I started this site in January of this year, and there are a handful of great neo-noirs that came out last year I didn’t get to cover. I know everybody has already seen these and probably wrote their own review. I still wanted to re-watch these films and television series again and put my own review out there on the world-wide web. Here is the first of those reviews. True Detective is an original series from noir author Nic Pizzolatto. I have read Pizzolatto’s novel Galveston before watching this series and found it a very good book. Something fans of the show may want to read. This anthology series stars Matthew McConaughey as Rust and Woody Harrelson as Marty. I would classify both as hardboiled, Rust being the more so of the two. 
This story starts out with our duo getting interviewed by two detectives played by Michael Potts and Tory Kittles. Both are being interviewed individually about a case that happened 17 years ago. In typical noir fashion we get our story with a series of flashbacks. We quickly see our detectives are worse for wear 17 years after the story started and through 8 episodes we find out why. Our case from 17 years ago is a murder where the body has been staged in a ritualistic way. This case has no suspects or witnesses and very few clues to go on. The clues also leads to some missing children cases that may be related to the murder. Our story takes us to dive bars, whore houses, meth labs, stripper bars, burned down churches and lots of Louisiana backwoods locations. We have a bunch of great characters in this, some are small parts and some are much bigger. Our lead female, is Marty’s wife played by Michelle Monaghan. Marty, and Rust for that matter, keep her away from the darkness of the case. I would consider her Rust’s femme fatale. We also get two more interesting femme fatales, though they are not part of the murders they do trip up Marty in his private life. Alexandra Daddario appears in the first half and Lili Simmons in the second half. The show plays more like an 8 hour movie then a television show. You will want to watch the next episode as soon as you finish one. The story is intricate, intriguing, and addictive. The music is dark and fits the southern Gothic feel, T Bone Burnett did a great job with the score. We will be getting a season 2 of True Detective this summer. It has a high standard to live up to and I hope it can. The new cast looks outstanding and the trailer looks great. We go from our country noir setting to one of the most famous of noir locales in Los Angeles. Can Pizzolatto keep the dark, intensity with the city landscape, a new story, and a new cast? I look forward to seeing it and if it’s as good as the first season we are in for a treat.
Review: I Wake Up Screaming
I Wake Up Screaming is from 1941 and is based on the book by Steve Fisher, I have not read the book yet but will keep my eye out for a copy. The films two main stars are Betty Grable and Victor Mature and is Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.
This film was also released in England under the title Hot Spot.
The star who I found most interesting is Carole Landis who plays Vicky. She was the classic beauty who was trying to get ahead, using her looks and charms to get a career in entertainment, no matter who she hurt. She is a classic femme fatale for this story. I didn’t know much about her so I did a little research to see why I have not seen her in anything before, at least anything I remember. Turns out after giving the entertainment business her best shot she committed suicide at the age of 29. It’s to bad, she seemed to have some talent, maybe her character from this film was a lot like the real life Landis.
Our story starts with Vicki being the center of attention for a lot of men, men who easily fall in love with her. Vicky lives with her more down to earth sister played by Grable in an apartment. We find our hero played by Mature under the bright light in the integration room, but he is as cool as a cucumber. We soon find out he is being questioned for Vicky’s murder. The story is told with a number of flashbacks as we find out bits and pieces to why Vicky may have been killed. We also learn about our suspects, including Mature and 2 of his friends as the main suspects. We soon learn Vicky had more than these three men in her life. Grable soon helps Mature, who is our prime suspect as they weed through the clues. One of my favorite character actors, Elisha Cook Jr., appears as the phone board operator in the building our sisters live in. I also liked Laird Cregar who played our hardboiled tough guy cop that is out to get our hero.
This film was remade a few years later in 1953 as Vicki. I have not seen this one yet and hope to watch it soon and compare it to this film. By all accounts this original film is the superior movie.
This story has some great twists and turns, some good dialog, but what stood out to me is the classic film noir style of black and white filming. The shadow play is very interesting and visually stimulating. I enjoyed this one and think any classic film noir fan will enjoy it too.
Review: Shiner
As the poster says “Caine’s back on top form, packing his biggest punch since ‘Get Carter'”
Well this might not be as great as Get Carter, but it is pretty good. The poster shows Michael Caine staring alongside Martin Landau, but Landau doesn’t play that big a role in this film. Caine is the one and only star you need to know about in this film.
This film is directed by John Irvin who has done a hodge-podge of action, neo noir, and war movies through his career with some great stuff as well as some I’d rather forget. Scott Cherry wrote the screenplay, this his first movie, but he has extensive television work.
This film is about Billy ‘Shiner’ Simpson who is a gangster and shady boxing promoter. He has a contender under his management, his own son, and has gotten him a big title fight. He has everything he owns on the line, his son needs to win and Shiner is looking pretty, if he loses, Shiner loses everything! Shiner’s son loses….to easily. Shiner thinks the fix is in, he confronts his son…and the next thing you know this son is shot! Shiner continues to solve who got to his son? who shot his son? Why would somebody do this to him? Besides Caine’s usual great performance we have, Landau playing the American promoter who manages the title holder. Frank Harper as Stoney and Andy Serkis as Mel, both thugs in Shiner’s employ.
This neo noir again has our favorite noir sport, boxing! We have some police detectives but they pretty much stay out of the picture. We got a crooked lawyer, some other shady boxing promoters, lots of thugs and a great English back drop.
This film is a good picture, worth watching for any Caine fans out there, but might not be to everyone’s liking. I gave it a 7 out of 10, IMDb is at a 6 out of 10. Seems about far for this film.
Review: Don’t Bother to Knock
Don’t Bother to Knock is a film noir from Roy Ward Backer, his first for Hollywood and one of many great noir movies he did. The movie is based on a book by Charlotte Armstrong. This movie has superstar Marilyn Monroe as our most interesting character. Noir great Richard Widmark plays a pilot in town on an over night stay at the hotel. We also get Anne Bancroft in her first film, as the lounge signer Widmark is in love with.
Our story starts with Bancroft sitting at a bar, telling the bartender her troubles with her boyfriend and then the spotlight hits her and she starts singing. We soon meet her boyfriend, the pilot that comes to town from Chicago played by Widmark. They’re relationship is on the rocks and Widmark is trying to save it. We also meet the elevator man played by the great character actor,Elisha Cook Jr., who is taking Monroe up to the 8th floor. We find out he is her uncle and got her a job babysitting. Seems like a pretty average day in the Hotel, but things get stranger and stranger as time goes on.
This film is in real-time, so the events happen in the same amount of time as the film length. This is pretty cool and done very seamlessly. The whole movie also takes place in a high-end hotel, basically the lounge, 2 rooms and the elevator contain all the scenes. This gives you a bit of claustrophobia as the suspense grows through out.
Marilyn Monroe was a popular star at this point. The problem was, she was not know for her acting. Up to this point she just played her lovable self and people ate it up. This was her 18th movie and she made this movie to show she could act, and act she did! This is an amazing performance of a suicidal, mentally disturbed young women, it is not over the top, very real feeling and subtle . At the time critics loved her performance, and I got to say, I did too. Unfortunately looking back at her life, this may have been the real Monroe and she was acting as Marilyn Monroe all the other times she was in the spot light.
This is not as gritty as most film noir but it is just as dark, maybe even more so. If you are a fan of any of the 3 main stars, especially Monroe you should see this. I give it an 8 out of 10, a must see film noir.
Book Review: Love You to a Pulp by C.S. DeWildt
Love You to a Pulp is another great book from the small publisher All Due Respect. This one is from C.S. DeWildt.
The story telling here is very interesting, it tells two stories, alternating from chapter to chapter. Both revolve around our hero Neil. The first story is about our adult Neil, a glue sniffing down on his luck, hardboiled private detective. The second story is about a teenage Neil growing up. I found this interesting because we find how he was raised and why he is a glue sniffing adult.
Like all the noir fiction I’ve read from All Due Respect, this book is very dark and this one made me cringe more than once. The story starts with Neil taking a case from a father who wants his daughter back in his life. The daughter and her boyfriend have ripped him off, the father owns a pharmacy and the pair has taken a bunch of drugs from the store. He doesn’t want his daughter to get in trouble, and wants her taken away from her boyfriend. The second story shows Neil growing up with his pimp father and whore mother. To make a few bucks, his father enters him into illegal fights, reminiscent of dog or cock fights, but with young boys. We learn as the story goes on and gets darker and darker how Neil grew up to be a man. We also take a crazy voyage in the present, with Ex-wives, lawyers, shady motels, drug deals, suicides, strippers and on and on.
I enjoyed this book immensely, the characters were interesting and most were more twisted than Neil if you can believe that. I think it is safe to say, after three books, if you have a weak stomach don’t read anything from All Due Respect. If you like to go deep down that dark rabbit hole, All Due Respect is your one stop shop. This is another amazing original noir for the hard-core fan. I look forward to reading more from DeWildt and hope to soon. Check out All Due Respect’s website to find this and other great books.
Re-watching: Kalifonia
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Kalifornia is a road trip noir directed by Dominic Sena and written by Stephen Levy and Tim Metcalfe. This also has an amazing cast of four. Brad Pitt plays the psychopath Early Grayce and steals the show with his performance. This is fairly early in his career, just after his break through role in A River Runs Through It. We will see Pitt in quite a few neo-noir films through the decade of the 1990’s. Juliette Lewis plays Early’s girlfriend and is no stranger to playing characters who are a little off the wall. David Duchovny plays our hero, a writer who gets in over his head, and his girlfriend is played by Michelle Forbes.
Our story starts with Duchovny getting a gig writing a book about serial killers and plans a trip across the country to visit sites of famous murders. His girlfriend is excited, because as a photographer she wants to go to California and this is their chance. The don’t have enough money to make it on their own so they advertise to find somebody that will share the ride. Pitt and Lewis live in a trailer and are down on their luck. They owe back rent and don’t have a job. They soon decide to start over in California. Before they leave Pitt kills the landlord and torches the trailer and his car. The four all meet at a bus depot and start our adventure across the country.
This film is shot in a very noir style and the story is very dark. We visit a lot of strange and disturbing locations as the crew traverse the country. The performances from our four main actors are spot on.
This may not be a classic, but maybe it should be. Maybe it gets over shadowed by Pitt’s other movies to come like Seven and Fight Club. If you haven’t seen this in a while you should go back and re-watch it too. If you haven’t seen it yet, seek it out, you will enjoy it.
Favorite Tidbit: The four famous murder scene locations all are named after our four main characters in some way.
Re-Watching the Classics: White Heat
White Heat is a classic and should be watched by any film nut. This is directed by Raoul Walsh who did several noir films. We have James Cagney at his best as psychopath Cody Jarrett. Our top billed femme fatale is Virginia Mayo who uses her beauty gets men to do whatever she wants.
Well let’s be honest, our protagonists true femme fatale isn’t his beautiful wife, it’s his mom, played by Margaret Wycherly. He will do anything for her, from robbing trains, to killing cohorts, to going to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
This story starts with a train robbery, and it does not go as planned. The heat is on and to get out of it Jarrett admits to a lesser crime that took place up north. If he did that crime, he couldn’t have done the much worse train robbery. Jarrett goes to jail, but the police are on to him. They send Hank Fallon in undercover as the hood by the name of Vic Pardo. This character is played by Edmond O’Brien, our good guy hero? Pardo quickly be-friends Jarrett and they soon plan an escape. In the mean time his wife is siding with his number two-man, Big Ed Somers, played by Steve Cochran. They conspire to kill Ma Jarrett and soon do.
Will Jarrett and his pals escape prison? Will he have his revenge on those that took his mom away from him? Will the gang be able to overcome their differences and pull off another heist? Will they figure out Pardo is really Fallon?
This movie is a must see for any film noir fan, Cagney fan or movie fan in general. “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” maybe only #18 on the top 100 lines in movie history by the American Film Institute, but lets face it, this is the best line in film noir history if not all of film history.
If you have not seen this yet, go do it right now! Those that have, what did you think of this film?
Favorite Tidbit: The relationship between Jarrett and his mom are based on real life bank robbers, Ma Baker and her boys.
Book Review: Time to Murder and Create by Lawrence Block
Time to Murder and Create is the second book in the Matthew Scudder book series. I recently read the first book in the series and reviewed it here:
https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/23/review-the-sins-of-the-fathers-by-lawrence-block/
I fell in love with this character after reading the first book and watching the new movie Walk Among the Tombstones, I reviewed this movie here:
https://everythingnoir.com/2015/03/03/review-a-walk-among-the-tombstones/
Lawrence Block wrote this book in 1976 and reflects that time frame in New York City. Some plot lines may not work today as well as they worked in the 1970’s, I’ll get to this a little later.
In this story there is only one returning character and that is Scudder himself. I would say you can read this book without reading the first book and still enjoy it. We do flashback to his “origin” story for a lack of a better word in this book, so if you are not familiar with what happened in book one, it gives you a brief synopsis.
Scudder evolves a little more in this book, but not much. He is still very religious or at least looking at religion for some answers. He is drinking very heavily in this installment as well. He is our typical hardboiled ex-cop in a lot of respects, but very original in many ways, right up your alley if you are a fan of hardboiled and noir fiction.
This book puts our hero in a very unique situation. He is approached by an old informant who feels Scudder is an honest man. Jake “The Spinner” Jablon is the former informant turned blackmailer. He gives Scudder the sealed envelope to open in the case of his death. Of course we have seen this “if something happens to me the information will go straight to the Police” scenario. What was unique is we usually see it from the blackmailer or the person being blackmailed, never from the point of view of the person holding the information in case of death. We soon find out Spinner has been murdered and Scudder is on the case to find out who did it. The problem is Spinner has been blackmailing three people, not just one! So our hero must investigate all three to find the murderer, all the while keeping their secrets safe from the police. Spinner only wanted the guilty party punished in this case and the other two set free of their past crimes.
Now back to why this works in the 1970’s but would never work today. One of the three being black mailed used to be in the porn industry, she is married to a rich and powerful man and wants this kept secret from her new circle of society. Another is a politician hoping to be Governor of New York someday. His past is one of liking little boys and Spinner has the proof. In today’s world of the internet, I would find it hard to believe a former porn-star who is rich and famous now would be able to hide that fact. The second case I feel could be hidden from the public, but someone of that stature and with today’s politicians looking for dirt on their competition, this would be hard to keep secret very long.
This is another fun read and I look forward to reading more of Mr. Blocks work and the Scudder series in particular. The stories may not be totally original, but Block always puts an original spin on them making them very unique and entertaining. A good read for any fan of crime fiction.
The Great Villain Blogathon 2015: Catherine Tramell and Re-Watching Basic Instinct
The year was 1992 and I was a young college student. Basic Instinct was in the news, we learned it was to raw, too much violence and too much sex and nudity. We had to go see it! So the controversy and nudity got us into the theater, but would the movie be any good? The movie was amazing! We watched it over and over again when it came out on VHS. Me and my friends discussed it, it was the movie to watch for over a year. I can’t tell you how many times I watched it back in the early 90’s, but it was a lot. I was a movie fan, always have been, but at this time in my life I didn’t know what film noir was. I bought the limited edition ice pick DVD when it came out 10 years later and watched it again, I had to have this in my DVD collection, but I had moved on to other films and haven’t watched this in years.
So I popped in the DVD a few nights ago to revisit a film from my past, would it hold up? Was it as good as I remember? Was Catherine Tramell as cool as I remember?
What do I remember? I remember me and my friends being just like Michael Douglas’ Nick Curran. We were in love with Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell, and no matter how many times we watched this, we argued if she really did the murders. Some of us always argued she was innocent. She was to smart, to cool…to good looking to be a murderer. Jeanne Tripplehorn’s Dr. Beth Garner was the crazy one, the murderer for sure. As 19-year-old boys we didn’t know what a femme fatale was, but we all knew if Sharon Stone showed up in our home town, we would believe every word she said.
Now that I’m older, I see beyond the beauty of most femme fatales in noir movies and wonder “what the hell is he thinking!” but then I flash back to this film and realize that men are weak in the presence of a femme fatale.
Now that I’m older and have watched hundreds of femme fatale movies, I re-watched Basic Instinct. It still holds up, it still is as good as I remember. I might be smarter than I was the first time I seen it, but I still have a shadow of a doubt if Catherine Tramell is guilty or not. I guess that is what makes her a truly great villain, even though we know she is evil, we still want to believe she is not.
This post is part of THE GREAT VILLAIN BLOGATHON, hosted by Speakeasy, Shadows & Satin and yours truly. Click HERE for a list of all dastardly entries.
Review: The Killer is Loose
The Killer is Loose is a short but sweet film noir from 1956. It doesn’t look to be viewed as much as other films with this amount of star power. This stars noir legend Joseph Cotten and femme fatale great Rhonda Fleming.
This is a tension filled hour and 15 minute movie, with a simple plot that raises the bar with the great performances.
Our story starts with a very smart bank robbery, to smart. The police force discovers clues showing it is an inside job. This narrows down the suspect list to one Foggy Poole. Soon a raid on Poole’s apartment is organized and Poole is not going down without a fight. When the police break the door down and with the lights off our hero, Detective Sam Wagner played by Cotton jumps in and sees movement, he fires…and kills Poole’s wife by mistake. Poole goes to trial and is found guilty for the bank job. He vows revenge on Wagner by promising to taking the life of his wife, Lila, played by Fleming. A few years go by and Poole escapes prison. This is where the story takes off, everybody knows Poole will be coming for our hero and his wife, but will he succeed? What will he do to get revenge on his wife’s killer?
Foggy Poole is a very creepy psychopath played amazingly by Wendell Corey. Foggy is a killing machine with above average intelligence. Are we seeing the roots of future serial killers like Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates?
Michael Pate and Alan Hale Jr.(The Skipper from Gilligan’s Island) both play smaller parts as police officers but still stand out. This film is directed by Budd Boetticher who is more known for his western films, but did very well in this dark crime film.
I really liked this film! The ending was a little abrupt, and some of the characters make some decisions that don’t exactly make sense. The story is simple but the tension builds all the way to the end. Recommended for any Cotton and Fleming fans and if you like Wendell Corey you will love this film.
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