“In the annals of crime of any great city, there is always one case that for sheer savagery will never be forgotten. No professional criminal could ever match its fury, for it is the record of murder without reason, of fear and of terror of a killer who strikes without warning.” So begins the story of the garden shear wielding love-killer, at large in 1951 Los Angeles, who has a murderous penchant for blondes.Originally released through United Artists, on DVD by Dark Sky Filmsas part of their... Read Full Story

There's an intimidating number of books written about classic film noir. One of the most underrated is Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir. Arthur Lyons lists only B-movies – skipping over major-studio classics like Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon and others. He concentrates on mostly forgotten, low-budget films. Over the past few years I have managed to dig up copies of most of the movies written about in the book. Many of these cheapies are probably best forgotten by all... Read Full Story

Alice Faye Noir and Brooding Darnell as Femme FataleThe 1945 film noir drama Fallen Angel was seen by Twentieth-Century Fox’s boss Darryl F. Zanuck as an opportunity to show a new Alice Faye as a transformation to dramatic star from her hugely successful previous career as the studio’s premiere leading lady of musicals.Alice Faye’s meteoric rise to stardom beginning as a Great Depression is the stuff of which inspiration is generated. Young Alice Leppert, daughter of a New York City policema... Read Full Story

Hell is the Choices We Make“You ever wonder what hell is like?Maybe it ain’t the place you think.Fire and brimstone?Devils with horns poking you in the butt with a pitchfork?What’s hell?The time you should’ve walked…but you didn’t.That’s hell.You’re looking at it.”How right Al Capone was when he said, “Once corrupted always controlled,” and this maxim comes into play in the marvelous 1993 neo-noir film, Romeo Is Bleeding. The film is from director Peter Medak who created the phenomenal film T... Read Full Story

Hell is the Choices We Make“You ever wonder what hell is like?Maybe it ain’t the place you think.Fire and brimstone?Devils with horns poking you in the butt with a pitchfork?What’s hell?The time you should’ve walked…but you didn’t.That’s hell.You’re looking at it.”How right Al Capone was when he said, “Once corrupted always controlled,” and this maxim comes into play in the marvelous 1993 neo-noir film, Romeo Is Bleeding. The film is from director Peter Medak who created the phenomenal film T... Read Full Story

Alice Faye Noir and Brooding Darnell as Femme FataleThe 1945 film noir drama Fallen Angel was seen by Twentieth-Century Fox’s boss Darryl F. Zanuck as an opportunity to show a new Alice Faye as a transformation to dramatic star from her hugely successful previous career as the studio’s premiere leading lady of musicals.Alice Faye’s meteoric rise to stardom beginning as a Great Depression is the stuff of which inspiration is generated. Young Alice Leppert, son of a New York City policeman, us... Read Full Story

1946 was a big year for film noir. Two years earlier Double Indemnity was a smash. The-yet-to-be named film-noir style was the rage in Hollywood. All American movie studios scrambled to put out the next big Cain-like crime thriller. After the '46 release of the classic noirs The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gilda came Monogram's biggest budgeted film, Suspense.Suspense – with a storyline that's almost exactly like Gilda released a month before – was put together by the King Brothers aft... Read Full Story

1946 was a big year for film noir. Two years earlier Double Indemnity was a smash. The-yet-to-be named film-noir style was the rage in Hollywood. All American movie studios scrambled to put out the next big Cain-like crime thriller. After the '46 release of the classic noirs The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gilda came Monogram's biggest budgeted film, Suspense.Suspense – with a storyline that's almost exactly like Gilda released a month before – was put together by the King Brothers aft... Read Full Story

“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 Fred and Ginger dancing across the screen. In that moment, so wonderfully free of dialogue, Allen speaks directly to the audience more poignantly than in all the times he ever tossed witticisms through the fourth wall. For me Tomorrow Is Another ... Read Full Story

“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 Fred and Ginger dancing across the screen. In that moment, so wonderfully free of dialogue, Allen speaks directly to the audience more poignantly than in all the times he ever tossed witticisms through the fourth wall. For me Tomorrow Is Another ... Read Full Story