The Cobweb (1955) with Vincent Minelli directing Richard Widmark, Laura Bacall, Gloria Grahame, Lillian Gish, Charles Boyer, and introducing John Kerr. Deliver the story in Cinemascope and Technicolor, and one would expect a smash blockbuster sensation, would one not? Unhappily, no.
Widmark and...
Is listening to audiobooks and then posting in the "Reading" thread okay? On a recent road trip the Missus and I listened to two Agatha Christie books, The Man in the Brown Suit, and The Mystery of the Blue Train. The former was excellently read by Amelia Fox, the latter also excellently read by...
Did we mention Buck Privates, from 1941, with Bud and Lou? It was some time back, another edition of family movie night. The kids liked the comedy bits, not so much the songs (which I enjoyed). There were frequent laugh out louds from the grown-ups, especially the dice game scene.
Noir icon...
Two very different bills o'fare for the House of Shellhammer Film Fest and Continual Soiree-
The Cover-Up (1949) with Dennis O'Keefe, William Bendix, and Barbara Britton, in which no-nonsense insurance investigator O'Keefe tries to determine if an insured death was suicide or homicide, and...
The Last Ride (1944) a Warner Brothers - First National release, with Richard Travis as Detective Lieutenant Pat Harrigan, Charles Lang as brother Mike Harrigan, * and Eleanor Parker as Kitty Kelly, winsome lass loved by both Harrigans. The hiccup in the story is that Pat is on the side of the...
In the recently resuscitated Movie Night we viewed the 1944 Murder, My Sweet, starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, and Anne Shirley, a film version of Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely. Director Edward Dmytryk delivers the goods with noir lighting, gripping camera work when Powell is...
Pitfall (1948) with Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, and Jane Wyatt, under the direction of Andre de Toth. We found it to be an unlikeable movie, with Powell as an unlikeable grump of a husband, who, in his job as an insurance adjuster, falls for Scott, who was the recipient of gifts bought with...
The Missus asked for a noir instead of Murder, She Wrote, so it was Roadblock off the Watch TCM app. Charles McGraw heads this 1951 production, as an insurance detective who falls for Joan Dixon (of whom, I admit, I knew nothing), who at first appears to be a schemer, focused on getting minks...
The Falcon Takes Over (1942), with George Sanders, Lynn Bari, James Gleason, Allen Jenkins, and so many more. Based on a short story character, expanded into a series of films, the screen Falcon is clearly a strong echo of The Saint. Even the title is a recycling of The Saint Takes Over. Sanders...
1935's Mutiny on the Bounty, with Clark Gable and Charles Laughton.
Viva Zapata! (1952), dir. Elia Kazan, with Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn, and Joseph (Dr. No) Wiseman.
When Worlds Collide, the screen version of the 1933 novel, with Richard Derr and Barbara Rush, brought to us in...
A Carol for Another Christmas, an ABC network made-for-television movie from 1964. Rod Serling revises the Charles Dickens classic for the Cold War era nuclear war fear and the isolation mindset prevalent in those times. Several key components from the original are retained- a nephew named Fred...
Bringing the Shellhammer Mansion Binge-fest and Continual Soiree up to date, it was 1953's Bad for Each Other, starring Charlton Heston, noir icon Lizabeth Scott, and Dianne Foster. Sort of a mash-up of a 1930s medical drama where a society doctor gets rich and powerful by catering to Park...
The other day it was The Saint in Palm Springs (1940), with George Sanders as the titular character, Wendy Barrie as the daughter of a fellow who has $200,00 in rare stamps, Jonathan Hale as Inspector Fernack, and Paul Guilfoyle as a former pickpocket trying to go straight. Through a series of...
Sabrina (1954) with Bogie, Audrey, and a blond Bill Holden. AA for Edith Mode Head for costume design. Directed by Billy Wilder from a screen play by Wilder, Samuel Taylor, and Ernest Lehman. If you have seen it, you know it is a rom-com, a semi-farce, and a fairy tale, with the whimsey and...
Things to Come (1936) a film adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1933 book The Shape of Things to Come, a "future history" of a world devastated by war, and the restoration of civilization by airmen and scientists. The film generally follows the book's theme.
Directed by William Cameron Menzies, with...
The Informer (1935), directed by John Ford, with Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston Foster. Four Academy Awards: best actor, director, screenplay, score. A masterful film, set in 1922 Ireland, with McLaglen as a slow on the uptake member of the lower classes, who has been put out of the...
The Man Who Died Twice (1958), directed by Joseph Kane (who was behind the camera for In Old Sacramento, Song of Nevada, and The Yellow Rose of Texas), and starring Rod Cameron, Vera Ralston, and Mike Mazurski. Here I insert IMDb's synopsis in full:
Nightclub owner T.J. Brennon dies in a car...
Your earlier comments are well-put, FF; The Dark Corner is a solid noir, but for an introduction to the genre perhaps something along the lines of Out of the Past would be better.
The Dark Corner (1946), a superb noir with Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix , and Mark Stevens, directed by Henry Hathaway. Classic noir visuals, with high contrast lighting, geometric shapes formed by light cutting into a room from a window, shadows carrying the storyline cast on...
Recent views at the stately Shellhammer Fete du Film include
The Saint's Double Trouble (1940) with George Sanders, and a minor appearance of Bela Lugosi; Jonathan Hale returns in his role as Inspector Fernack. Directed by Jack Hively, who helmed a couple other productions in the franchise. As...
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