be more difficult to flesh out simply because one is uncertain as to whether or not the picture is actually good. Watching Jack Berhard’s Decoy in preparation for...

Tension

Directed by John Berry

Screenplay by Allen Rivkin

U.S.A., 1949

Who is the infamous femme fatale? From what dark depths of humanity was she born and will men ever be able to truly resist her seductive moves? Such queries can spark endless discussions, among them the quality of the actresses who have portrayed them throughout the decades, especially in the early days of the noir genre. What appears to be all showmanship and flash hides the real talents of the actresses interpreting the roles. Not everyone can pull off the task with flying colours. Some actresses simply have the ‘fatale bug.’ Jane Greer was one of the most popular of her contemporaries, her role in Out of the Past being the most celebrated. Another talented, seductive thespian of the time that should not be overlooked is Audrey Totter, who made quite a career for herself with a great many roles in noir films.

John Flynn's Rolling Thunder is finally out on DVD. He may not have made enough films, says John Patterson, but when he did, the script came first

John Flynn's Rolling Thunder (1977), available this week for the first time on DVD, takes you back to a time when Hollywood still made grown-up medium-budget thrillers like Charley Varrick, Mr Majestyk or Jackson County Jail. Flynn died in 2007 and never made enough movies; this one reminds us how good he was.

Rolling Thunder was written by Paul Schrader and – like Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza, written by Schrader and his brother Leonard – it signposts themes and imagery that would obsess Schrader in his own movies: Vietnam veterans, samurai ethics, and orgasmic explosions of cathartically violent revenge. Oh, and horribly mutilated hands. POWs Rane (William Devane) and Voden (Tommy Lee Jones) return to Texas after years of torture in a Hanoi prison.