cigarjoe

This one is one of those lurid Pulp Fiction Cover Color Noirs, like Slightly Scarlet, Vertigo, Niagara, Desert Fury, Inferno, Bad Day At Black Rock, A Kiss Before Dying, Violent Saturday, etc., etc.. Diana Dors lights up every scene she's in like a highway flare. Told in a death row flashback. Nice to see Dennis Franz and Marie Windsor together again to jog your cinematic memory. Rod Steiger seems wasted though. Directed by John Farrow (The Big Clock, His Kind of Woman, Where Danger Lives, Alias Nick Beal, Night Has a Thousand Eyes) Cinematography was by Lucien Ballard (Laura, Don't Bother to Knock, Inferno, A Kiss Before Dying, The Killing, Murder by Contract, City of Fear, Neo Noir's The Getaway, Mikey and Nicky). The appropriate cheap soapy-sleazy music by Daniele Amfitheatrof. Art Direction by Franz Bachelin, Albert S. D'Agostino. Set Decoration by Ross Dowd, Costume Design by Howard Shoup. Could have been better. 6.5 -7/10

Worst: Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury) in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Exactly, Not to be too harsh.... You got to wonder W*T*F is going through their minds (rights holders) some of these titles won't be worth dog poop the longer they keep them in limbo. The major audience for most of these studio production mill content is dying off fast.

The MPPC would never have allowed it to be filmed as written. But we should probably wait for TomJH to finish reading it before we discuss it, no?

I read it a few years ago and interested in your thoughts about it.

TomJH just wondering if you've finished Nightmare Alley the novel yet?

R.I.P.

I liked it a tad better giving it a 6/10 Full review with screencaps here Hokie Okie Oil Patch Noir 😎

Timothy Carrey is Atticus Finch

When you search for it, it comes up as a Japanese expression meaning to wash your own neck before you get your head chopped off. Maybe it's something similar to meaning coming clean before the consequences catch up to you.

taking it on the lam or going on the lam, lam was an expression meaning flight. In The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, J.E. Lighter defines the term as prison lingo for ''an act of running or flight, esp. a dash to escape from custody.'' In his 1886 ''30 Years a Detective,'' Allan Pinkerton, the first ''private eye,'' explains an operation of pickpockets: ''After he secures the wallet, he will utter the word 'lam!' This means to let the man go and to get out of the way as soon as possible.'' Lighter cites do a lam, make a lam and take a lam early in this century, finally emerging as the passive state of being on the lam. Lighter speculates that it may be rooted in the dialect Scandinavian verb lam, as in the 1525 ''his wife sore lamming him,'' meaning ''to beat, pound or strike.'' Mark Twain used it twice: ''lamming the lady'' in 1855 and ''lam like all creation'' in 1865, both clearly meaning ''to beat.'' The suggested connection is that to avoid a feared lamming (related to slamming), one lams. or.... The term came from 1682 when a group of Quakers were going to be arrested on their flight to America so instead of taking their group along a road they had the ship pick them up in the middle of the night to escape from the Red Coats and The Church of England. The ships name was the Lamb. This ship was part of the William Penn's flotilla. The group that was on the Lamb was headed by Cutberth Hayhurst, his wife and kids, his brother and wife and kids, and his sister and husband, along with a few others. These folks were my forefathers. There is plenty of info on the ship called the Lamb, their escape, and the Hayhurst's. Hence the term on The Lamb. or possibly.... Some associate it with American gangsters during the depression and 1950's. Therefore i'm more inclined to go with Herman Lamm. Herman k. Lamm was a german born bankrobber who lived between 1890 and 1930. He is considered to be the father of modern day bank robbing.

For some reason I've never liked Harris either, Rooney is pretty good it this, Quicksand, and Drive a Crooked Road.

Checking against movieCollectorsOH's list the red asterisks have also been shown

My list of 10 Classic Actresses in my favorite (Noir) films: Gloria Grahame in The Naked Alibi Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin Ann Sheridan in Nora Prentiss Yvonne De Carlo in Criss Cross Rita Hayworth in Gilda Susan Hayward in Deadline At Dawn Lizbeth Scott in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers Evelyn Keyes in Hell's Half Acre Audrey Totter in The Sellout Marilyn Monroe in Niagara Eleven post 1960s actresses in my (some) favorite (Neo Noir) films: Rita Moreno in Marlowe Britt Ekland in Get Carter Isela Vega in Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia Kathleen Turner in Body Heat Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet Lena Olin in Romeo Is Bleeding Rosanna Arquette in The Wrong Man Patricia Arquette in Lost Highway Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction Gina Gershon in This World Then The Fireworks Marisa Tomei in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Nothing happens, if I remember right, to the thugs that beat up Robert Ryan in The Set Up.

How about Paramount Noirs, I sure TCM has shown the asterisked ones the others not sure: Street Of Chance (1942) The Unseen (1945) Fear In The Night (1947) The Big Clock (1948)* Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) The Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948) The Accused (1949) Manhandled (1949)* So Evil My Love (1949) Rope Of Sand (1949)* Chicago Deadline (1949) The Lawless (1949) The File On Thelma Jordan (1949) No Man Of Her Own (1950) Sunset Boulevard (1950)* Union Station (1950)* Dark City (1950) Appointment With Danger (1951)* Ace In The Hole (1951)* A Place In The Sun (1951)* Detective Story (1951)* The Turning Point (1952)* The Desperate Hours (1955)* Short Cut To Hell (1957)

Well there are a few that resolve their stories with the "it was all a dream" ending skirting it that way, example, Edward G. Robinson in The Woman In The Window.

M (1951) A Visual Archive of 50s L.A. "If they're 'psychos', how come the hospitals turn 'em loose?" There is already a plethora of learned scribblings devoted to M. The 1932 version crafted by Fritz Lang is a masterpiece. A case history of a psychopathic child killer, a chilling subject. It was produced by Seymour Nebenzal. That twenty years later, Nebenzal again turned to the same material and remade a bona fide classic took a lot of balls. This version was of course hampered by the Motion Picture Production Code. The queasy subject of molestation had to be cloaked, hinted at with visual metaphors, and yet the film is taut, the acting amazing and the pace exciting. The murderer makes off with trophies, the little girls shoes (stand ins for probably the obvious i.e., their panties). A metaphor for their innocence, their virginity. Director Joseph Losey with writers Norman Reilly Raine, Leo Katcher and Waldo Salt, do justice updating Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou vision. The Cinematography was by Ernest Laszlo the Music by Michel Michelet. Of the actors David Wayne gives an amazing tour de force performance. Howard da Silva, Martin Gabel, Luther Adler, John Miljan, Raymond Burr, Glenn Anders, Steve Brodie, Karen Morley, and Janine Perreau all acquit themselves admirably. For me I enjoy it all and especially the visuals of a mostly gone forever L.A. Angels Flight The film opens with a night ride up Angels Flight from Third and Hill Street, to Third and Olive Street. We learn of the child murders from the screaming headlines of the bundled papers tossed in the funicular car by a news delivery man. The ride up Angels Flight beginning at bottom Hill Avenue & entrance to Third Street Tunnel Looking East down Third Street Visual Metaphors During the credit sequence, that follows, because of the Motion Picture Production Code visual metaphors were used. The Losey version makes a point of stating that the killer does not "violate" his victims, but if you watch the title sequence it says something else, there are some very explicit visual clues of what he does do. A little girl is standing by a vending machine that has a mirror we first see David Wayne in the mirror he's playing with a toy called a "whizzer" he pulling on it stretching and releasing it at crotch level no less. It attracts the attention of the little girl, she's curious about it. It's not much of a stretch to say its a visual metaphor for exposing himself to the child. He's pulled out and playing with his ****, playing with it, stretching it and making it grow. Another sequence follows a little girl is attempting to drink from a fountain. David Wayne approaches. His back is to the camera, looks again like he's exposed himself. We first see a stream of water, again at crotch level its as if he is peeing. He again attracts the curiosity of the girl. The very next image has the little girl bending over towards his crotch. This suggests the possible performance of oral sex. The oral metaphor is enhanced by Wayne playing a toy flute throughout the film, a sexually deviant pied piper. Another sequence finds Wayne watching a little girl take off her shoes, later we know that he collects the shoes of his victims, makes and sense? no. But this is code Hollywood, and Wayne is a pedophile sex maniac from the aforementioned visual clues. So obviously the shoes have to be a metaphor for the girls panties. One of the final shots in the title sequence has Wayne leaning up against a boardwalk rail with his body in a very twisted almost "S" shape. He's a "Sicko." seriously twisted. We then creepily follow the pedophile on his hunts for new victims.... bingo! Elsie Coster and her ball Bunker Hill Wayne's latest victim resides with her mother in the Alta Vista Apartment house at the West end of the Bunker Hill section of Third Street just above and North of the tunnel portal. The Alta Vista was the setting for the 1939 novel "Ask The Dust" by Italian-American author John Fante It was set during the Great Depression-era in Los Angeles. The novel is an American classic. The Alta Vista Apartments 255 South Bunker Hill Avenue Mrs Coster, (Karen Morley) in an Alta Vista apartment. Interior hallway looking up... ...and down When her little girl Elsie does not come back from school with the other children Mrs. Coster is frantic. Above, Mrs Coster along side the Alta Vista, looking for Elsie. To her right is the small terrace park above the West Portal of the Third Street Tunnel. Note the clothesline with wash hanging between the palm trees, how L.A. Sunshine Apartments on Clay Street and Third and behind the Hillcrest Hotel David Wayne's apartment house at 315 South Bunker Hill Ave a 1950 Studebaker Commander David Wayne above West Portal of Third Street Tunnel Hope Street headwall above Third Street Tunnel. Hope Street Stairway Third Street Tunnel West Portal Angels Flight and Third Street Tunnel East Portal For the rest of the images of the L.A. Gas Works, Ocean Park Pier, and the Bradbury Building check full review at Noirsille. The remake like it's predecessor is more about how society reacts to the shocking murders than the murders themselves. It in this respect mimics the hysteria of the hunt for the "card carrying commies" by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Director Losey and other in the cast were under investigation during the principal photography. The remake suffers from being relatively unknown until fairly recently, eclipsed by Lang's original masterpiece on one hand and from it being shelved by Columbia Pictures soon after release. 8/10

Past Midnight (1991) Rutger Hauer gets out of prison after 15 years for stabbing his wife to death. He actually videoed the murder. His social worker Natasha Richardson becomes convinced he was innocent. Watchable 6/10.

The pervy posters could be a benign augury of the sexual revolution coming down the pike in just a few years.

You forgot to mention it's a Christmas film, I'd give it a 6/10, and isn't that the second pervy poster you've mentioned this week?

Probably because she's a doctor, a billionaire gets a way with a lot of stuff also.....

She looked as if she was having fun in the role

Someplace in that time period but each state had its own obscenity laws that were also evolving.

That's what I mean by an international cut. Looks like they cut just at the points where more would be revealed. If it was shot full matte and cut down to 1.85 : 1 there's gonna be a "lot" of Eleanor on film, they just creatively cropped it. moving the rectangle box of the frame up and down. For an international cut they could crop it differently.