Month: June 2015

Review: Where the Sidewalk Ends

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Where the Sidewalk Ends is a classic film noir from 1950 directed by noir great Otto Preminger.  We have more noir greatness in the two leading stars, Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney.  All three worked on Laura, returning to work together 6 years later on this film.  This is based on a book by William L. Stuart

Some of the small roles that stood out to me is Gary Merrill as our mobster boss and Karl Malden as the cop who just got promoted to lieutenant over Dana Andrews.

This story starts out with Tierney who is accompanied by two other men playing an illegal game of craps.  One of them is winning big, real big.  He is up $19,000!  Tierney starts to go home and one of the men says they can not go yet.  He smacks her and the man up $19 grand punches him.  The two men fight and our lucky gambler is left unconscious on a couch.  We then go to the police headquarters where a murder is reported.  Andrews and his partner leave to investigate the case.  They find the luck gambler dead on the floor, stabbed in the heart.  This is in Merrill’s room where the illegal craps game was being played.  We soon see Merrill and Andrews do not like each other and have a history.  Andrews goes to the apartment of the other man who was with Tierney and who Merrill says killed our gambler.  There is a fight and Andrews accidentally kills his only suspect in a fist fight.  Now Andrews has to cover the murder he committed. Will he get away with it?  Will Merrill get away running his illegal game and possibly murder himself?  How will Tierney react to all of this?

This is another great noir from Andrews, Tierney and Preminger.  I felt it was a darker more gritty noir then Laura and well worth watching.  The fight scenes are not flashy and play more realistically then what we get today.  The style of the film is  quintessential noir.  This was Preminger’s last of 4 noir films he made for 20th Century Fox in the 1940’s and is one of the best.  He went on to make more noir, crime and thriller films well worth watching for other studios.  This film is a must see for all classic film noir fans and all fans of film should give it a viewing.

Book Review: Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt mysteries #1) by Sara Gran

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I have heard a lot of good stuff about Sara Gran and the Claire DeWitt books from Goodreads and other sites and blogs. This book is the first in the series. Claire DeWitt is obviously our main character in this series and she is one of the best private investigators in the world.

This story revolves around DeWitt traveling from California to take a case of a missing lawyer in New Orleans. The missing lawyer disappeared during the Katrina storm. This gives us a look at how this city is doing after the horrible disaster as well as giving us an interesting backdrop to the story. We also flashback to DeWitt’s past, where we find DeWitt started learning to solve mysteries from an early age. She finds a book, written by the famous french detective Jacques Silette, called Détection. She uses this book as her life guide and often quotes from it. We also learn about her teacher Constance, who studied directly under Silette and lived in New Orleans. Though DeWitt does not live in New Orleans we learn part of her past is from this city.

I’ll be honest, the mystery of the missing lawyer was good, but I was way more intrigued with DeWitt’s past cases and history. The missing lawyer case does get solved, but a lot of interesting stories from DeWitt’s past are left open and I want to know more about her history. Her two best friends growing up, Silette, and Constance are all people I want to know more about and think I will in future books. I will be continuing this series for sure!

Sara Gran is a fun author to read, and I look forward to following this series and want to go back and read some of her stand alone books as well. I recommend this book if you are looking for a new series in the noir and mystery genre.

Re-watching: Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead

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Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead is a neo noir from 1995.  1995 was a pretty good year for neo noir films with The Usual Suspects, Se7en, Heat and Casino just to name a few!  That maybe why this film gets lost in the shuffle of great noir films from that year.  No, it isn’t as good as those I’ve mentioned but it is a damn good movie.

The film is directed by Gary Fleder and written by Scott Rosenberg with our top billed star being Andy Garcia.  This cast is full of great performers through out.  See if you can spot Don Cheadle, Jenny McCarthy and Tommy ‘Tiny’ Lister in some of the smaller roles.

This story starts with a guy jumping a fence to get into a school playground to try to steal a little girl and gets caught.  His father, a kingpin of sorts named “The Man With The Plan” is played by Christopher Walken.  He tells Garcia how his son was in love with a girl in high school and college and that girl left him for another man and moved to California.  This girl’s new boyfriend is on his way back to Denver to ask her parents permission to marry her.  This will push Walken’s son over the edge.  He hires Garcia to take care of this.  Garcia then gets his old team back together for one last easy payoff.  The gang consists of Christopher Lloyd, William Forsythe, Bill Nunn, and Treat Williams.  The job goes horribly wrong when things get out of hand and they kill the boyfriend, then the girlfriend gets out of the van and they kill her too.  Now they are in trouble because they have killed The Man With The Plan’s only hope for his son’s future happiness and normality.  Steve Buscemi is the hit-man hired to kill our team.  Gabrielle Anwar plays Garcia’s romantic interest.  Garcia is running all over Denver trying to get his team out-of-town and spend as much time with Anwar before he has to leave town himself.  Will our team get out alive?  Will Garcia save his team and sacrifice himself?  Will he be able to talk Anwar into going with him?

This cast of characters are a blast to watch and all have their unique weaknesses.  The slang in this movie is fun and original, who doesn’t want to use terms like Boat Drinks and Buckwheats. Our gangsters handshake is interesting and has a cool story behind it, we find this out from our old-timer gangster, played by Jack Warden, who pops up from time to time telling the tourists about the good old days.

If all this sounds amazing to you, you should check out this film right away.  It is a very good neo noir that may be overshadowed by some of the best movies of all-time that came out in the same year.  That doesn’t mean this isn’t worth watching too.  For all fans of noir looking for something to watch, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead maybe what you are looking for.

Review: Side Street

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Side Street is a film noir from 1949, directed by Anthony Mann based on a story and a screenplay by Sydney Boehm.  This stars Farley Granger as our protagonist and Cathy O’Donnell as his pregnant wife.

This story is confusing and full of plot holes but a fun noir to watch.  This film starts with a women blackmailing some important business man.  A guy behind a door has a gun to make sure this goes down like it is supposed to.  We then find this girl floating in the water, dead!  Granger is working as a part-time mail carrier(because a full-time mail carrier would be too honest to do this?)  He delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and finds a sign which says “out for 15 minutes and will be back soon”.  Granger finds the door is accidentally left unlocked.  He goes in the office and tries to open a filling cabinet, it is locked.  So he leaves, sees an ax for firefighting and brings it back to open the cabinet.  He grabs a file, puts into his bag, not looking at it, and takes off.  Now a voice over for the film is telling us our mail carrier has 50 cents in his pocket and would or wouldn’t you in that situation steal a few hundred dollars? There ends up being $30,000 in the file. This is where you have to start suspending your rational thinking!  Why would a lawyer with $30,000 in his office not lock the door?  But that is not the biggest questions here! How or why does Garager know that in the second drawer down, the last file in the cabinet has any money in it at all?  He grabs it without looking in the file and without looking in any other drawer or file?  Why does he think there is a few hundred dollars in it and not more, or any for that matter?  Anyway he dumps the file, goes to his parent-in-laws where him and his wife now live, because they have lost everything in a failed business and are starting over.  His wife is pregnant and due anytime now.  He gives her some cash and says she can now get a real doctor and a room at the hospital to have her baby.  He tells her, he got a new job up north and a pay advance and has to leave right away to start work.  He gives the cash to a friend telling him it is a present for his wife and needs to hide it with him so she doesn’t find it.  So as the plot thickens our hero has the police, a lawyer and some murdering blackmailers all looking for him while he runs through the streets of New York City to give the money back to its rightful owner and figure out the mystery on his own.

So this synopsis is just part of the suspend disbelief you need to enjoy this film.  If you do I think you will enjoy the ride.  It is stylishly filmed and even though you don’t always know quite what is going on and why, it is a fun watch.  We also get a few cameo appearances worth seeing.  Jean Hagen plays a lounge singer, who is our closest thing to a femme fatale in this film. Charles McGraw plays a small part as a deep voiced hard-nosed cop.  Also Paul Kelly as our police captain is very good.

I think most film noir fans will find this film enjoyable, I did.  Sometimes life doesn’t make sense so why should a classic film noir?

Beach Party Blogathon: Revisiting the Laser Disc Collection: Point Break

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It’s Beach Party Blogathon!  When I seen this, the first film that came to mind for this site was Point Break! Is there any better neo-noir or noir film where the beach is such a big part of the story?

So Kem Nunn writes a book called Tapping the Source(something I have on my to read list), it was bought for the movie rights, soon after publication.  After many re-writes and changes it finally became Point Break.  Because of all the re-writes there was not much left of the original story and Nunn was never given a writing credit for the film, but he started his own sub-genre, surf noir.

Before Vin Diesel took the adrenaline junkie genre film to the absurd in xXx and the Fast and the Furious franchise, this movie inspired a whole generation of adventure athletes to live their dreams instead of working for the man.

This film had a great cast including Gary Busey, Lori Petty and John C. McGinley as well as an uncredited appearance from neo noir regular Tom Sizemore. Lets not forget Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis as a surf nazi. Even with all that talent this film will be known for having two of the biggest stars of the 1990’s going head to head, Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves.  This film is directed by Kathryn Bigelow who hasn’t made a lot of movies, but she sure has made some great ones.

Our story starts with the most famous bank robbers from the 1990’s, The Ex-Presidents(how many times has this been reused in someway since this film).

They rob a bank, in and out in 90 seconds, clean, and they are professional.   Johnny Utah, played by Reeves makes his way to the F.B.I. Headquarters in Los Angles as a rookie agent.  Him and his 22 year vet partner played by Busey are on the case.  Busey has a crazy theory about the Ex-Presidents being surfers.  Soon Johnny Utah is going undercover as a surfer and befriends Tyler, played by Lori Petty, and is introduced to surf guru Bodhi played by Swazye.  Our adventure takes off from here with night surfing, beach football and sky diving.

This may be a rehash of movies where somebody goes undercover in a gang of outlaws, sometimes siding with the bad guys by the end or at least understanding why they do what they do.  This film is original because our outlaws are not doing what they do to get rich or own possessions or buy their next hit of drugs, they are doing it to finance their lifestyle, and it’s a healthy lifestyle if you will.   With the Ex-President masks, were they telling us we all are slaves to the system?  A system they are not willing to be apart of anymore?  Can we see why the All-American quarterback turned F.B.I. agent is seeing the light and does not want to be a cog in the system anymore?  Are the big bad bank robbers the bad guys in this or are the straight-laced suit wearing, living in the system guys, the real baddies here?

So everybody who is a fan of this film, and there is a lot of followers for this cult film, knows we are getting a remake soon. We have two lesser known actors playing the leads and Teresa Palmer playing Tyler.  I guess I’m getting old, because the first thing I thought was “Isn’t it to soon for a remake?”  Then I noticed this film was made almost 25 years ago.  I hope they keep the realism and concentrate on the relationships of our leads and not make a superhero movie, to wild to be believed in the vain of Fast and Furious or xXx, with lots of unbelievable C.G.I. and explosions for no reason.  Sadly based on the box office results of Furious 7, and the first trailer, I think that is exactly what we will get.  I guess I’ll hook up the old Laser Disc Player and pop this in again to get my adrenaline fix.

Review: He Ran All the Way

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He Ran All the Way stars John Garfield in his last role.  Garfield died of coronary thrombosis at the age of 39.  Garfield was a prominent actor in the classic noir period.  Shelley Winters also stars as the female lead early in her illustrious career. Character actor Wallace Ford also appears as Winters’ father.  This film is based on a book by Sam Ross and directed by John Berry.  The film was released in 1951, five years after Garfield’s most famous role in The Post Man Always Rings Twice.

This film starts out with Garfield and his partner robbing a payroll.  They are chased and Garfield’s partner is shot.  Garfield gets away, but shoots a police officer in the process.  He escapes to a public pool and literally runs into Winters.  He quickly knows she may be his way to hide out.  They go back to her apartment where we and Garfield learn she lives with her parents and little brother.  The police officer dies and Garfield is all over the papers as the killer.  Garfield takes the family hostage while he hides out there.  Will Garfield get away with the loot?  Will Winters fall for him as they go off together to live happily ever after?  Will Garfield kill any of the members of the family before he gets away?  Will Garfield even get away?

The tension is strong for this classic and works very well.  It has a simple plot with great performances from the small cast.  This is a very good film noir worthy of any noir fan’s time.  I wish we had a few more of these films from Garfield before he left us, but we can always go back and watch The Postman Always Rings Twice and the handful of other noir films he has starred in.

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983

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The Red Riding Trilogy’s conclusion wraps up the story but not quite all the loose ends.  This film is a little different then the other two, in that it concentrates on two characters instead of just one.  This entry is directed by Anand Tucker and like the first two, this one is also based on a book by David Peace and the screenplay is written by Tony Grisoni.

This film starts with a flashback to 1974 where a group of our corrupt cops and Sean Bean’s corrupt business man are meeting at a wedding.  They are taking about events that set in motion this whole trilogy.  This flashback is from David Morrissey’s character Maurice Jobson’s perspective.  Jobson is one of the cops that has been part of all these cases and now he is having second thoughts, after all these years another young girl has gone missing and he is rethinking his actions. In this film we flashback to past events from the first two films all from Jobson’s perspective.  This sheds new light on past events and gives us the audience some new information.

Our second main character is John Piggott played by Mark Addy.  Piggott is a lawyer or solicitor in England.  He is back in town and seems to be a pretty good lawyer.  He is asked to help Michael Myshkin played by Daniel Mays.  If you remember the first movie he was a mentally handicapped man who confessed to the murder of one of the missing girls.  He is also asked by another family to help their son who was just arrested for the murder of one of the other girls.  He starts digging into the story and between him and Jobson we hope to get to the bottom of what has been going on in Yorkshire.  Will we ever find out who the Wolf is?  Will the lawyer be able to help get Myshkin out of prison?  Will they find this latest kidnapped girl before it is too late?  How deep does this case go?

Like I said, this doesn’t tie everything up in a nice little bow for you.  Small characters have little pieces to the puzzle and we get most of that puzzle put together.  Characters like Peter Mullan’s Martin Laws and Robert Sheehan’s DJ who seem to be minor characters have big pieces to this puzzle.

Watch all three of these films in order and enjoy the ride.  Watch them carefully because some small detail in one film can turn out to be a big part of the next one.  Like I said at the beginning of my first review, this is a noir trilogy, based on 3 of the 4 books in a series by David Peace and all 3 films were made in the same year by 3 different directors.  A great story with some amazing talent from England.  To think this is what England is producing for their television is an amazing achievement.

Re-watching: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980

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This is the second in The Red Riding Trilogy.  This installment is directed by James Marsh.  This is based on the David Peace’s book and the screenplay is from Tony Grisoni as are all three of this series.

This film revolves around Peter Hunter played by Paddy Considine.  He is brought in from a different office to take over the Yorkshire Ripper serial killer case.  Our corrupt Yorkshire police force isn’t having any luck solving the case of now 13 murders.  Hunter was also brought in back in 1974 to investigate what had happened at the end of our last movie.  We find this out in flashback fashion throughout the film.  He had to end that investigation when he found out his wife had a miscarriage and left Yorkshire.  Now he is back in 1980 and he is not welcome.  He assembles his team to start looking at the old cases in the Ripper file to see if they can get to the bottom of this.  One of his team played by Maxine Peake finds a case that may not have been the Ripper.  She also has had an affair with Hunter and this has sidetracked both people throughout the investigation.

A lot of our recurring characters show up again in this one, those of note are Maurice Jobson played by David Morrissey,  BJ played by Robert Sheehan,Martin Laws played by Peter Mullan and Bob Craven played by Sean Harris.

Our story may seem like it is unrelated to the first movie, but we would be wrong.  At the end of this we have more questions than before.  This is another good film for neo noir and noir fans.  I would recommend watching the first film, Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974, which I just reviewed.  You could watch this on its own but I don’t think you would find it as enjoyable as watching it after the first film.