Review: Cult Classic-The Town That Dreaded Sundown

bryancyr Horror, Movie, True Crime , , , ,

images

This 1976 movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown is a film about a serial killer that terrorized the town of Texarkana.  This is based on a true story and was a series of crimes that where never solved.  I can’t help but see many similarities between this case and movie to the case and movie of Zodiac.  I reviewed Zodiac here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/26/re-watching-zodiac/

This film is not the best acted, minus a few good performances from Ben Johnson and Andrew Prine.

This film has a cult following, usually among horror fans, and you can’t help but think this film may have been made to cash in on the Texas Chainsaw Massacre hype that came out 2 years before.  Though there is some terrifying scenes in this, the overall tone is more of a serial killer hunted by our main characters of detectives and a famous Texas Ranger.  There is also some comic moments, these didn’t really work for me and I feel took away from the movie.  Most of these comedic scenes come from the director himself, Charles B. Pierce that also plays the bumbling rookie “Spark plug.”

The story starts out with a couple out on lover’s lane who are attacked by a masked man.  Then a few weeks later a similar crime is committed, bringing the town to a panic.  They bring in a Texas Ranger to help with the case and our story continues from there.

Though the film is based on real events, it does take many liberties with the story.  None of the murders or crime scenes are very accurate, and the few close run ins between the law and the phantom killer never happened.  The number of crimes and basic time frame is fairly accurate.  To this day, the crimes have never been solved.

This has become a cult classic over the years and is looked at as one of the early slasher movies that would start a trend continued by Halloween and Friday the 13th.  It also was released on VHS back in the mid 80’s and was not put out on DVD until 2013, making it a hard film to find and watch.  This seemed to give it more cult status.

There is also a remake/sequel that was recently made and I have not seen it.  It looks like that film is more of a straight up horror movie.

The film is a slightly above average drive-in movie from the 70’s and is worth watching if you are a fan of slasher movies or of 70’s horror.  I think it will appeal to those who love true crime stories as well.  Though it does have some noir elements, like the voice over docudrama style and it takes place soon after World War II in the 1940’s, I don’t think hardcore film noir fans will like it, especially if they are expecting a traditional neo-noir.  Personally I felt it was more a cheap neo-noir then it is a horror movie and is something different to watch on a boring Sunday afternoon.

Review: Whiplash

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , ,

whiplash

“I’m not exactly beautiful, but I am available.  I’m kind to my mother and I make very good spaghetti”.

“Sorry I don’t like spaghetti.”

That is a couple of lines of dialog in Whiplash, and there are a few more gems in this little known noir.

This is directed by Lewis Seiler who looks to have directed quite a few films throughout his career though this is the only one I’ve seen.

hqdefault

This movie starts out with our hero played by Dane Clark in a boxing bout in New York City and getting beat pretty handily.  He has an inner dialog with himself asking why is he here?  What is he doing?  He just wants to be back home in California on the beach.  In film noir fashion we flashback to a better time in California,with our hero painting a beach scene.  He soon finds out one of his paintings has been sold and he thinks the buyer has been ripped off.  Our hero doesn’t feel he has enough talent for his paintings to be sold.  He hunts down the buyer and soon falls in love with her.  Our buyer is also our femme fatale, Laurie, played by Alexis Smith.  They fall in love and all is great, until Laurie turns up missing and our hero’s only clue is the painting she bought of his is being sent to a doctor in New York City.  Our hero packs up and goes to New York to find his lost love.

images

When in New York we discover a plethora of new characters. Including Laurie’s husband, an ex-fighter who is now a promoter played by Zachary Scott.  An alcoholic doctor played by Jeffrey Lynn. We also get some comic relief from fellow artist played by Eve Arden (from Grease fame).

This film has some more of noir’s favorite sport, boxing, we have a love triangle between our hero, our femme fatale and a fallen hero doing anything he can to get back to the top.  This film has not been viewed a lot and maybe a little undervalued.  I found this film to be pretty good.  With only 200 votes on IMDb and a current rating of 6.4 it is a little underrated.

This film will be enjoyed by film noir fans and boxing fans alike.  Worth a viewing if you get a chance.

Book Review: All the Wrong Places

bryancyr Book , , , ,

DSC03327

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of All the Wrong Places from Lisa Lieberman in exchange for a review on this blog.  Lieberman is an author with a hand full of books about Europe and the effects of World War II on the area.  This book takes place in that time frame from the Summer of 1941 through the Fall of 1956.

This book starts with our protagonist, Cara Walden and her half-brother, Gray, moving to London.  Cara is moving because she had a baby with a famous star when she was only 17 and to keep the birth secret, gives up the baby and flees America to avoid the scandal.  Gray is a known Communist in the Hollywood community and is fleeing to England to avoid prosecution.  Our adventure follows Cara all over Europe, with flashbacks to past events, including her mother’s death.  This goes through a lot of dark stuff through this adventure including a possible suicide, a murder because of race, a sudden rape from a current boyfriend, numerous scandals, communism, the effects of the Jewish Holocaust, Gypsies and an interesting road trip.

This book mixes a lot of true to fact historic events, people, and movements with our fictional characters.  This gives us an interesting story line.  I honestly didn’t know a lot of these issues that effected Europe as it recovered from the war and was still struggling in many ways.  We also get a look at the golden era of film as well as books, music and celebrity from this era.

This book is classified by the publisher and the author as a Historical Noir and is said to have a thrilling finale straight out of Hitchcock.  It is an interesting read that is different than most noir novels I read.  I would recommend it to fans of noir that want something a bit out of the ordinary and those that love historical fiction and historical mysteries.

This book will be out on 4/8/2015 from Five Star Publishing, here is a link to the website where you can get a copy:

http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?N=197+4294916909&Ntk=P_EPI&Ntt=1538100433176310079472528022999007033&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial

Also check out Lisa Lieberman’s blog at:

http://deathlessprose.com/

Review: Go For Sisters

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , ,

9200000024948573

Go for Sisters is a neo-noir from writer, director John Sayles.  Sayles directed a few big budget Hollywood films and then went on to make independent films.  He may be best known in noir and neo-noir circles for Lone Star.  I plan on re-watching and reviewing it in the future.

This film stars LisaGay Hamilton, Yolonda Ross and Edward James Olmos with a few familiar faces in small cameos like Isaiah Washington,Harold Perrineau and Hector Elizondo.

hero_GoForSisters-2013-1

This movie starts with Hamilton as a parole officer and one of her paroles is Ross, who we soon find out where childhood friends.  Hamilton has become estranged from her son, with no way to contact him anymore.  In her search for him, she goes to one of her son’s friends, Fuzzy, to see if he has seen her son.  We find Fuzzy has been murdered and soon find out her son is a suspect.  Hamilton recruits her childhood friend Ross to help her find her son.  They then hire Olmos, a ex-officer who has been terminated from his job and has lost his pension.  He needs funds and is willing to help our two ladies for a price.  The story crosses from Texas to Mexico where things really get dark with adult book stores, dirty cops, a China town in Mexico, and some illegal border crossing.

This border noir debuted at South by Southwest in Austin back in 2013 and made the film festival circuit but never really found an audience.  It got above average reviews from critics and was nominated for a few awards, including the Independent Spirit Award for Supporting Actress for Ross.  The film has recently been released on DVD and should find a wider audience.

For me this film was a little long at almost 2 hours for the story it tells.  It’s a good film and is worth viewing, but don’t expect something as great as Lone Star.

go-for-sisters08

Review: The Big Clock

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , , , , , ,

BigClockThe102013StyleAHS

The Big Clock is an amazing noir story with all the best features of noir.  We have a femme fatale, we have a protagonist in a situation way over his head and has to out smart the enemy to get out of danger, we have adultery, murder, a rich and powerful antagonist and a claustrophobic setting that even as a viewer we want to get out of.

The film is based on a book by the same name written by Kenneth Fearing.  There have been two remakes of this film, or two more movies based on this book, depending on how you look at it.  Police Python 357 is a film made in 1976, I have not seen this one.  The other one is No Way Out starring Kevin Costner and Sean Young, I’ve seen this movie but it was so many years ago I would like to re-watch it before I make any comments about it.

John Farrow directed this, he had a storied career as a director with over 49 credits to his name.  Ray Milland plays our hero and was in many film noir movies as well as westerns and horror films.  We will look at more if his films in the future.  He is amazing in this film as our everyday man who hates his job, but is a very successful author and journalist.  He decides he is going to quit his job for two reasons, he is married and wants to go on his honeymoon and his boss has pushed him to his limit. The boss is played by the great Charles Laughton and our hero’s wife is played by Maureen O’Sullivan.  He goes out for a drink to celebrate his new freedom and runs into a beautiful blonde played by Rita Johnson. She makes him miss his meeting time with his wife, and they make the best of it by having a grand old-time.  They go back to her place and things are implied.  We soon find out our mystery blonde is dead.  His old boss and the magazine he used to write for wants him back for one last assignment, find the man who was with the blonde last night!?!?!  This has an amazing set up and the story does not disappoint.  As the trap tightens around our hero the tension grows.

the-big-clock-1948

Harry Morgan, that went on to fame many years later on T.V.’s Dragnet and M*A*S*H, plays an interesting role as the silent henchman.  We also see the Bride of Frankenstein herself, Elsa Lanchester as an eccentric artist.

Favorite tidbit:  Kenneth Fearing wrote this book as revenge on publisher Henry Luce and his “Time” magazine, where Fearing worked for many years for financial reasons. The character Earl Janoth played by Laughton is based on Luce.

This is an amazing movie and should be watched by any noir fan or classic film fan in general.

9619057_orig

Re-Watching a New Classic: Out of Sight

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MV5BMjA0MjMwNTE4Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNjExNzQxMTE@._V1_SY1200_CR84,0,630,1200_AL_

Out of Sight is best known for the relationship between George Clooney’s Jack Foley and Jennifer Lopez’s Karen Sisco, but it is so much more than that.  I haven’t seen this since it came out in 1998 and just re-watched it.  I remember that Steven Soderbergh directed this Elmore Leonard story.  I didn’t realize this was Soderbergh’s first big budget film, not a bad first try, Though this was a box office flop for the studio. This is also one of my favorite Leonard adoptions, it’s funny but it’s the classic one liners and a few characters that don’t quite fit into society that make it funny, not trying to make it a comedy, that happens way to much with Leonard’s work.  Leonard is a crime storyteller first, funny second.  What I forgot about this film is the rest of the cast is brilliant! Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Catherine Keener, Dennis Farina,Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Nancy Allen and Luis Guzmán!

This movie’s most famous scene happens towards the beginning of the film and sets in motion what is to come.  That scene happens after Foley out smarts the prison guards and escapes prison.  When he is getting picked up by his buddy…Buddy, played by Rhames, FBI Agent Sisco is in the parking lot on an unrelated mater.  They steal her car and throw her in the trunk with Foley for the escape.  Their conversation about movies, which includes the classics Bonnie and Clyde, Network, and Three Days of the Condor, and life in general make for an intimate conversation that changes both of their lives.  We find from this scene that there is chemistry between our two leads, and both have a mutual attraction.  Both know this might just be their downfall.

Jennifer-Lopez-in-Out-of-Sight-jennifer-lopez-23768047-1280-720

This gives a different spin on our plot.  Foley can’t keep away from Sisco even though he knows she will eventually put him back in jail and Sisco can’t stay away from Foley, even though she knows she should put him back in jail.  This is also unique because Lopez is not only our femme fatale, but also our hero for good. We have noir’s favorite sport-boxing, bank robbers, kidnappers, magician assistants, ex-cops, F.B.I., Detroit detectives, and a surprise appearance by none other than Samuel L. Jackson.

Enjoy this Leonard romp in the way a Leonard romp should be done.

Favorite tidbit:  Michael Keaton reprises his role as Ray Nicolette in a cameo, Keaton played Nicolette in Jackie Brown(another of my favorite Leonard adoptions) as well.

Review: In Cold Blood

bryancyr film-noir, Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , ,

MV5BNTMxMDU3NTU0MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTg3NDAwMQ@@._V1_SY317_CR2,0,214,317_AL_in_cold_blood_xlg

In Cold Blood is based on the book by Truman Capote, that is based on the true story of the murder of the Clutter family by Perry Smith and “Dick” Hickock.  Smith is played by Robert Blake, later known for his role as Baretta on the T.V. show by the same name, and maybe more so for being accused for the murder of his second wife.  Hickock is played by Scott Wilson, who I know from The Walking Dead and look forward to watching him on the series Bosch.  I did not recognize him at all, as his older bearded self doesn’t look much like he did in his youth, and his voice isn’t as distinctive yet either.  The two actors looked remarkably like the real life killers that they play.

John Forsythe plays our lead detective on the case, Alvin Dewey.  Forsythe already had a pretty decent T.V. career going when he made this movie, but of course he would go on to great heights as the voice of Charlie on Charlie’s Angels and the prime-time soup Dynasty.

Though this is not a classic film-noir, I guess it is to new for that, it was made in 1967.  Richard Brook wrote this for the screen and directed it.  He used black and white and many shadows, it looks like any good noir made in the 1950’s to me.  It is a neo-noir in date alone in my opinion.  Brooks, kept this as close to the book as possible and as accurate as possible, using some of the same jurors and a lot of the locals for extras.  As well as going to the actual locations to film as many scenes as possible

In Cold Blood

The story starts with Perry Smith getting off the bus in Kansas to meet his friend Dick Hickock.  Hickock has a plan for some big money, no witnesses and an escape to Mexico.  The plan doesn’t seem to go well and our duo is on the run, broke and not sure what to do.

The movies Capote and Infamous are both very good movies about Truman Capote and him writing the book “In Cold Blood.”  I have never read the book, but it is one on my long list of “Want to Read.”  This movie makes me want to move it up the list a bit.

Favorite Tidbit:  The character Perry Smith mentions the movie “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” twice, some thought this was written into the script because Smith was played by Robert Blake.  Blake had an uncredited role in the film as a child.  The real reason Smith mentions the movie in the film is because it was the real Perry Smith’s favorite film and he often referred to it.

This movie is for everybody that likes good film.  If you are a noir fan it is a must watch.  Fans of true crime stories should also love it.

Review: Son of a Gun

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , ,

son-of-a-gun

Son of a Gun is a neo-noir film from Australia, this is the second film from Australia I seen this week.  This films biggest star is Ewan McGregor, but our main character is played by Brenton Thwaites who has already stared in a few big Hollywood movies and looks to have more to come.  He will be a name to watch in the future.  Our femme fatale is played by Alicia Vikander who is also an up and comer with roles in the impressive looking Ex Machina and big Hollywood movie Man from U.N.C.L.E..  Matt Nable plays a small but memorable role as one of the gang of thieves.

son_of_a_gun_3-620x409

Son of a Gun starts out with Thwaites getting thrown in prison.  He is taken under the wing of McGregor who saves him from other baddies.  Thwaites gets out of prison but soon finds he needs to pay back McGregor for his kindness.  A prison escape is the first plan and then a robbery spree ensues.  Thwaites is in over his head, like any good protagonist in a good noir story.  This story has prison violence, a prison escape, gangsters, double crosses, triple crosses, torture, murder, a heist, car chases, cheap hotels and femme fatales. What more do you want?

Though this isn’t an original story by any means, more of a mishmash of things we’ve already seen put together to make an entertaining film.  It’s worth watching if you’re looking for something new to see.

Favorite Tidbit:  Ewan McGregor’s character is based on real life bank robber Brenden Abbott known as the Post Card Bandit.  Abbott has escaped prison 2 times and is currently serving a 23 year sentence.

Book Review: Revenge is a Redhead by Phil Beloin Jr

bryancyr Book, Noir, Pulp , , , ,

23547925

I recently read a blog that was talking about how pulp literature has become back in favor.  This is good news for noir fans!  Pulp was popular with the working man, because it was short, cheap and talked to the downtrodden.  We had magazines like Black Mask and The Strand and they published their issues on cheap pulp paper, hence the name.  The literary world used slick glossy paper for there publications causing them to be to expensive for some.  Today we have the internet, and especially E-readers.  This makes it easy for independent publications to put out pulp like stories on the cheap.  I also read somewhere that noir stories don’t sell, people want happy ending and likable characters(I guess nobody told Gillian Flynn that?).  Anyway some noir authors had no outlet to get there work out to the public, but now thanks to small independent publishers and E-readers we can get great stories that may never of had a home 10 years ago.

One of these publishers was kind enough to send me 6 books to read and see what I thought.  All Due Respect is a small publisher specializing in pulp and noir books and I thank them for letting me check out there library of work.  Of course I grabbed the slimmest volume first to read.

That book is Phil Beloin Jr’s Revenge is a Redhead and it is only 90 pages, but I could not put it down and read it in one night.  We have two main characters in this short but sweet read.  We have a homeless man with 70 cents in his pocket and a gorgeous femme fatale hooker that moonlights as a stripper when they need somebody to fill in.

Our protagonist is named Rich, but he is far from rich.  We find him in a strip club enjoying the scenery and find out he is flat broke.  He was just kicked out of his father’s house and took off in his beat up Olds and plans on going until the fuel runs out.  He changes his mind and stops at the club instead.  He spends what little money he has on a beautiful redhead stripper named Cherry.  Rich leaves the club and goes to the nearest homeless shelter for a meal and a cot.  Soon our hero wakes up in an unusual situation and it just keeps getting worse from there.  This short book is packed with great dialog and some amazing character development.

This book is pure pulp with a shocking scene on every other page.  Some might find this book a bit offensive…so if your easily offended don’t read it.  If your not…buy this for a quick read of pure entertainment.  I look forward to reading the rest of the books from All Due Respect and look forward to what else they publish in the future.

Here is a link so you can see what else they offer and check back here for more reviews in the near future.

http://allduerespectbooks.com/

adr-logo-no-border-small