cigarjoe

Touch Of Evil

Lee Van Cleef - The Good The Bad And The Ugly "Film fans the world over may be surprised to hear that the film didn't receive a single Oscar nomination in a year where A Man For All Seasons won six. Indeed, it was initially criticized by many critics for its "graphic" depictions of violence. Today, however, the movie is far from short of critical acclaim, admired globally, and reportedly dubbed "the greatest achievement in the history of cinema" by Quentin Tarantino." (What Culture)

OK thanks for the info.

Academy Awards, USA 1977 Nominee Oscar Best Actor in a Leading Role Giancarlo Giannini Best Director Lina Wertmüller Lina Wertmüller becomes the first woman to be nominated for Best Director. Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Lina Wertmüller Best Foreign Language Film Italy Clip

I know that about the film. I was wondering about Looney's radio broadcast of the story.

The So Long At The Fair was re worked for season one of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1955, under the title Into Thin Air. It's not very Noir visually and relies more on it's strange perplexing story. The show starred Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia. The change to the plot was that the girl arrived in Paris with her mother instead of her brother.

Was it (SUSPENSE CROSSFIRE) about prejudice about Jews or about homosexuals? Montgomery kills Samuels not because he is Jewish but because he is homosexual in the original novel.

Turn The Key Softly (1953) Woman's Noir Directed entertainingly well by Jack Lee. A chick flick Noir. Written by Lee and producer Maurice Cowan and based on the novel of the same name by John Brophy. It's the tale of the first 24 hours in the lives of three female prisoners released from Holloway Prison in London. The excellent cinematography was by Geoffrey Unsworth the music by was by Mischa Spoliansky The film stars Yvonne Mitchell (Sapphire 1959), Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison and Terence Morgan. Yvonne Mitchell is Monica Marsden the upper middle class gal pal of a second story man a burglar and safe cracker, She went to prison for not ratting him out and basically for something she didn't do. Joan Collins plays a "B" girl and maybe prostitute, Stella Jarvis, but it's never revealed in the film. She has a bus driver boyfriend who promises to marry her when she gets out. Kathleen Harrison plays the part of a sweet granny, Granny Quilliam, who is a sort of kleptomaniac shoplifter she reminds me a bit of Thelma Ritter's performance in Pickup On South Street. Granny's only true friend in life is her dog Johnny. Terrance Morgan is the suave safe cracker. Some great action sequences during a rooftop chase. Wonderful images of 1950s London. 8/10 Turn The Key Softly is a part of Great British Movies - Film Noir [DVD] along with 21 Days, Sapphire, So Long At The Fair, and Turn the Key Softly. PS - You'll need a third party converted region free DVD player to watch these in the U.S.

Turn The Key Softly (1953) Woman's Noir Directed entertainingly well by Jack Lee. A chick flick Noir. Written by Lee and producer Maurice Cowan and based on the novel of the same name by John Brophy. It's the tale of the first 24 hours in the lives of three female prisoners released from Holloway Prison in London. The excellent cinematography was by Geoffrey Unsworth the music by was by Mischa Spoliansky The film stars Yvonne Mitchell (Sapphire 1959), Joan Collins, Kathleen Harrison and Terence Morgan. Yvonne Mitchell is Monica Marsden the upper middle class gal pal of a second story man a burglar and safe cracker, She went to prison for not ratting him out and for something she didn't do. Joan Collins plays a "B" girl and maybe prostitute, Stella Jarvis, but it's never revealed in the film. She has a bus driver boyfriend who promises to marry her when she gets out. Kathleen Harrison plays the part of a sweet granny, Granny Quilliam, who is a sort of kleptomaniac shoplifter she reminds me a bit of Thelma Ritter's performance in Pickup On South Street. Granny's only true friend in life is her dog Johnny. Terrance Morgan is the suave safe cracker. Lt to rt. Joan Collins, Yvonne Mitchell, and Kathleen Harrison the warden Holloway Prison We follow the three women's lives concurrently, switching back and forth between the leads. Stella is met by her boyfriend outside the gate. Monica and Granny head to a tube station for their respective destinations. Monica to her sisters place, Granny to her old apartment flat in the neighbourhood of Shepherd's Bush. On the tube train Granny notices that Monica is attracting the attention of men. One of the men George Jenkins (Russell Waters) asks Monica for a date. Monica meets her sister and begins a quest for a job. Stella with money given to her by her fiance, instead of getting a temporary flat to live in, visits her prostitute friends in Leicester Square and buys a pair of gaudy earrings. Granny is reunited with her dog Johnny. There is both pathos and hope in Noirsville as each of the women's lives as their tale unfolds. Noirsville Some great action sequences during a rooftop chase. Wonderful images of 1950s London. 8/10 Turn The Key Softly is a part of Great British Movies - Film Noir [DVD] along with 21 Days, Sapphire, So Long At The Fair, and Turn the Key Softly. PS - You'll need a third party converted region free DVD player to watch these in the U.S. Full review with more screencaps at Noirsville.

Mixed feelings about Bogdanovich. I like Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show, an episode of Fallen Angels (a noir/hard-boiled Miniseries from HBO) and not much else directorial-wise. Targets was his debut and it's a bit uneven. He comes off a bit opinionated and pompous in some of his writings, he's in a way like an early prototype of Tarantino without his style. He had a encyclopedic memory for scenes from Classic Hollywood similar to what Tarantino had for Westerns, Spaghetti Westerns and Kung Fu/Samurai flics. "(Bogdanovich had) the ego & bravura to bluff his way through a few projects which recycled the best bits from the golden oldies he treasured. According to Peter Biskind's excellent book on '70s Hollywood, Bogdanovich apparently spent lots of time sitting on his couch, watching old movies on TV while he sucked on fudge-sicles and tossed the licked-clean wooden sticks over his shoulder behind the furniture." (Concorde- SLWB) "In Oreste de Fornari's book 'Sergio Leone, the Great Italian Dream Of America', there is a section where Bogdanovich describes working with Leone which is very amusing. For example Leone and Bogdanovich would meet for discussions about the story and Leone "would begin each new sequence with a rush of English and much acting, all of which he did in the middle of the room accompanied by dramatic gestures. "Two BEEEG green eyes?", he would usually begin, one hand leveled above his eyes, the other below to indicate what we would be seeing on the screen". According to Bogdanovich, him and Leone fell out when Bogdanovich said he didn't like close-ups! He says he left the film just before Leone was about to fire him. Leone found another Italian director [not named] to take Bogdanovich's place, but after two weeks Steiger and Coburn demanded that Leone direct it himself." (Jon - SLWB) "Unlike Leone, he NEVER showed any real originality or vision, although the two share a love for homage and visual quotations of earlier classics."(Concorde- SLWB) Bogdanovich quit Duck You Sucker before any film was shot. He went off the rails for some reason, I'm not interested in finding out why.

My bad - fixed

A couple of obscure Film Noir.... The Lie (1954) A Bavarian Noir staring Lee Bowman, Ramsay Ames, Harald Maresch, Eva Probst, Joachim Brennecke, and Reinhard Kolldehoff. Bowman works for a diamond importer, he goes out for a night on the town with girlfriend Ames, circus trapeze star Maresch, Ames brother Brennecke and his girlfriend Probst. They get loaded and the next morning Bowman wakes up next to a dead man Kolldehoff. His companions testify against him and he goes to prison. He gets released on parole a sets out to set things straight. 6/10 The Flame (1947) RKO Noir that stars John Carroll, Vera Ralston, Robert Paige, Broderick Crawford, Henry Travers, Blanche Yurka, and Constance Dowling. Caroll has a rich brother Robert Paige, he's a sort of invalid, Caroll is a rake. Caroll comes up with a scheme to marry his French girlfriend Vera Ralston to his brother, once he kicks the bucket she will inherit the family fortune and Caroll will marry her. Putting a fly in the ointment is Crawford and his gal pal Dowling. The twist is Dowling is a nightclub singer who is also a past lover of Caroll. -7/10

Michael Richards did a hilarious take off on Bogdanovich on Seinfeld. Ascot and all....

WOW. Woman On The Beach must not have made much of an impression on anybody, for the lack of posts.....

RE: Rosemary's Baby forgot to mention it's available to stream for free to Amazon Prime members.

Because most peeps know her from Harold & Maude, she also had a long stage stage career also, between films. Mention her name and H&M is what pops into most peoples heads.

Looks Like a Paramount Film logo on the poster I just noticed, so probably no.

Nice seeing Granny Clampett in something other than The Beverly Hillbillies.

Rosemary's Baby (1968) I haven't seen this since 1968 when it came out. Where the heck has it been hiding? Has it ever played on TCM? Anyway, I'd forgotten how low key creepy it was and the time it takes on it's slow buildup. A lot of water has gone under the bridge. I've come to a point where I've come to appreciate other genres and styles of film making. This Polanski film gets overshadowed now by Chinatown. Its got an eclectic cast. A couple of Film Noir Vets in the cast Elisha Cook Jr. of course in many, many noir, and also Sidney Blackmer (Little Caesar (1931), Accused of Murder (1956), Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956), Ralph Bellamy (Lady on a Train (1956)). It's got iconic quirky yenta-ish Ruth Gordon from Harold and Maude (1971) and later a couple of Eastwood comedies. Also D'Urville Martin from Blaxploitation films, Charles Grodin and character actor Phil Leeds. Features The Dakota on Central Park West and 72nd Street though the novel used another equally suitable imposing location. 8/10

I was watching the end of another film on the laptop and glance up at the TV screen every so often when the camera changed positions. 😄

Mike Kelly - Mike The Cop on the old Abbott and Costello Show

You could probably break The Essentials down into various genres if you were inclined to do so, Essential Westerns, Essential Art Films, Essential Documentaries.... Experimental, Horror, Crime, Drama.... it can be interpreted as a wide open subject, rather than narrowly defined.

Emile Meyer had a penchant for playing cops The People Against O'Hara (1951) Girls in the Night (1953) Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954) Shield for Murder (1954) The Human Jungle (1954) The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Baby Face Nelson (1957) The Lineup (1958) The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) Revolt in the Big House (1958) Young Dillinger (1965) .... plus a lot of TV cops.

Well I caught LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA (1978) and HOTEL MONTERREY (1972) while waiting for Noir Alley. They were both what I'd call art films, some interesting photography in both but I wouldn't call them essential to anything except possibly to Ava Duvenay. Obviously they were super low budget, the first had essentially a camera shooting out the window of a train then cutting to the star and her various relationships and interactions with people she meets, then back out the window, sometimes the window is a car nor taxi window you certainly got the somber mood and loneliness that the director was conveying. The second film - shots of a hotel from various locations, was reminiscent of what I've heard about Andy Warhol's EMPIRE (1964) a single shot of the Empire State Building from early evening until nearly 3 am the next day. It runs 8h 5min.

Blast Of Silence has a Criterion DVD. It's Terror In The City that's missing in action