cigarjoe
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Palmetto (1998) Just Another Sucker Southern Noir
A Southern Noir, from the Sunshine State. Based on the James Hadley Chase novel "Just Another Sucker." Chase had a number of his novels turned into films, No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948), The Grissom Gang (1971), and others. The film was directed by Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum (1979)) and the screenplay was by E. Max Frye (Something Wild (1986)). The cinematography Tak Fujimoto (Fear (1996)). The bluesy soundtrack was by Klaus Doldinger (Das Boot (1981)).The film stars Woody Harrelson as a framed jailbird who is sprung in order to be recruited to carry out a fake stepmother-daughter fake kidnapping scheme. It all goes Noirsville when Harry gets back with the loot and finds Odette dead.Every-time Elisabeth Shue is on screen the film sizzles. She in the running for admittance into the Pantheon of Great Femme Fatales. She turns it on like a **** in heat. She gets a certain wild eyed, out of control look when she's telegraphing obvious sexual come and get it signals all the while the brain in your upper head is strobe flashing danger ahead warning lights. But baby you don't care. 7/10Full review with some screencaps in Film Noir/Gangster page and with even more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/04/palmetto-1998-just-another-sucker.html
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Palmetto (1998) Just Another Sucker Southern Noir
A Southern Noir, from the Sunshine State. Based on the James Hadley Chase novel "Just Another Sucker." Chase had a number of his novels turned into films, No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948), The Grissom Gang (1971), and others. The film was directed by Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum (1979)) and the screenplay was by E. Max Frye (Something Wild (1986)). The cinematography Tak Fujimoto (Fear (1996)). The bluesy soundtrack was by Klaus Doldinger (Das Boot (1981)).
The film stars Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers (1994), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), No Country for Old Men (2007)) as Harry Barber. Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas (1995)) as Mrs. Donnelly/Rhea Malroux, Gina Gershon (Bound (1996), This World, Then the Fireworks (1997), Killer Joe (2011)) as Nina, Rolf Hoppe (Mephisto (1981)) as Felix Malroux, Michael Rapaport (True Romance (1993), Kiss of Death (1995). Cop Land (1997)) as Donnely, Chloë Sevigny (American Psycho (2000), The Brown Bunny (2003), Zodiac (2007), ) as Odette, Tom Wright (Matewan (1987), Honeydripper (2007)) as John Renick, Marc Macaulay (China Moon (1994), Wild Things (1998), Lonely Hearts (2006), Killer Joe (2011)) as D.A. Miles Meadows, and Florida's Gulf Coast in all its seedy, steamy, aquamarine, green palm, and liquid sunshine splendor.Sunset Coast, Florida. Harry Barber (Harrelson) = ex reporter. Harry Barber = convict. Harry doing time. Framed. Harry going buggy. Palmetto bug = flying cockroach. To jail bird Harry pugs = pets.
Harry Barber (Harrelson)
Harry uncovered a town council/gamboling corruption scandal. Bribe offered. Bribe rejected. Follow the Moola. $2,000 mysteriously found in his bank account. Arrested and sentenced. Doing quattro in county.
Two years. Suddenly Sprung. Harry happy. Ex-cop testimony clears Harry. Harry and girlfriend Nina (Gershon) reunited. Back in the saddle again. Harry looks for work in Palmetto. Discouraged after days of dead ends he becomes a barfly is a seedy Palmetto dive, but doesn't drink, he's on the wagon. He'll order a shot and a soda but doesn't drink the shot.
Cue Rhea Malroux (Shue), a hot bodacious blond piece of cheesecake in a clinging dress that shows practically everything she's got. She breathtakingly slinks into the bar dripping desirability. Bona fide bang bait, she trolls hapless Harry. She very obviously "leaves" a cash filed handbag in a telephone booth. The down and out Harry "finds" it and, with his newly acquired jailbird smarts, pockets the cash. Rhea "runs into" Harry back in the bar and thanks him for finding her bag, offering to buy him a drink.
Rhea Malroux (Shue)
Harry bites and she offers him a job. She wants him to help her and step-daughter Odette (Sevigny) stage a phony kidnapping. They want to scam her husband (Hoppe) out of $500,000 and Harry will get 10%. Rhea sweetens the pot by **** Harry stupid. Harry hooked.
Rhea Malroux: I'm just a girl with a little ambition.Harry wants to meet Odette to make sure everything is square. Once Odette shows up Harry plans his end of the ruse. Odette is to make an appointment to meet her friend at a dance pier, she'll show up and then change clothes, don a wig and split with Harry who'll drop her off at the airport where she'll catch a red eye to Miami and hole up in a Holiday Inn. After Odette's missing for a few days her father will receive the ransom note that Harry gave to Rhea. Harry will then make the call and ask for the half million and give details for the drop. Odette will fly back, Harry will pick her up and deposit her at a ocean side cabin he rented, and then go and get the money.
It all goes Noirsville when Harry gets back with the loot and finds Odette dead.
Noirsville
Every-time Elisabeth Shue is on screen the film sizzles. She in the running for admittance into the Pantheon of Great Femme Fatales. She turns it on like a **** in heat. She gets a certain wild eyed, out of control look when she's telegraphing obvious sexual come and get it signals all the while the brain in your upper head is strobe flashing danger ahead warning lights. But baby you don't care.Gina Gershon (Nina) the other woman in Harry's life is the down to earth, metal artist, the loyal girl he left behind. Gershon's part is pretty tame comparatively in this film, with not much to work with. If you want to see her in a similar performance to Shue's catch her as the incest-full sister in This World Then The Fireworks, or catch her trailer trash stepmother in the recent Killer Joe.Woody Harrelson as the chip on his shoulder ex reporter, plays Barber with "some" degree of street smarts, he's bitter, resentful, and wants to get back the two years he's lost even if he has to play the angles to do so. He's stewing inside, scowling, grousing and edgy. The femmes play him like a fiddle.
Odette comes off like a rode hard and put away wet piece of jailbait. Chloë Sevigny enhances her slutty performance with a don't give a **** attitude, bedroom eyes, and revealing clothes.
Of the rest of the cast only Michael Rapaport makes some sort of impression. He was born to play sleazy, when I see him I think of Classic Film Noir actor Zachary Scott. He's got a natural aura of shifty un-trustworthiness, that taints all his characters, but his part is somewhat undeveloped and he's coasting on fumes.Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/04/palmetto-1998-just-another-sucker.html
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My grandparents lived in Westchester county and I spent many
a weekend crossing the Tappan Zee bridge which I think goes
by Tarrytown. I didn't pay much attention to it as a kid.
The new Tappan Zee should be done this year.
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Ahem. Tarrytown isn't Upstate at all.
And those of us in the Catskills would generally claim we're not upstate either. (Meanwhile, Western New York has as much in common with the rest of the Great Lakes region as it does with places like Albany.)
It's not even in The Hudson Highlands, lol.
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Sanctuary (1961) A Southern circa 1920s, William Faulkner's steamy tale. Temple Drake (Lee Remick, The State Governor's daughter) and her boyfriend, Goodwin, drive to a moonshiner. There, after Goodwin drinks himself passed out drunk, Temple is seduced and raped by a Cajun, The Candyman (Yves Montand) a bootlegger and pimp. The Candyman and Temple become lovers and he keeps her in his whorehouse until he is supposedly killed during a bootleg run and a fight with revenuers. After Temple is rescued she marries Goodwin though she doesn't love him. The Candyman returns after five years and things get somewhat interesting but not quite enough. 6/10
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China. The ball is in Mr. Wu's court now. He has been buying up Hollywood. You may actually see things change in that regard, in spite of some insertion of Chinese propaganda here and there.
Maybe we'll get some great remakes of Charlie Chan with mostly Asian casts and in Film Noir style, now those I'd watch.
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I find myself recording the movies just to watch his comments. Since I've seen many of the films multiple times already, I usually dont watch the film itself. I did watch The Set Up which I havent seen many times. I always like to spot the Bunker Hill/Court Hill locations in downtown LA used so often in noirs. (alas, all gone now.
)Muller does the commentary on quite a few Noir DVD's sometimes with a guest sometimes stag, I'd usually watch the film then get the double pleasure of watching it with the commentaries. Some are not fond of his co commentary with James Ellroy but both of them together on Crime Wave especially are a real hoot.
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The 39 Steps (1935) directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim. Rewatched this last night, Richard Hannay (Donat) is a Canadian visitor to London. At the end of a vaudeville like "Mr Memory's" show in a music hall, he meets Annabella Smith (Mannheim) who is running away from secret agents after her. He hides her in his flat, but in the night she is knifed in the back. Afraid of both the counter agents and the police he goes on the run to Scotland with some rather cryptic information to try and break up the spy ring. Some great cinematography, with a nice escape sequence on the Firth of Forth Bridge.
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She, as that would be the very Val Lewton-y scene of Ann Carter lost in the snowy climax of The Curse of the Cat People (1944), thank you.
(And then only because the characters lived in upper-middle-class upstate-NY Tarrytown, and teachers and crazy old actresses telling the "local" Sleepy Hollow story to over imaginative lil' Amy might not be the best idea...)
Thanks, I vaguely remembered it.
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Tom, you might want to check out the 1922 version of The Headless Horseman, with Will Rogers. It is a real curio, with Rogers miscast (in my opinion) as Ichabod Crane. The film is fairly dull; however, the ending is a bit creepy.
You know there is another film that dealt with The Headless Horseman, but a sound picture in modern times for then, (late 40s or 50s). The only scene I remember is that the Legend Of Sleepy Hollow story was told to a character and that he's walking in a snow storm along a road back to his home and he hears the distant sound of hooves coming closer and closer and the guy is panicking. It turns out to be a truck or car with it's tire chains partly broken and they are beating against the mud flaps or something
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not that anyone asked, but since i seem to be avoiding real world responsibility today-
films of the 1970's that fit the description of film noir or legit homage to me are:
CHINATOWN, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, THE FRANCH CONNECTION, THE DAY OF THE LOCUST, FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, DOG DAY AFTERNOON (yes, really), THE LONG GOODBYE (LOVE this one!), DIRTY HARRY (although I'm not a fan), PLAY MISTY FOR ME, THE CHEAP DETECTIVE (it's funny, sue me),
films i have not seen that still seem to meet the criterion:
KLUTE, THE BIG SLEEP, CHARLIE VARRICK, THE LAUGHING POLICE MAN, SERPICO, THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE, TWO, THREE and most likely quite a few others because there are more films from the 1970's that i have not seen than there are films that i have.
i'm sorry, it was a terribly ugly time period and it hurts me to look at it for too long.
Here is my list of the Visual Neo Noirs of the 70s these have the Noir Stylistics to go with the story it's a work in progress there's a real gap between '76 and 1980:
Darker Than Amber (1970)
Shaft (1971)Across 110th Street (1971)The Getaway (1971)Get Carter (1971)Hickey & Boggs (1972)The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)The Nickel Ride (1974)Chinatown (1974)Lenny (1974)Road Movie (1974)The Drowning Pool (1975)Farewell My Lovely (1975)Night Moves (1975)Seven Beauties (1975)Taxi Driver (1976)The Big Sleep (1978)-
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Also, if you read Washington Irving's story, it's teasingly implied there was no horseman (or was there?)
Disney's cartoon version is much more faithful to the text, where it's suggested that the whole Ride may have been an elaborate prank by town bully Brom Bones to get rid of his competition for the girl, and that Ichabod was ultimately a victim of his own twitchy superstition. Although, of course, we never know for sure.
The scene in the middle of the film where the townsfolk tease Ichabod by faking the Horseman as he crosses the bridge is pretty much where Irving's story ends, period--in fact, it's pretty much all we GET of Irving's story--and where Burton's Made-Up Crap begins...For another hour.
Besides The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow and The Legend Of Rip Van Winkle Irving wrote three similar tales, The Haunted House, Dolph Heyliger, and The Storm-Ship, that are just about as good.
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One of the things that I love about the 70s version is the use of the last of the original Bunker Hill area of downtown Los Angeles, a seedy neighborhood of flophouses and decayed mansions that had been featured in many 40s and 50s noirs. It had been mostly plowed over in the late 50s and the 60s in the name of "urban renewal". The last vestiges were still around when I was a kid exploring downtown with my brothers, cousins and neighbors.
Arturo, you'll love this, a real treat for Angelenos the film is pretty ridiculous but it has some wonderful sequences. There is a sequence at 54:25 that has some of the last shots of Angels Flight in color where you can hear the cars creak up and down the incline over the soundtrack lasts about 2+ minutes also 3rd St. Tunnel. The old Elk Lodge on the South Side has already been torn down and the rest don;t have long to go.
it was removed by mods just look up The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies on a popular video provider, wink, wink.
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Nobody's idea of one of the best film noirs, I suspect, but 1947's Desert Fury is certainly noteworthy for its lovely Technicolor, the first noirish subject film to do so, I believe.
Sorry, I take that last statement back. I just thought of Leave Her to Heaven.
Yea it's good, if you liked it also check out Inferno (1953) with Rhonda Fleming and Robert Ryan.
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Very fascinating stuff here, obviously with a lot of thought and effort behind it. However, with a category as fluid as film noir, quantifying them by year may be hazardous; no two people agree on every film that is or isn't a noir.
Additionally, I highlighted the paragraph above for a reason. Your premise that color noirs from the 40s-68 are the first neo-noirs is based on the assumption that the filmmakers consciously chose to make a "Color Film Noir". At best, color noirs until the mid-50s would have to be excluded, as their could be no conscious decision about a genre that had yet to be defined.
As I say, however, interesting stuff.
I don't consider Film Noir a genre I'm definitely on the Style + Story Side of the discussion actually.
As for the fluidity of of noir, a thought to throw into the equation of what makes a Noir/Neo Noir is an individual internal factor. It's subjectivity. Noir is in all of us. Think of us all as having an internal tuning fork, these tuning forks are forged by our life experiences which are all unique. When we watch these films their degree of Noir-ness resonates with us differently, so we either "tune" to them or we don't. The amount of "tuning" (I'm appropriating this term from the Neo Noir Dark City (1998)) to certain films will vary between us all also.
Another point to ponder (From The Death of Film Noir: On The Streets of Paris) :
Charles O’Brien who researched the use of “film noir” before the war in Film Noir In France: Before The Liberation documents how that term was used in the newspapers and magazines of Paris during the 1930s.
O’Brien points out that the term “film noir” seems to have been coined by the political right wing and that may be because many – but not all – of the film noirs were from the poetic realist movement that was closely associated with the leftist Popular Front.
There are nine film noirs identified in O’Brien's essay: Pierre Chenal’s “Crime and Punishment” (1935), Jean Renoir’s “The Lower Depths” (Les Bas-fonds) (1936), Julien Duvivier’s “Pépé le Moko” (1937), Jeff Musso’s “The Puritan” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Port of Shadows” (Le Quai des brumes) (1938), Jean Renoir’s “La Bête Humaine” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Hôtel du Nord” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Le Jour se lève” (Daybreak) 1939, and Pierre Chenal’s “Le Dernier Tournant” (1939).
Five of the films are of the poetic realism movement (although as with anything else that could be debated): “The Lower Depths,” “Pépé le Moko,” Port of Shadows,” “La Bête Humaine” and “Le Jour se lève.” The other four films contain similar themes. In three of the films the protagonist commits suicide and suicide plays a role in two other films. In three of the films the protagonist is incarcerated or executed by the state. In one film the protagonist is killed senselessly. Three films have wives conspiring with lovers to kill husbands. In two films the protagonist survives with a lover although what follows that survival isn’t clear and in one film one lover is shot in a botched suicide pact. What also isn’t clear is whether there are more films called “noirs” that will show up with subsequent research and whether similar and earlier films made before the term “film noir” first hit ink are also film noirs.
The film noirs considered part of the poetic realism movement have a visual style that would influence the American crime film made both during and after the war with “Port of Shadows” being the most obvious example, the other films are made in different styles. The remaining films – “Hôtel du Nord” and “Le Dernier Tournant” – are filmed in a more conventional style although the content contains murder or suicide and the other social taboos that are a mainstay of the film noirs.None of these films are about private detectives hard-boiled or otherwise and none of them are police procedurals or stories where the police – or any member of governmental society – are seen as heroic. The films are about the working class and those below the working class or, in a few films, what was once referred to as the Lumpenproletariat. In fact, there isn’t a single crime film – as that term is conventionally used – in the list. “Pépé Le Moko,” a film that centers on a fugitive criminal hiding in the Casbah of Algiers, is a film about memory and desire more than anything else and its suicide ending has to do with facing what the character believes he has lost and not the possibility of incarceration.There are two articles that mention “film noir” in 1946 and that are cited in the film noir mythology. Oddly, the critic whose usage is the slimmest is the critic whose reference is more often used and who is credited with coining the term film noir. That critic is Nino Frank and his article appeared in L'Écran français. Prior to the war, he had been editor-in-chief of Pour vous, a French publication dedicated to cinema.In August 1946, L'Écran français published Nino Frank’s article A New Kind of Police Drama: the Criminal Adventure. He begins by citing “seven new American films that are particularly masterful: ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘The Little Foxes,’ ‘How Green Was My Valley,’ plus, ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘Laura,’ and, to a certain extent, ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Murder My Sweet.’” He then focuses only on the crime films.“They belong,” Frank wrote of the crime films, “to a class that we used to call the crime film, but would best be described from this point on by a term such as criminal adventures, or better yet, such as criminal psychology.”Jean-Pierre Chartier – the other French critic who used the term “film noir” – wrote Americans Also Make Noir Films for La Révue du Cinéma in November of 1946. In that article he discusses three films: “Murder My Sweet,” “Double Indemnity” and “The Lost Weekend.”What's fascinating is the inclusion of Lost Weekend in the original '46 definition, it's not a crime film but about addiction which opens up a whole new can of worms.
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Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) Sleazy New York Noir Creepshow
Camp Cult Classic? Late Night Shlock? Sleazy Trash? Decadent Depravity? Homoerotic Hoke? Sexual Psychodrama? Lost Noir? Yesssss!!! All of the above and beyond.
More on Film Noir/Gangster page, but full review with NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/04/who-killed-teddy-bear-1965-sleazy-new.html
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Who Killed Teddy Bear (1965) Sleazy New York Noir Creepshow
Camp Cult Classic? Late Night Shlock? Sleazy Trash? Decadent Depravity? Homoerotic Hoke? Sexual Psychodrama? Lost Noir? Yesssss!!! All of the above and beyond.
Five years after giving us Girl Of The Night (1960) director Joseph Cates returns to the underbelly of New York City with Who Killed Teddy Bear? The film was written by Arnold Drake (The Flesh Eaters (1964)) and Leon Tokatyan a writer for TV. The cinematography was by Joseph C. Brun (Walk East on Beacon! (1952), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Girl of the Night (1960)). The Music was by Charles Calello (The Lonely Lady (1983)) and the disco songs used in the film are composed by Bob Gaudino (of The Four Seasons) and Al Kasha.
Larry (Mineo) 
Nora (Prowse) 
Marian (Stritch)
Madden (Murray) The film stars Sal Mineo (Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Crime in the Streets (1956), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)) as Lawrence (Larry) Sherman, busboy at a Manhattan Discotech. Juliet Prowse (supposedly from Rochester NY, but from the sound of her accent, by way of South Africa, India, and London) plays Norah Dain the DJ of the club. Elaine Stritch (The Scarlet Hour (1956)) plays Marian Freeman the clubs manager. Another implausible acting choice was Borscht Belt stand up comic Jan Murray (imprinted forever for me as a staple TV game show host and more comedic type actor) as Lt. Dave Madden.
Margot Bennett (O Lucky Man! (1973)) as the slightly addled Eddie Sherman a victim of arrested development. Frank Campanella (Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Naked City (1958–1963), Seconds (1966), Dick Tracy (1990),) as Police Captain. Rex Everhart (The Seven-Ups (1973) as Rude Customer, Dianne Moore as Dave Madden's daughter Pam (Jan Murray's real life daughter), Dan Travanti (Hill Street Blues TV Series (1981–1987) as the mute club bouncer Carlo, and last certainly not least Times Square New York circa 1965.Who Killed Teddy Bear is the story of Nora (Prowse) a virginal "Goldilocks" and the three weirdos, Larry (Mineo), Dave (Murray), and Marian (Stritch). Nora is a slightly jaded dancer/actress looking to break into Broadway. She has a gig at a chi chi discotech as a DJ. Her job is to keep the records spinning and customers dancing, the more they dance the more they drink. She has to fight off the various patrons unwanted advances all night.
Nora works for Marian the hard boiled swaggering manager, with Larry the busboy, and Carlo (Travanti) the mute bouncer. Nora starts to get obscene phone calls. Then one day she comes home to find a decapitated Teddy Bear in her apartment and everything goes Noirsville.
Mineo as Larry is doing a sort of mini Marlon Brando/James Dean riff. Though Larry isn't gay he's filmed that way put on obvious display, laying around in tighty-whities touching himself while calling Nora, wearing painted on pants, pumping iron, and swimming in what can only be described as a **** ertotic boy toy fantasy. Prowse, playing the slightly demure and yet volatile when cornered, virgin seems from a time long, long, ago. Murray is surprisingly believable. Stritch is good as the tough, hard as nails butch broad.
One of the big attractions of the film for me is the sequences in Times Square. For me it's a trip down memory lane. I went to school in Manhattan from the mid to late 60s. My school was on W54th Street and Times Square was my playground. The typical trip would begin with an after school walk West to the corner of 6th Avenue. There one encountered one of NYC wacky denizens, the blind Viking Moondog. Wearing a helmet with a nose guard and horns and holding a staff his designated parking spot was the sidewalk in front of the Warwick Hotel, where he hawked his poetry. Continuing to 7th Ave one turned South towards Times Square. The Metropole Cafe was a magnate on 7th, it's blackened front window had a head sized peephole where you could watch the topless go go dancers do their stuff until you were shooed away by the door bouncer. It seems that the rest of the avenue and into the square was a mix of perpetually "going out of business" businesses, peep shows, theaters, cheap or tourist centric restaurants (The Brass Rail, Tad's Steakhouse, Howard Johnson's, Horn & Hardart, The Stage Delicatessen) sidewalk Sabrett's dirty water hot dog vendors, Orange Julius juice bars, pretzel vendors, sidewalk newsstands, Follies Burlesk, Playland arcades, movie palaces, souvenir shops, and adult bookstores. I even remember vividly the stripper attire shop that Mineo stops in front of, in the film, to gaze upon the various g-strings, pasties, and other burlesque accoutrements. 47th street East of 7th was loaded with whores, the cops must had standing orders to herd them all off the square, it was hooker heaven. Our usual goal was extra large the Playland arcade below the Majestic Dancing Ballroom, which BTW still had taxi dancers. All through this odyssey you had to negotiate weirdos, women in see through tops, shoeshine boys, three card monte scam artists, guys selling watches, the blind selling pencils, punks, drunks, and geezers. It was creepshow but an infinitely entertaining one.
Times Square
Who Killed Teddy Bear is a very dark and bleak film that wallowed in quite a few taboos, ****, voyeurism, incest, child abuse, and lesbianism at the end of the Motion Picture Production Code. It's a time capsule that shows a New York City and Times Square about to free fall into the abyss of decadence. It's cheap, rough, sordid, lurid, prurient, and even a bit artsy fartsy. The title song Who Killed Teddy Bear? was sung by Rita Dyso. Screencaps are from the R2 Network DVD, I've read that there are versions that have a clear, not blurred credit sequence showing Mineo in his tighty whities groping a woman in a bra and half slip, Network has it blurred, it needs a complete restoration. Grindhouse Noir 6/10, may go up a peg with a restoration,
Full review with NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/04/who-killed-teddy-bear-1965-sleazy-new.html-
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Q (1982) Directed by Larry Cohen, stars David Carradine, Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, Richard Roundtree, winged serpent attacks New York. watchable 6/10.
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Thank you, that is fascinating.
I have never seen the 1978 BIG SLEEP, but- if I may disagree somewhat on one point – not too long ago I reread THE BIG SLEEP And was quite struck with how closely the 1946 movie version followed it right down to the dialogue- although, I may be misremembering things especially with a story that Baroque...
What I'm mostly referring to is the Marlowe/Sternwood daughters scenes, the 46 film added the love story and rewrote/added stuff to capitalise on the Bogart/Bacall chemistry.
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This was one of the first film rarities I got to see via YouTube, it's been a few years since I saw it that one time but I thought it was excellent. It's a real shame that the film is rarely shown for whatever reason...
I'm not really into many films made in the 70s, but the films of that time that I like are nearly all throwback, nostalgic or Homage films.
A TCM Spotlight on 70s noir would be cool
Too bad they didn't keep the follow up The Big Sleep in the same time period and location.
The '78 version follows the book's plot better than the '46 version and uses much of the dialogue, you just gotta go with the flow and it's not bad. the '78 scenario goes like this Marlowe stayed in England after WWII and started a detective service in London. Marlowe is now 61 years old and he drives a '71 BMW instead of a 1930's Marmon.
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No such animal
You can look at it that way but here is another take on it:
From the many and varied books written about Film Noir the often quoted time frame that these films fit into is usually 1941 to 1958 some occasionally stretch to 1959. Who came came up with this initially, and why is it so strictly adhered too?The more Noirs I watch the more I'm questioning this. I'm beginning to come around to a different thought, and that is that Classic American Film Noir stretched from say 1940 to 1968 (1968 being the last general use of B&W film in production) here below is the breakdown by year of Black & White Noirs (there may be a few more to add in, in that 1959 to 1968 stretch (the 1959 cut off possibly for major studio production but independent productions continued):1940 (5)1941 (11)1942 (5)1943 (5)1944 (18)1945 (22)1946 (42)1947 (53)1948 (43)1949 (52)1950 (57)1951 (39)1952 (26)1953 (21)1954 (26)1955 (20)1956 (19)1957 (12)1958 (7)1959 (7)1960 (5)1961 (4)1962 (8)1963 (2)1964 (6)1965 (8)1966 (5)1967 (2)1968 (1)I'm also thinking now that the Color Film Noirs within this 1940-1968 time frame were the first obvious Neo Noirs so that the two sub genres/styles actually overlap. The catalyst for this new alignment is when I read a quote about Neo Noir that said that if the filmmakers made a conscience decision to film in black and white when color was the norm then it was an artistic decision and not one of necessity for budget purposes, Same the other way if B&W was the norm for low budget B Noirs then it was an artistic decision to film it color.Beginning In the 58-59 you had the demise of the restraints of the Motion Picture Production Code, the rise of TV, and the end of B unit Studio Production. That 1958/59 years usually given for Film Noir style cut off was just arbitrary. There are still a quite a few B&W Film Noir up to 1968.I think what's going on is as the Motion Picture Production Code weakened and independent film creators were allowed more artistic freedom, so those Film Noir that went too far over the line depicting violence started getting classified as Horror, Thriller (even though they were just say, showing the effects of a gunshot wound, or dealing with weird serial killers, maniacs, etc.), those that went too far depicting sexual, drug, torture, etc., situations were being lumped into or classed as various Exploitation flicks, (even though they are relatively tame comparably to today's films), the noir-ish films that dealt with everything else, except Crime, concerning the human condition were labeled Dramas and Suspense. Those that tried new techniques were labeled Experimental. What was actually happening is Noir was in flux changing into Neo Noir.With nothing really giving some of some of these directors & producers some parameters, or putting the brakes on, there was no speed limit they just shot past common sense and good taste and eventually they just dispensed with almost all plot at all and just followed the easy money into hardcore. Shame cause you can clearly see artistic talent in these early "Grindhouse" features.P.S. I just watched Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967) the other day again (on TCM) and without a doubt it's a Neo Noir in the vein of the psychological type noir, but everyone is distracted by its "sensationalism" and maybe some of the atrocious accents and the mumbling of Marlon, lol.Anyway the color film Noir the first 30 years (again there maybe a few more in these early years but they as a whole really up ticked in the 1980s and 1990's):1945 (1)1947 (1)1948 (1)1953 (2)1955 (3)1956 (3)1958 (1)1966 (2)1967 (2)1969 (1)1970 (2)1971 (4)1972 (1)1973 (0)1974 (2)-
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I'll add that O'Halloran expanded the part of Moose Malloy a bit more than Mazurki, you actually feel abit sorry for the big lug in Farewell My Lovely. Farewell My Lovely also follows the book a bit better, they didn't have the Lido gambling ship in Murder My Sweet.
And you had the bonus of John Ireland in it also.
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And on a side note about this film...I remember first watching it in the late-'60s on the old ABC Sunday Night Movie, and I have to admit it somehow stuck with this then 17 or 18 y/o young man here, and I kept ruminating about it for a few days afterward.
Dargo, If you saw it on TV it was heavily censored, there was a lot of eye candy in the bacchanalia
, believe me as a 17 year old you wouldn't have thought it dragged. 
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Seconds (1966) A Rat Race Reboot
Bizarre Noir, directed by John FrankenheimerBoth John Randolph and Rock Hudson are excellent. The rest of the cast, some with Classic Film Noir creds, provide some cinematic memory to the film.The film does an excellent job right from the get go in the Daliesque title sequence of providing the Surrealistic tone for the whole film (see above). Experimental POV camera shots disorient the viewer and draw you fully into the bizarre riff on Murder Incorporated. Paned at the time of release the film was just too ahead of it's time. A new Criterion release is available. 8/10Full review in Film Noir Gangster page here, and with more NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/04/seconds-1966-rat-race-reboot.html
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, believe me as a 17 year old you wouldn't have thought it dragged. 
I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
You know it was practically brand new (5 years old) when Elizabeth Taylor drove over it at the end of BUtterfield 8 (1960)