cigarjoe

The Clouded Yellow (1950) Director: Ralph Thomas, starred Jean Simmons, Trevor Howard, Sonia Dresdel, Barry Jones, and Kenneth More. A good British Noir that features a chase over the moors to Lancaster and it's waterfront. 7/10

I offer up Mister Buddwing (1966) is a gem, James Garner plays an amnesiac who wakes up in Central Park with just a few possible clues in his pockets.

R.I.P.

Tightrope (1984) Neo Orleans Noir "There's a darkness inside all of us..., you, me, and the man down the street, some have it under control, others act it out, the rest of us try and walk a tightrope between the two." Tightrope was written and directed by Richard Tuggle, though there are rumors that Eastwood either helped out or took over at some point. But judging from the comparison of style between this and other Eastwood directed films something doesn't quite wash. This film is very dark in subject matter and stylistically extremely Noir, more so than anything else ever directed by Eastwood so something must be attributed to Tuggle and a definite shout out to cinematographer Bruce Surtees. Right now, I'd say it's one of the best Neo Noirs set in New Orleans, others, that come to mind are The Big Easy, Angel Heart, and The Drowning Pool. This film just WALLOWS in Noir. It's got a great jazzy/bluesy score by Lennie Niehaus too boot. It's easily a 10/10 for me. Screencaps are from the Warners DVD. Full review with screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/tightrope-1984-neo-orleans-noir.html

Tightrope (1984) Neo Orleans Noir "There's a darkness inside all of us..., you, me, and the man down the street, some have it under control, others act it out, the rest of us try and walk a tightrope between the two." Noir is currently a new/old craze, a fad, the in-thing, "cool", Noir has a certain cachet that can add to sales for a particular film, and you'll find that there are films that are "no-brainers" as their being no question "mainline" Noirs that aren't even mentioned by the list makers, while others, that are a real stretch at being classified as so, are included. It makes you wary, it makes you question the author's knowledge, the extent of their research, or if there is a hidden agenda. There are quite a few that make lists are NIPOs, Noir In Plot Only devoid of any Noir Stylistics or may have a token Noir sequence, which, in my book makes them just CRIME genre films. All this makes you curious to explore on your own. Recently I re-watched a Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood collaboration Dirty Harry (1971), Siegel was one of the last of the Classic Noir directors, and the film did have some noir-ish sequences it's a good film but for my tastes, Noir lite. One thing it did was that it got me thinking and I remembered a much better Eastwood Neo Noir candidate. It's not usually thought of because it wasn't your typical Eastwood vehicle, he played against type, he doesn't even shoot a gun on screen. Tightrope was written and directed by Richard Tuggle, though there are rumors that Eastwood either helped out or took over at some point. But judging from the comparison of style between this and other Eastwood directed films something doesn't quite wash. This film is very dark in subject matter and stylistically extremely Noir, more so than anything else ever directed by Eastwood so something must be attributed to Tuggle and a definite shout out to cinematographer Bruce Surtees. Right now, I'd say it's one of the best Neo Noirs set in New Orleans, others, that come to mind are The Big Easy, Angel Heart, and The Drowning Pool. The film stars Clint Eastwood as Wes Block, Geneviève Bujold as Beryl Thibodeaux, Dan Hedaya as Det. Molinari, Alison Eastwood as Amanda Block, Jenny Beck as Penny Block, Marco St. John as Leander Rolfe, Rebecca Perle as Becky Jacklin, Regina Richardson as Sarita, Randi Brooks as Jamie Cory, Jamie Rose as Melanie Silber, Margaret Howell as Judy Harper and Graham Paul as Luther. The Block's, Wes (Clint Eastwood), Amanda (Alison Eastwood), Penny (Jenny Beck) The story, a recently divorced and somewhat alienated (from average women) homicide Detective Wes Block is raising two daughters on his own. He enables his inner "demons" and gets his various sexual outlets/kicks with prostitutes in the Latin Quarter/Bourbon Street red light district of New Orleans. A lot of us compartmentalize our lives, we show one face at work, another with our friends. We may look like square johns on the outside but have our kinks on the inside. Your wife may be a saint in the streets and a **** in the sheets. It how we get along it's how we let off steam. As lead detective Wes and his partner Molinari investigate the murders the serial killer beings to focus on his pursuer Wes. Soon the regular hookers Wes frequents in his district start showing up dead, sexually violated and strangled. The serial murders has the Press, the Mayor, and the police brass, demanding quick results. Another complication for Wes is Beryl Thibodeaux, who is head of a Rape Crisis Center and also friends with the mayor. Beryl is interested in protecting women and she tries to get Wes to acknowledge that she can help alert women about the maniac. At first Wes macho puts her off, and the two are quite opposites in personalities, but as often is the case, opposites attract, and soon the two are spending time together. Their initial sharp exchanges are excellent and their segue into mutual attraction believable. Another excellent aspect of this film is the relationships depicted between Block and his daughters. The chemistry is real. Alison Eastwood as Amanda is Eastwood's daughter and it shows, and Jenny Beck as Penny is equally very believable. Wes at first suppresses his connection to the victims, possibly questioning his own sanity, but as the serial killer gets closer to hearth and home, clues and detective work ultimately close the case in a denouement that you could say homages the ends of classic Noirs, Act Of Violence, The City That Never Sleeps, and Highway 301. This film just WALLOWS in Noir. It's got a great jazzy/bluesy score by Lennie Niehaus too boot. It's easily a 10/10 for me. Screencaps are from the Warners DVD. Full review with screencaps here:http://http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/tightrope-1984-neo-orleans-noir.html

13 Ghosts (1960) Dir. William Castle starred Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Martin Milner, Rosemary DeCamp, Donald Woods, Margaret Hamilton. Nothing to shout out about, pretty ridiculous looking ghosts, just it for nostalgia reasons. 5/10.

Another factoid about this film, director Mario Bonnard, got ill during the production and Sergio Leone took over, making this one of his first films.

Innocent? I got the impression that she was a bit of a soiled dove.

Seven Beauties (1975) Noir Italian Style Original title Pasqualino Settebellezze, director, Lina Wertmüller, screenplay by Lina Wertmüller, cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli, jazzy music by Enzo Jannacci. The film stars Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino Frafuso, Shirley Stoler as The Prison Camp Commandant, Piero Di Iorio as Francesco, Elena Fiore as Concettina, Ermelinda De Felice as Pasqualino's Mother, Enzo Vitale as Don Raffaele, Mario Conti as 18 Carat Potono, Fernando Rey as Pedro the Anarchist, and Francesca Marciano as Carolina. The film's non linear story structure begins during World War II. Pasqualino and fellow Italian soldier Francesco are on a troop train. The train is fire bombed by the Allies while on it's way to the Russian Front. During the ensuing chaos they run off through the explosions into a forest. Pasqualino is disgusted with the war, he fakes being wounded, resenting the fact that he is ill equipped, and being sent off to fight with cardboard shoes. Francesco was going to be shot for commandeering two trucks and sending his men back to Italy. On the loose and running for their lives they stumble upon an SS mass execution. Men women and childern are striped of their clothes, lined up and machine gunned into a mass grave. Pasqualino and Francesco look at each other, "we are as guilty as they are". While heading South back towards Italy, Pasqualino relates to Francesco that all his problems started with a woman. and the story flashes back to the 1930s. full review in Film Noir/Gangster thread 10/10

Seven Beauties (1975) Noir Italian Style Original title Pasqualino Settebellezze, director, Lina Wertmüller, screenplay by Lina Wertmüller, cinematography by Tonino Delli Colli, jazzy music by Enzo Jannacci. The film stars Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino Frafuso, Shirley Stoler as The Prison Camp Commandant, Piero Di Iorio as Francesco, Elena Fiore as Concettina, Ermelinda De Felice as Pasqualino's Mother, Enzo Vitale as Don Raffaele, Mario Conti as 18 Carat Potono, Fernando Rey as Pedro the Anarchist, and Francesca Marciano as Carolina. Seven Beauties unforgettable credit sequence with historic WWII footage and jazz track by Enzo Jannacci The film's non linear story structure begins during World War II. Pasqualino and fellow Italian soldier Francesco are on a troop train. The train is fire bombed by the Allies while on it's way to the Russian Front. During the ensuing chaos they run off through the explosions into a forest. Pasqualino is disgusted with the war, he fakes being wounded, resenting the fact that he is ill equipped, and being sent off to fight with cardboard shoes. Francesco was going to be shot for commandeering two trucks and sending his men back to Italy. On the loose and running for their lives they stumble upon an SS mass execution. Men women and childern are striped of their clothes, lined up and machine gunned into a mass grave. Pasqualino and Francesco look at each other, "we are as guilty as they are". While heading South back towards Italy, Pasqualino relates to Francesco that all his problems started with a woman. and the story flashes back to the 1930s. Pasqualino Frafuso is a small time, wanna be macho big shot. He packs a revolver under his belt to "command respect." To Pasqualino appearances are everything. He's slick, suave, excessively debonair. He is a charmer. He dresses sharply, strutting his stuff around Naples, with a cigarette holder jutting rakishly out of his jaw. He has a reputation for being irresistible to women, a playboy, and has acquired the dubious nickname Settebellezze (Seven Beauties). While on a stroll through Naples he meets an organ-grinder, Carolina a young girl who sings along with the music and has a fortune telling parrot con. She and her brother are getting scolded by their mother who tells her "What's the matter with you? What the hell do you think you're doing? Don't stop singing we need the money!" Pasqualino asks her why she's crying, she says she can't sing on key and all the men bother her make fun and tease. He tells her to tell them that you're engaged to Pasqualino Seven Beauties. She replies that it's not true, but Pasqualino say it could be true never try to predict the future. But Pasqualino is a poor man who has a mother and seven sisters to protect. They all share a crowded work loft with another large family and they make a living by stuffing mattresses. Pasqualino's problems start when he's forced to defend, as a "man of honor", the family name when his oldest sister Concettina falls into the clutches of a notorious Neapolitan pimp "18 carat Potono". His solution to this problem, and all the resulting domino effects combined with WWII, send Pasqualino spiraling down into an unforgettable hell. Pasqualino's oldest sister Concettina is more than ugly, she's ****. Potono her "boyfriend" has sweet talked her into performing in a girly show. Pasqualino finds out and the sequence is grotesquely humorous. Pasqualino confronts his sister backstage. Concettina tells him that Potono has agreed to marry her. Pasqualino says that he'll give him one month to do so, or he will kill him. A few weeks later Pasqualino is summoned to the galleria to talk to the local mafioso Don Raffaele. The Don tells him that his family honor is in the toilet, "18 Carat" Potono, has bought Concettina a pair of shoes with "red bows" on them and put her in The Polonetto Whorehouse for life. What follows is one of the early picaresque highlights of the film. Pasqualino enters the Polonetto, smacks Concettina around while fighting off the other whores. "Stupid ****, what a disgrace , you brought dishonor on us" he screams that if she becomes a **** what do you think is going to happen to your sisters? As he's kicking Concettina's **** out the door, she turns to Pasqualino and states "But I looooooove him", exasperated Pasquale shouts "va fa in ****!" When Pasqualino turns around he see's that "18 Carat" Potono has arrived. What follows is a classic sequence, a "Neapolitan" Standoff accompanied by a frantic Spanish guitar fandango and absurd machismo yodelling. "18 Carat" sucker punches Pasqualino, with a chain wrapped around his fist, knocking him out. He dumps a dustpan of cigarette butts on him, an symbolically sweeps a broom at him, like he's a piece of garbage. Then he steps over Pasqualino's prone body on his way out. When Pasqualino comes to, he swears he's going to kill him. Later that night Pasqualino slips through a window into 18 Carat's room while he's sleeping. He wakes him up, and while waving his automatic nervously, tells him to get a gun. While 18 Carat is fumbling in his jacket the gun goes off killing him. Not finding Potono's gun, Pasqualino cannot claim self defense, he goes back to Don Raffaele to ask what to do. The Don says he made a mistake, he should have brought an extra gun. The Don goes through various options of disposal for a body, the cement overshoes, the king-size coffin, and the adding of the cleaned bones to a local catacomb ploy. He tells Pasqualino to be creative and he'll make a name for himself. Pasqualino's solution is to cut Potono's body up into pieces put it in three suitcases and ship them to three different cities. The sequence is both grotesque and picaresque and, effectively left, like in Classic Noir's, mostly to the imagination. He calls the Don and tells him "You know that shipment of provolone, it's been sent off Palermo, Milano, and Genoa, and goodnight. I don't think we'll hear about it anymore." Of course Pasqualino gets caught by the carabinieri and everything goes Noirsville. He is brought before a judge for a hearing. He confesses to the crime. His lawyer tells him that nobody confesses to this, you get the death sentence for sure and face the firing squad, so make a choice your stupid honor or your life. So he fakes insanity while awaiting his court date by pretending he is Mussolini. He goes to trial and is found insane and sent to an asylum. Pasqualino has retained a bit of his precious honor, he boats to a fellow prisoner that he is an "ax-murderer. The Monster of Naples." During both the hearing and the trial whenever we see shots of Pasqualino's family, we see that more and more of his sisters have dyed their hair blond and have become whores. At the asylum he's gets under the good graces of his female head doctor, and is assigned a job as an orderly. He loses his privileges when he gets caught in bed with a nymphomaniac. He's then subjected to shock treatment, hydrotherapy, straitjacketed and housed with the general population. He get's a reprieve when Italy needs soldiers for WWII. Back in the present Pasqualino and Francesco are caught after the looting the well stocked kitchen of the country house of a German Frauline. They are sent with fellow Italian deserters to a concentration camp run by a very large, brutish, totally unattractive woman who is all too aware that her master race is on the losing side of the war. She has no hesitation in killing Italians. At the height of despair Pasqualino vows that he'll find a way to get out. He gets a "vision" remembering a truth his mother once told him "A woman is a woman, and a woman even one who is an evil person, has a little good for someone who can reach her heart. There's a bit of sugar always there." all you have to do is stir it up like sugar in a cup of coffee to bring to your lips what's sweet and fine. And so Pasqualino to the abject horror of his fellow inmates begins to try to seduce the camp commandant, with sidelong glances, stares, humming songs, etc., etc. He tells them that he knows women, womanizing was what he was good at. The commandant isn't fooled, but she is starved for affection and pasqualino tries his best but when Pasqualino can't get it up because he has "no energy for an erection," she gets him a bowl of food. "After you eat we screw, if you can't you're finished". Their love making has to be one of the most ridiculously disturbing sequences ever filmed. After Pasqualino performs, she calls him "Garbage, you disgust me. Your thirst for life disgusts me. Your love disgusts me. You, you sub-human Italian, you found the strength for an erection. And because you were strong you'll manage to live on and eventually you'll win. Miserable creature, lacking in ideals and ideas. And we-We who thought to create a master race....are doomed to failure." The commandant makes him the barrack capo but he must choose six men to execute. He tells her that he can't do that, and she counters that if he doesn't the whole barrack will be executed. So Pasqualino survives but at a horrible price. Life is not black and white, there are lots of grey areas, lots of the lesser of two evil choices. There are no clear answers when choices are made under extreme stress. What would you do to survive hell? Wertmuller leaves it unresolved. Maybe the answer is that we are all whores if the price is great enough. Nominated for 4 Oscars in 1977, 10/10 Review with screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/seven-beauties-original-title.html

Natural Born Killers (1994) Noir On Acid A surreal, satirical, Neo Noir, sensory overdose. A psychedelic, acid road trip to Hell. "It's a little ditty about Mickey and Mallory Two American kids breaking bad in the heartland" Directed by Oliver Stone, based on a Quentin Tarantino story, with in-you-face cinematography and videography by Robert Richardson, juiced with the labyrinthine crosscut editing of Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan. Music was by Brent Lewis with soundtracks ranging from haunting to hypnotizing by, to name a few, Leonard Cohen, Chris McGregor, Duane Eddy, The Shangri-Las, Patti Smith, Cowboy Junkies, Bob Dylan, Duane Eddy, Patsy Cline, Nine Inch Nails, Diamanda Galás, Peter Gabriel, and Marilyn Manson. The film Stars Woody Harrelson (Mickey Knox), Juliette Lewis (Mallory Knox), Tom Sizemore (Scagnetti), Russell Means (Old Indian), Tommy Lee Jones (Warden Dwight McClusky), Rodney Dangerfield (Dad), Edie McClurg (Mom), Balthazar Getty (Gas Station Attendant), Robert Downey Jr. (Wayne Gale), O-Lan Jones (Mabel), and Everett Quinton (Deputy Warden Wurlitzer). It's a bizarre black comedy satire of the American 24 hour news cycle celebrity/violence culture, much in the vein of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) satire of mutual assured destruction, and A Clockwork Orange (1971) satire of ultra violence. Caution this film will not be for everyone. Artistically intellectualized chaos, everything is over the top in this film, what a trip 9/10 Fuller review on Film Noir/Gangster board.

Natural Born Killers (1994) Noir On Acid A surreal, satirical, Neo Noir, sensory overdose. A psychedelic, acid road trip to Hell. "It's a little ditty about Mickey and Mallory Two American kids breaking bad in the heartland" Directed by Oliver Stone, based on a Quentin Tarantino story, with in-you-face cinematography and videography by Robert Richardson, juiced with the labyrinthine crosscut editing of Hank Corwin and Brian Berdan. Music was by Brent Lewis with soundtracks ranging from haunting to hypnotizing by, to name a few, Leonard Cohen, Chris McGregor, Duane Eddy, The Shangri-Las, Patti Smith, Cowboy Junkies, Bob Dylan, Duane Eddy, Patsy Cline, Nine Inch Nails, Diamanda Galás, Peter Gabriel, and Marilyn Manson. The film Stars Woody Harrelson (Mickey Knox), Juliette Lewis (Mallory Knox), Tom Sizemore (Scagnetti), Russell Means (Old Indian), Tommy Lee Jones (Warden Dwight McClusky), Rodney Dangerfield (Dad), Edie McClurg (Mom), Balthazar Getty (Gas Station Attendant), Robert Downey Jr. (Wayne Gale), O-Lan Jones (Mabel), and Everett Quinton (Deputy Warden Wurlitzer). It's a bizarre black comedy satire of the American 24 hour news cycle celebrity/violence culture, much in the vein of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) satire of mutual assured destruction, and A Clockwork Orange (1971) satire of ultra violence. Believe it or not I'd never seen this film until last year. I hadn't even heard of the controversy surrounding the film. I can see why though. It's because it hits too close to home, it's too real, it touches a nerve, there's an inconvenient veracity of cause and effect to it all. Is it Nature, a frightening genetic component of human beings that is in all of us. Or is it Nurture, as is illustrated through the fragments of flashbacks we get of Mickeys and Mallory's abominable family life, that causes them to go off the rails, if the wrong code buttons are pushed? I've been going through the Neo Noir lists from various sources and either viewing or acquiring those titles that I'd either never heard of or just missed. I believe my experience of watching this was all that more enhanced since I've begun delving into Noir and Neo Noir so heavily. This personal steeping in everything Noir has given me a huge visual catalog of cinematic memory ripe for discharge. This film may not work the same going into it cold turkey. Natural Born Killers, gets my synapses sparking. My RPMs are red lining. Like a delayed strobe the film sporadically flashes between Black & White and Color film, it has these insanely canted Dutch Angles while at other times they tilt, back and forth, teeter-totter like along with other visual Noir stylistics. It uses documentary style footage and live breaking news parodies, animation, TV sit com satire, super 8 film sequences, TV quasi News Special Bulletins, and music video style promos. It is hyper violence mixed with cultural and natural Iconography all in a assault on the senses. Every potential affront to sanity and integrity is exploited. It's an indictment of the media feeding frenzy we have with disasters, mass murder, terrorist attacks, and public executions. It's INSANITY, with a complimentary soundtrack, and it's as American as apple pie. They got their kicks on Route 666. Our tale begins with the desert and a montage of natural born killers, a wolf, a rattler, a hawk, it then segues to the human kind. At the 5 to 2 Cafe, we first meet Mickey and Mallory already well into their maniacal Highway 666 murder spree. Two cowboy **** enter the cafe the third sees to their overheating pickup truck. Mallory is dancing to the juke box. One of the **** attempts to dance with her, while another says to Mickey that "that's what I call p---y" indicating Mallory. Mickey turns to him and tells him that "her name is Mallory". Mallory beats the crap out of the dancing **** for trying to make a pass, but the massacre is triggered when the cowboy sitting by Mickey gets up to join in. By the time it's all over three **** are dead, the waitress and the cook. Only the pinball playing cowboy is spared so that he can tell the world that Mickey and Mallory did it. Mickey and Mallory continue down their road to Hell with intensely paced montage sequence recalling Classic Noir or Noir locations. Natural Born Killers is full of these little "just killing", (as Donald Trump uses the phrase) picaresque noir vignettes and others, that flesh out the characters and propel the tale forward, that stick in my mind amidst all the designed chaos. Here are just a small selection. It has an I Love Mallory TV sitcom sendup sequence (complete with laugh track) with Rodney Dangerfield (Dad) as Mallory's incestuous father and Edie McClurg (Mom) as her battered do nothing about it, pathetic mother. Dad is leeringly squeezing Mallory's ****, "if you live in this house, your **** is my ****" and tells her to "go upstairs and take a shower and make sure it's a good shower, cause I'm going to come up and check how clean you are." Mallory leaves, and in a perverted aside to his wife and Mallory's brother says "she won't see my face for an hour." The sequence also includes the first meeting of Mickey and Mallory. Mickey is delivering a meat order and it's love at first sight when he sees Mallory on the stairs. They take off together stealing her father's car. Another nice sequence is the Mickey & Mallory take their marriage vows. They are standing on a high bridge over a canyon it's shot with a tongue in cheek tenderness which is temporarily shattered when a pickup full of jeering hecklers drives by. Mickey keeps it under control in truly warped solemnity saying "I will not murder anybody on my wedding day". Another sequence you can call Mallory The 1990s Femme Fatale, where a jealous Blondie-Mallory goes off half cocked away from Mickey. During a love making session Mickey is paying more attention to the pretty hostage they have tied up in their motel room that to her. Mallory ends up seducing a town pump gas jockey on the hood of a Corvette in the garage bay. She hops up on the hood of a Corvette Stingray and wants him to "go down". He starts to do so but loses control jumping up on her. Mallory frustrate-edly pushes him off pulls a revolver out of her bag and blows him away. She then grabs her shed panties and flings them at the corpse exclaiming "that was the worst head I ever got"! and stomps off. A following related vignette has Jack Scagnetti the sadistic detective on their trail recreating the crime scene at the town pump. He picks up the panties and smells them then tosses them to a deputy. Seeing the imprint of Mallory's a-- on the hood he remarks that it's a "fine a--", then makes note of the saliva drops in an obviously related location. He then leans over the corpse and extracts a **** hair from the dead man's teeth and exclaims "Mallory meet Jack Scagnetti". Welcome to the 90s. We are post code but the film is still using dialog and suggestive images to jumpstart your imagination, but it actually has very little overt nudity in the whole film, your imagination fills in the rest just like it did during Classic Noir. Other times these vignettes are just brief homages to the past cinema. When Mickey and Mallory are dancing at the diner the sequence changes from full traditional lit color to a silhouette reminiscent of Astaire & Rogers Musicals shot in low key chiaroscuro. We also see Horror and Monster movie clips. The vast pans of the Southwest deserts, and a prison farm escape during a Wizard of Oz tornado, recall countless Westerns. Again, over all, Natural Born Killers is not about Mickey and Mallory but about the infamy of their killing spree and the nutjobs they attract. A Geraldo Rivera inspired TV expose program American Mainiacs, is hosted by a shock journalist Wayne Gale who affects a Robin Leach accent and provides a live Lifestyles of the Depraved commentary on the hunt for Mickey and Mallory, their capture, trial and a year later on a prison riot. The program as Wayne Gale puts it is " for all the morons watching out there in zombieland." Tom Sizemore is Jack Scagnetti a high profile celebrity cop, author of "Scagnetti on Scagnetti" who is seriously warped. Tommy Lee Jones is **** Prison Warden Dwight McClusky and Everett Quinton is Deputy Warden Wurlitzer who does a pretty good impression of Hugh Cronyn in Brute Force. You'll find yahoo's on either end of the spectrum will superficially either embrace this film for all the wrong reasons or condemn it, rather than see it for the statement it makes about the sick state of the media news cycle trap that feeds current society where even the really wicked sometimes, get off scot- free. Caution this film will not be for everyone. Artistically intellectualized chaos, everything is over the top in this film, what a trip 9/10 Review with screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/natural-born-killers-1994-noir-on-acid.html

Decision At Dawn Deadline at Dawn Each Dawn I Die

I disagree quite a bit, it actually is quite striking in it's Noir cinematography, it's probably one of the best Neo Noir to come out of New Orleans. I'd probably give it an 8-9/10. Completely the opposite of Eastwood's usual schtick. Going to give it the Noirsville treatment soon.

A Rage In Harlem (1991) Stylish Soul Noir/Black Comedy Stylishly directed by Bill Duke, with screenplay by John Toles-Bey and Bobby Crawford based on Chester Himes novel "For the Love of Imabelle". Beautiful cinematography by Toyomichi Kurita. Music by Elmer Bernstein and Jeff Vincent. The film looks great thanks to the Production Design by Steven Legler, Art Direction by Nina Ruscio and Set Decoration by K.C. Fox. Title Sequence illustrating The Harlem Renaissance A Rage In Harlem stars a large ensemble cast, Forest Whitaker, Gregory Hines, Robin Givens, Zakes Mokae, Danny Glover, Badja Djola, John Toles-Bey, Tyler Collins, Ron Taylor, Stack Pierce, Claude X, Reynaldo Rey, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, George Wallace and many many more. Imabelle (Givens) Jackson (Whitaker) Screamin' Jay Hawkins This film is loosely based on Chester Himes first "Harlem Cycle" novel "For The Love of Imabelle" The novel (I haven't read it yet so this is from various reviews) is basically about Jackson who works for an undertaker and his scheming girlfriend Imabelle who sets him up in a confidence scam run by Imabelle's common law husband, the gang leader Slim. Jackson gets his brother Goldie, another con artist and police stoolie to get cops Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones to track down his girlfriend and the money. The film has greatly expanded the original basic plot almost to the point of ridiculousness. Imabelle (Givens), a **** and the Femme Fatale of dubious morals, is now a member Slim's Natchez, Mississippi based gang and the main squeeze of Slim (Djola). The gang has stolen a chest of large gold nuggets and is in the process of fencing them off for cash when a shootout with the police occurs. Imabelle is able to hop in the 49 Chevy pickup and drive off with the chest while the bullets are flying. She heads to Harlem by train where she knows she can trade the gold for folding money. In Harlem she checks into a fleabag hotel and attempts to unload the nuggets to whoever in the Harlem Mob can come up with the jack. She meets numerous underworld characters, Easy Money (Glover) who fronts a ballroom dance hall, Goldy (Hines) who is a con man, Big Kathy (Mokae) who is a transvestite and runs a bordello Jackson (Whitaker) is a heavy set square John who wears glasses, religiously says his prayers every night, and works for a funeral parlor. He meets Imabelle at Easy Money's ballroom, and when Imabelle needs a safer haven than the hotel she shacks up with virgin Jackson. After Imabelle shows Jackson around the world He becomes hopelessly devoted to her. When Slim and his Mississippi gang show up all hell breaks loose between them, the Harlem hoodies. and the two NYPD detectives Coffin Ed (Pierce) and Gravedigger Jones (Wallace). The film's biggest flaw is the immensity of the cast, with so many characters it's hard to get them all adequately fleshed out, and they are so tantalizingly intriguing that you wish that somehow they could have been. Two additional problems is first the needless complication of the original tale, and second the sometimes heavy handed see-saw swings between comedy and seriousness. It may have worked better if it was handled in a more picaresque manner. It takes it's place alongside other Noir-ish comedies, spoofs, and satires, i.e., Delicatessen (1991), The Big Lebowski (1998), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), Seven Beauties (1975), After Hours (1985), Barton Fink (1991), Pennies From Heaven (1981), Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), Something Wild (1986), Serial Mom (1994) On the plus side the film is very stylistic, homaging both Film Noir and The Harlem Renaissance artwork of Archibald Motley and others, it's beautiful to look at. It does NOIR better than it's companion piece Devil With A Blue Dress (1995). An extra bonus is the performance by Screamin Jay Hawkins at the Undertaker's Ball. Cincinnati Ohio's Over-The-Rhine neighborhood fills in nicely for 1950's Harlem. The screencaps are from the Echo Bridge Home Entertainment DVD. could have been even better, 7/10. Review with more NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-rage-in-harlem-1991-stylish-soul.html

Five Miles To Midnight (1963) director Anatole Litvak, starred Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young. A noirish opening credits and end sequences, a thriller in between. Story about an only aircrash survivor who is declared dead and he convinces his estranged wife to go along with that assumption so that he can collect the insurance money. 7/10

It's Art, I'm glad you reacted to it, whether you liked it or not is immaterial, it affected you which was the whole point of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí presenting seventeen minutes of bizarre, surreal imagery.

It's a good film but I don't buy that there were dirt farmers in the Teton Valley, at an elevation of 6,000 + feet. in that time period. All Morgan Ryker and and the ranchers would have had to do was wait them out a season or two.

A Rage In Harlem (1991) Director Bill Duke, stars: Forest Whitaker, Gregory Hines, Robin Givens, Danny Glover, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, a fun Crime -Comedy film. The director and cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita have a better handle on Noir than Devil In A Blue Dress. 7/10 Full review in Film Noir Gangster Board and with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/a-rage-in-harlem-1991-stylish-soul.html

The Fortune (1975) Director Mike Nichols stars Stockard Channing, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty The Mann-Act (disallowing women to be transported across State lines for immoral reasons) brings a married man (Beatty) to devise a scheme for taking his upper-class girlfriend (Channing) an heiress, away with him... he simply has her marry his unmarried buddy (Nicholson). They move to California and it doesn't take long for Nicholson to lust for the her and he soon consummates his "marriage" to her for real, while Beatty is out working as a car salesman. A fight follows during which she comes to realize the two men are really only after her money, so she threatens to give it all away to charity. That is the catalyst for the plan to do away with her. These two incompetents plan out another scheme so that they can get her fortune. The ridiculous shenanigans they go through trying to accomplish this is very amusing. A possible future classic. I caught it on Movies! TV so it was somewhat censored and with commercials, will have to get a better copy, a 7/10 it may go up or stay at that.

Yea the 1999 film with Geoffrey Rush as Stephen H. Price is a real hoot, he out hams Vincent.

It was watchable, lol.

I've read good things about this, thanks for the review, it confirms all the other reviews. TCM needs to screen it again

Five Weeks in A Balloon (1962) Director: Irwin Allen, stars: Red Buttons, Fabian, Barbara Eden, Cedric Hardwicke, Peter Lorre, Richard Haydn. Never seen it before, the only other film I've seen Fabian in was North To Alaska (and he's got 48 credits) a real time waster 6/10

The Password Is Courage (1962) Director: Andrew L. Stone stars: Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy, Alfred Lynch, very much like The Great Escape, entertaining 8/10