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Taylor is usually or primarily good when he plays a character who's rigid, unbending, emotionless and often calculating, and which played well into what many people consider his oft "wooden" performances. THAT was always his forte and was where and when he was well cast, but hardly ever in a romatic lead unless it was a period piece in which he's sporting a toga, well okay, actually a Roman centurian's garb (read: Quo Vadis) or tights (read: Ivanhoe), and/or as Tom mentioned above, his turn as the cold blooded bad man in the western The Last Hunt. Another film in which he plays this type of rigid character to good effect is Above and Beyond where he played Col. Paul Tibbets who piloted the B-29 Enola Gay. (...and btw, AND I know I bring this up every time Robert Taylor's name comes up around here, but I STILL say he would've been MUCH better cast than Bogart was as the conservative and buttoned down older brother Linus Larrabee in the film Sabrina, and basically because, YES MissW, in 1954, Robert Taylor had much more sex appeal than Bogie did by that time and didn't look like he could've been Audrey Hepburn's grandfather!)

Here's a couple of movies with completely different storylines for ya, slayton ol' boy. In 1941, you had The Devil and Miss Jones starring Jean Arthur. And in 1973, you have The Devil in... (...oops, oh wait...not quite the same title here, huh...sorry, never mind)

Sorry, Thompson, I can't really agree with this statement. Cliche or not, some of my favourite moments in the movies are when an actress is playing a singer with attitude and walks around a smokey bar or night club singing a song and looking seductive. And the movies have had their fair share of them going right back to Dietrich in The Blue Angel. Ava Gardner, THE BRIBE Rita Hayworth, GILDA Ann Sheridan, TORRID ZONE Marlene Dietrich, THE BLUE ANGEL Here's one of my favourites for a jazzy night club feel and a hurtin' song, Ida Lupino singing "The Man I Love," her introduction in THE MAN I LOVE (1946). No it's not Ida's singing voice we hear but her face and eyes capture the feel for the song, I feel.

Good night WILLIAM, we loved you! https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2021/07/09/william-smith-any-which-way-you-can-and-red-dawn-dead-88/7922711002/

Geraldine Chaplin was nuts about him in REMEMBER MY NAME. "Nuts" being the operative word in that story, lol.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007) A retired policeman is brought back to the force to locate four illegal immigrants. The gutters of Hollywood are filled with misfires when a great director with a great story and a great cast created a mediocre movie. This is not one of them. Ridley Scott creates immersive and intense realities for the viewer to become lost in for hours. This is perhaps his best. You do not watch this movie. You are in that world with all its glitter and grime. Bright neon and manufactured owls and people as cheap commodities. Harrison Ford becomes consuming and conflicted characters. He can not afford to be as free and easy here as he is as Indiana Jones. His Deckard has learned well that only the cold and calculating survive and he is totally dedicated to self-survival. Every noir needs a femme fatale. Sean Young fills that role perfectly. She is inhumanly icy and aloof. A rock against which men crash themselves. The story is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick. He was not as prolific as Asimov, Clarke or Heinlein but he will be forever remembered for the depth of his stories and how they questioned perception, human nature and identity. Rutger Hauer was constructed for combat but has the mind of a philosopher and the soul of a poet. The entire movie is worth watching simply for his eloquent and deeply moving soliloquy. William Sanderson, Daryl Hannah, Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, Brion James and Edward James Olmos are all at their best in this movie. Many movies have sequels. The vision in this movie is so complex and expansive that seven versions have been created by re-editing and minor refinements. "The Final Cut" is the director's last word. 9.6/10 I watched this on DVD but it is schedule to soon appear on TCM.

"Acting" in this case too, being the operative word. Sepiatone

Excellent post, Dargo -- I love your insights.

Which is why I consider The Indestructible Man as a Sci-Fi Noir too. Has the same premise.

Has Decoy, a 1946 Monogram noir been shown on Noir Alley or TCM? I just watched this wildly improbable but highly entertaining "B" about a search for buried loot from an armed robbery, and the extents to which one femme fatale will go to keep herself in jewels and furs. English actress Jean Gillie, while you could say her performance is completely over the top by the film's end, is compulsive viewing , maybe, just maybe, the nastiest, most cold blooded woman of noir. She uses gangsters and an innocent doctor alike, ready to betray (murder) any of them at a moment's notice when they are no longer of service to her and get in the way of the money. There is even a wild science fiction element to this film as a gangster is restored to life after going to the gas chamber with a drug, this happening because he is the only person who knows where the loot is buried. After that, however, and a map that he provides her to the loot the poor sap becomes disposable to the ruthless Gillie. Aside from Gillie's performance, Sheldon Leonard scores very well as, ready for it, a hard boiled cop. He plays the role much the same as his screen gangsters only this time he's on the right side of the law. Robert Armstrong is the hood revived after death, Edward Norris is a smooth gangster associate and Herbert Rudley plays the naive doctor twisted around Gillie's crooked little finger. Decoy is a hoot I recommend to any noir buff. For years it seemed to be a lost or, at least, a little seen, film but it came out as part of a Film Noir double feature DVD (with Crime Wave) a few years ago. Gillie, who made very few American films (she has a bit part in The Macomber Affair) and died of pneumonia in 1949, makes quite an impression in this film. It's the kind of performance in which some can debate afterward whether or not it is good but it holds your attention. It's unusual to hear a femme fatale with a British accent in an American noir. She's a classic manipulator, using her good looks to serve her, but, at her core, she may be even tougher, certainly more ruthless, than Ann Savage in Detour (and she was about as hard a case as you could hope not to meet). As with so many of these "B"s the film is short and not so sweet and doesn't over stay its welcome.

No casting director will ever say, "get me a William Smith type", because there is nobody like William Smith. Not now or in any other era of Hollywood films. If half of the legends he is known for are true, or if the legends about him are half true, he was still incredible. Like if he spoke four languages instead of eight? Could only reverse-curl HALF his own weight? Or if he only had a Bachelors' in Intl Affairs from UCLA instead of a Masters' ? Still awesome! He was one of the most legit tough guys ever in Hollywood. In most of his fight scenes, you will notice that he usually has no double (who could double a 6'2" 240# bodybuilder in the 60's or 70's?). I would have enjoyed hanging out with him and his LAREDO co-star Neville Brand... or maybe not, those are two dangerous dudes. In CC AND COMPANY and HAMMER he brawls with Joe Namath and Fred "the Hammer" Williamson, respectively... and in the fight scenes with these pro athletes, he is by far the most athletic. BTW, he appeared in films for nine (9) decades, who else did that?

As, indeed, is The Conversation. De Palma wasn't even first in line to imitate Blow-Up. I thought I hadn't seen any of DePalma's films, but I've seen The Untouchables and Snake Eyes, both fairly good. Though when De Palma does the Odessa Steps scene in The Untouchables, I wanted to shake him and say, "What are you, a ****ing first-year film student?"

I was in another room as Noir Alley was starting but listening to it I think I heard Eduardo say that The Bribe would remind people of other noir movies that were much better. Yeah that seems true. A random collection of snippets from superior productions. Not bad, just slow to get going and not picking up much speed afterwards. I wouldn't say Laughton steals the show, but he is one of the few interesting characters in the whole thing. Robert Taylor is another meh actor. Handsome enough even with that silly pencil mustache, but rather unremarkable in general. Penny Stallings has a anecdote about Bob filming The Conspirator. He supposedly told the cameraman to try to shoot him only from the waist up when he was in a scene with the teenage Liz Taylor, afraid his nether regions might betray his lustful fancies. He didn't have to keep Ava in a cheap hotel, surely he could have afforded to keep her in a high class one. Better than having his old lady around nosing in. A straight arrow like Dr. Richard Kimble wouldn't have appreciated all the beatniks and hep cats that Peter Gunn hung out with.

Regarding TV Noir, for your consideration: Johnny Staccato Mike Hammer M Squad Naked City . . . and in a strictly thematic sense, I consider The Prisoner tonally, but not stylistically, marginal TV Noir.

Missed watching this one CJ, but after looking up the synopsis of this movie and seeing that Tony played "the best basketball player at his college", perhaps a BETTER question and instead of incredulously asking if Tony was a "sex symbol", would be to ask how he could possibly be cast as a "star athlete" in ANY movie he was ever in??? You see, I still remember seeing him playing the troubled MLB player JImmy Piersall in Fear Strikes Out, and oooh WEEE, if he was as inept at shooting hoops in this Tall Story flick as he was at throwing a baseball in THAT flick, then... (...well, you get the idea here, I'm sure)

i would watch the everliving sh*t out of every last minute of either or both of those.

Well Jane Fonda is acting like he's gods gift to women. lol.

oh wait, you meant LITERAL fans? sorry, I thought you meant that the movie THE BRIBE apparently hadn't been a hit with viewers as we were all still talking about EDDIE COYLE.

I tried. I really did. Three times I restarted it, fell asleep every time.

They would disagree..

Something to remember is that Marilyn was a contract player for most of her career. As her career went on she became bolder about resisting some of the dreck Fox wanted to assign her to and asking for roles which appealed to her. They were more interested in maximizing their investment in the short term than they were in helping her grow as an actress. In some ways they actively worked against her, which must have further fueled some of her basic insecurities. From the beginning Marilyn sought out dramatic coaches independent of the studio, and Fox took a very dim view. She was forced to ridicule herself in There's No Business Like Show Business, in which her character, a showgirl, had foolish "pretentions" of learning to act with a dramatic coach. When Marilyn became particularly vocal about roles, they tried to ignite the careers of Jayne Mansfield, Sheree North and others as potential "new Marilyns". In Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, the Mansfield character had run away to New York (just as Marilyn escaped Fox to study at The Actor's Studio) because they wanted her to do "some crazy movie about Russian brothers". Their way of sticking it to Marilyn for practically begging (and very publicly, at that) that Fox loan her to MGM to do The Brothers Karamazov. She had read the book, she knew what she was asking for, and she genuinely wanted the opportunity. If Fox had been smart, Marilyn would have been allowed to test her wings on someone else's dime and she could have returned to them with an enhanced reputation and greater value as an asset of the studio. Personally, I'm not at all convinced that "Marilyn could never have pulled that off." I agree with Alicia; I would love to have seen Marilyn in the role. Interestingly, Marilyn had a prior personal (supposedly romantic and intimate) relationship with Yul Brynner from their time in New York when he was on Broadway in The King and I, so who knows what that might have added to the mix. Marilyn was determined to expand her talent and she did, without question. She was an exquisite comedienne and a deft ensemble player when given the right material in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire and, in later dramatic roles like Bus Stop and The Misfits, she left the "baby talk" in the dust. (She did an iffy project like Let's Make Love to fulfill her Fox contract and get them off her back.) At the time of her death she was scheduled for a meeting in New York to discuss the lead role in a television production of Somerset Maugham's Rain, so it doesn't seem as though she ever really took her eye off the ball, regardless of the havoc her personal demons caused in her life. It doesn't make sense to compare her to Katharine Hepburn or Meryl Streep (who never had to deal with an entrenched studio system). Marilyn was unique and multi-faceted and it shouldn't take a strict Marilyn-phile to see that.

I remember watching this show every Sunday night when I was seven or eight. Did not really understand it, but my parents watched it, so it must have been good!!!

Well yeah. I'm now the cougar-MrTiki is 10 years younger and everything's fine. It really doesn't have much to do with age, more about attitude & experience. I had expected & relied on an older man to be wiser & make better choices for both of us. I'm now the wise one guiding MrTiki through the joys of aging: I told him once he turned 40 to expect his arms would get shorter while reading-he was amazed when it happened! I can't stand movie romances where WE know the guy/gal is a jerk, yet there is some dumb cluck that clings to them no matter what. That is wisdom....knowing when a person is detrimental to your life, not enhancing it. I think of Paul Douglas/Barbara Stanwyck in CLASH BY NIGHT and Jean Hagen/Sterling Hayden in ASPHALT JUNGLE off the top of my head.

I haven't seen any of those Alan Rudolph movies, but I have seen others. Roadie is like a made-for-TV movie with Kris Kristofferson, nothing special. Made for Each Other (I think that's the title) with Timothy Hutton and Kelly McGillis is awful; individual scenes are fine, but the movie has no rhythm, doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and seems LOOOONG. I have a couple of friends who really liked The Moderns, but I was less fond of it. Linda Fiorentino seems to be from the Troy Donahue Academy of Acting, though I understand she is good in other movies. But there's good news, too. Some people hate Welcome to L.A., but I liked the movie a lot. It's like Nashville (where Rudolph was an assistant director) but without the "This is a metaphor for America" pretentiousness. Choose Me is one of my favorite films from the 1980s. As with Welcome to L.A., the characters keep meeting in odd and unexpected ways. Lesley Ann Warren has her best role ever as a woman who falls for a guy (Keith Carradine, in one of his best roles) who is an outrageous liar, or is he? Genevieve Bujold (love her) gets to play a radio version of Dr. Ruth. Trouble in Mind is a little more problematic than the other two--Divine as a male gangster is an interesting idea that doesn't quite work. I would never have cast Genevieve Bujold as a diner owner named Wanda, but I would have been wrong. Wanda is the ex-lover of Kris Kristofferson, who, instead of begging her to take him back, goes after a girl (Lori Singer) who's younger than Wanda and has lots more long curly-permed hair. Bujold handles this with far more maturity and objectivity and kindness than I would have, and the film is worth seeing for her great performance.

EXPENSIVE WOMEN (1931)

I just watched "That Touch of Mink" for the first time and found the Day/Grant chemistry lacking. Especially since Gig Young (who is in the picture) and Day seem better-suited. I then watched Grant in "Charade" and thought the chemistry with Hepburn rather spectacular. Matters of age seem to work more depending on the pairing than anything else. But I am a firm believer that until the cortex is fully formed (aged 25), no one whose is should be allowed into a relationship with anyone whose isn't.

A lot of posters here are not fans of Robert Taylor and I can understand why they may find his appeal limited. I find him, at best, adequate in some of his '50s films but far from exciting. However, he was highly effective as a cold blooded killer with a psychopathic hatred towards Indians (okay, okay, indigenous people) in The Last Hunt, a western made in 1956. We're far from the land of noir here, of course, but Taylor's hard boiled coldness in this tale about buffalo hunters could have worked well as a character in a noir study, as well. This film is shown on TCM quite often and is worth a look for Taylor's performance. The film has a unique climax, quite unlike that of any other western that comes to mind. Okay, back to the noir talk . . .

IMO there's still only one REAL version of Star Wars, the original. It keeps getting worse with each additional tweak. Still have the original on VHS. Is there a definitive version of Blade Runner? I've seen one version, don't know the name of it- it's just the one I rented when I was in high school. Aren't there multiple endings out there? Did the sequel validate one of the versions and being the one that was continued from?

Tall Story was released in April 1960, and at that particular moment, Perkins was still regarded as a sympathetic, gentle, boy next door type in films. Psycho was released two months later. Everything changed.

See also LonesomePolecat's entire thread: "Same Title...but NOT a Remake!"

What.....is your name? ....Thanks very much to Stevomachino, lydecker, Oneeyeopen, and Overeasy What....is your quest? ....for submitting programming schedules! Each has unique and thoughtful programming choices, and I know a great deal of time and care went into their development. They all could very easily air on TCM. What....is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?....I cast my vote for lydecker -- anyone who programs Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) for The Essentials is AOK in my book.

Neither here nor there, but this silly Radio Shack mic as a prop sort of jumped out at me.

Million Dollar Ransom

Pocketful of Miracles High Sierra The Petrified Forest

Little Caesar (1931): Rico Bandello Angels with Dirty Faces (1938): Rocky Sullivan Brighton Rock (1948): Pinkie Brown The Godfather (1972): Michael Corleone

IMO, Henry Mancini's main theme for Peter Gunn* is terrific and immortal. Besides the original, classic arrangement, I also dig the eccentric interpretation by Art of Noise. Other Entries in My TV Theme Hall of Fame Danger Man by Edwin Astley Man in a Suitcase by Ron Grainer Mission Impossible by Lalo Schifrin Route 66 by Nelson Riddle The Prisoner by Ron Granier * The private dick so manly and macho, his name is two euphemisms!

I liked it. It was confusing for awhile and I'm still not sure I understand all the plot points. Did Eddie sell out the gun selling guy or was it Peter Boyle? I was surprised how small Mitchum's part was. He was basically part of an ensemble cast. Some of the big scenes involved others. Felt really sad how his end was no more than a pothole in the plot. Part of the confusion for me in the beginning was I couldnt figure out what kind of character Richard Jordan was playing. Peter Boyle turned out to be a twofaced creep!

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975) next: cutting a rug

The whole soundtrack sounds like it was lifted from Hazel. It was AWESOME !

The Poster boy here....

This was one of the best series to ever appear on television. The Bearcats! starred Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole as Hank Brackett and Johnny Reach, two "soldiers of fortune" who roamed the American Southwest during the Wilson years (1914). They typically accepted work from clients who were in trouble or had troubles needing to be taken care of. They were not paid by a normal fee, rather they insisted on a blank check and they would fill out the fee after the work was completed. Johnny Reach said in the pilot film, Powderkeg... "If you can put a price on it, you don't need them badly enough." Included here is the opening and closing credits of the 1971 series which lasted only 13 episodes. It went up against The Flip Wilson Show. Also there is the original pilot opening theme. Oh, and the 1914 Stutz Bearcat was beautiful to look at and was in many ways the real star of the show.

HEAVEN CAN WAIT 1943 Fantasy starring Gene Tierney & Don Ameche where a womanizing man dies and tells in flashback scenes why he belongs in h ell for all his past deeds. 1978 Fantasy remake of Here Comes Mr Jordan starring Warren Beatty where he's wrongfully deceased & needs to find a body to live his natural life through.

Sorry to hear this. I remember liking Laredo when if aired in syndication in the early 70s. I thought the trio of William Smith, Peter Brown, and Neville Brand looked like a fun bunch of guys to hang with, body builder "Joe" was exactly the kind of guy you'd want beside when things got rough.

Remington Steele (1982-1987)

Cash and Carry (1937)

I don't remember the film too clearly. I think it was OK, with Pacino well cast, and decent chemistry with the leads. It becomes more of a two lonely people in the big city film. The concept of an unattractive woman, or a woman who feels she isn't attractive, gets lost. Michelle Pfeiffer is less glamorous than usual, which in Hollywood terms is more like instead of looking like Miss Universe, she's only the fourth runner-up.

Wonder if Bob and Lana "got together" as he did with Ava? (for some reason, based on that anecdote recounted by Eddie Muller, I picture Taylor has having a Norman Bates-type mother -- "Spangler, don't you DARE bring your **** into this house!" which probably prompted his "What do you want me to do -- send her to a cheap hotel?")

I wouldn't trade it for Rick McCloskey's shots of 1972 streetlife in the Valley:

As most y'all know,my wife was 10 years my senior. And we found PLENTY to talk about. And while several of her interests and mine were the same, it was the other interests that we could introduce and interest each other in that made our lives enjoyable. ie; In my past life(1st marriage) I could never get much into decorating for Christmas. And she showed me the joy of turning our home into "Christmas central". And before she never gave a second thought to classical music, but wound up enjoying going to DSO concerts and Beethoven's 9th symphony became her favorite. And her being Mexican got me to learn there's more to Mexican cuisine than tacos, burritos and guacamole. So, you see? It's not the AGE that really matters. It's the PEOPLE involved. Sepiatone

I Remember Mama (1948) Next: Emptying the trash