If you liked Bogard in this, you have to watch The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not…it doesn´t get better than that. Lauren Bacall and Bogart were incredible together…
“She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up”
5 Likes
And finish your viewing with DARK PASSAGE (1947) by Delmer Daves, which may be the best of their collaborations, and the happiest of noirs.
From Bertrand Tavernier:
Daves shares with Borzage “a certain naïveté, or rather a desire not to be influenced or censured by fear of ridicule” (Lourcelles). They both favor feeling over action, to the extent that the characteristics of certain genres become diluted, as film noir is in Dark Passage. Seldom has a film felt so dreamlike. Eschewing banal gestures toward verisimilitude, Daves’s own adaptation of David Goodis’s novel immerses us in an eerie atmosphere that makes the most unlikely encounters and coincidences seem quite ordinary—right up to a fairy-tale happy ending, invented by Daves (this wonderful conclusion was highly praised by the Surrealists, who saw it as a perfect illustration of the triumph of Breton’s cherished concept of amour fou). Far from emphasizing gloom and despair in the pessimistic noir tradition, Daves makes up for his hero’s every bad break with a fantastic stroke of luck (none of his encounters is indifferent; they’re all either catastrophic or providential). The motherliness of the Bacall character and Bogart’s enforced passivity make for an uncharacteristic type of relationship, quite different from their first two outings together. Instead of the erotic tension and seduction games of the Hawks films, gentle tenderness prevails—which probably accounts for Dark Passage’s comparative obscurity. Again in contrast to Hawks, the depth of feeling between Daves’s characters is such that their love seems impervious to hardships, to the rust of time.
Full at:
6 Likes
Thanks for mentioning this, must have missed it in my youth because of the different tone of this one. Looking forward to find a copy…
3 Likes
DARK PASSAGE has been overlooked for decades. Tavernier and others have sounded the drum for Delmer Daves, and his filmography speaks for itself–JUBAL; 3:10 TO YUMA; COWBOY; DARK PASSAGE; THE RED HOUSE; BROKEN ARROW; THE HANGING TREE; A SUMMER PLACE; ROME ADVENTURE. He also wrote LOVE AFFAIR and DAMES.
Warner Bros. has put out a restored Blu-ray that does justice to this fine film. Enjoy!
5 Likes
“If it’s all right with me, it oughta be all right with you.”
Just because I love the film. And here is a fascinating, and very film geeky, analysis of it:
5 Likes
In fairness, TCM’s Noir Alley has showed it at least once (and I’m guessing several times). That’s how we were introduced to it. Eddie Muller’s intros and outros were, as always, stellar and helped me learn so much about this and so many noir films.
3 Likes
Sinners
Cinematography, editing and acting have reached such a high standard these days, you can always praise a professionally made film for all these categories. For me, however, it’s still the story, the script which will make or break a film, no matter how well made it is.
It took me quite some time to appreciate „Sinners“. It probably happened during the finale when I finally understood why this film is so celebrated.
It uses genre to tell the vampiric influence of MAGA on America, appropriating and taking over everything and everyone in its path, and it’s taken the viewpoint of Afro-American culture because it has been the backbone of the States and the most abused one.
In that regard, „Sinners“ deserves all the accolades.
7 Likes
Agreed: Eddie Muller does great work in keeping fringe noirs in public consciousness.
I was referring to the fact that the film is often seen/treated as an outlier in terms of films noirs, and along with Daves’ work in general, has been the subject of little discussion/critical attention. One reason may be that Daves never specialized in noirs or Westerns the way Mann or Boettcher did, for example, but I think his films are equal to the best/most known examples in these genres.
2 Likes
Weapons
Another film which uses the horror genre to comment on the current political atmosphere, managing to create deeply creepy scenes which stayed with me.
Of course, we all have to deal with Aunt Gladys in these times.
4 Likes
Springsteen: Deliver me from nowhere
Maybe you have to be a fan in order to thoroughly enjoy this film about Bruce Springsteen, coming off his first real commercial success with „The River“, being under pressure to build on that with a new album chasing charting hits, but feeling the weight of his troubled childhood and the growing estrangement with himself, resulting in a personal crisis during which he wrote quiet songs about Charles Starkweather, despair, painful yearning and lost hopes, ending in his celebrated „Nebraska“ album and paving the way for him to combat his own depression.
But Scott Cooper‘s film is so compelling, so well made and so inviting that anybody could identify with a lead character who has to come to terms with his past in order to sort out who he is.
And Jeremy Allen White delivers such a powerful performance, internalizing and capturing the essence of what Springsteen was like at that time, you just have to watch this if you appreciate great acting.
Although I consider most films made these days as much too long, I really wanted this film to be longer; it‘s that good.
5 Likes
Really excited to see this one.
2 Likes
Cash on Demand, 1961 Hammer Film Productions film starring Peter Cushing and André Morell in a delightful take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We’ve seen this before and watched it again on TCM’s Noir Alley. As always, Eddie Muller’s intro and outro were illuminating.
The film is based on a British teleplay, The Gold Inside. The director wisely chose to keep the film simple, adhering closely to the structure of a play. Cushing is wonderful as this film’s version of Ebenezer Scrooge, Morell a delightfully roguish Ghost of Christmas Present. The black-and-white cinematography gives the film a stark atmosphere that adds to the building tension. Even though we’d seen this before, I couldn’t recall much of the plot, so I was glad to watch it again and enjoy these stellar performances.
4 Likes
The Running Man (2025)
Edgar Wright can marvelously direct films with tight action, broadly comic scenes and spellbinding visuals married to carefully chosen pop songs.
Stephen King‘s Bachmann novel about a reality show trying to kill off the contestants is not a good fit for Wright.
The movie felt overlong to me since it followed the same template over and over again (he gets chased and… escapes, then setup… and repeat) and it never made me care for the central character.
Why? The movie wastes the first half hour showing us again and again the most clichéd beats: family man, sick child, lost his job because he protected his fellow workers, gets beaten because he cared about a sick old man in the queue behind him, saves another contestant, still wants the lost sock of his child to be returned… But nothing feels genuine. There is no desperation in Glen Powell‘s continuing smirk.
And the worst mistake is: when he takes off his shirt you see a perfectly muscled and ripped guy, as if he could afford all the best nutrition that his supposedly starving family could simply not.
The whole film is, unfortunately, too jokey while still trying to criticize reality television going to its most terrible extreme. The result is neither here nor there, it seems like a compromise for the studio.
The Schwarzenegger version was actually better in establishing the coldly dystopian feeling.
7 Likes
The long walk
And this is how it’s done: Francis Lawrence directs a tight film, with precise characterizations, fitting visuals and score. This is King‘s other Bachman novel about a dystopian US administration turning a „only one winner, the others get shot“-competition into a disgusting spectacle for the masses, promising untold sums of money in an economically ravaged country.
Unflinching, devastating and filled with emotional honesty, „The long walk“ not only is one of the best films of the decade but also one of the best horror movies and King adaptations.
Of course, people stayed away, because let’s face it: this hits too close to home.
All the more it is important to watch and wake those up who still think it’s not their problem.
4 Likes
Tomorrow Never Dies. I can’t believe how this film has become the most plausible and realistic of Brosnan’s run.
8 Likes
THE MECHANIC (Michael Winner, 1972)
This is one of Bronson’s films before he would star for Winner in DEATH WISH. A 1970s Mafia hitman flick with a mildly surprising twist in that it pairs Bronson with Jan-Michael Vincent in a surrogate father/son scenario. Critics have seen a homosexual subtext in this pairing but I don’t get any Death in Venice vibes from the story. Bronson’s killer is so struggling with emotional connection he even pays a pro sex worker to play being in love and ‘missing’ him. This isn’t about a middle-aged hitman having a coded coming out in a 70s action film, the casting of Vincent notwithstanding. I suppose critics wouldn’t have chased that red herring had Brosnan’s partner been someone less chained to the ‘pretty boy’ cliché.
Hitman Bishop - specialising in making hits look like accidents/natural causes - picks up the son of one of his last victims simply because he’s starved for human contact. And because he senses a possibly related soul, a free spirit unbound by society’s conventions and rules. But Bishop’s world is not entirely without rules as we learn when Bishop takes his protégé to watch a Karate contest. The American challenger hits the unsuspecting Japanese sensei during the ritual bow after the fight and is consequently beaten without mercy. Bishop and his apprentice witness this with a significant difference in their reactions and we sense their relationship will not end well…
Much of the film is conventional 70s cinema action fare, shootouts and chases, competently set in scene. That THE MECHANIC isn’t entirely without aspirations is evidenced in its first 15 gripping minutes without dialogue, showing the ‘accidental’ demise of Bishop’s target in a gas explosion. However, for a film dealing with the elimination of various figures of organised crime, comparatively little actual blood is shown on screen. A hit against a gang of dealers holed up in a sprawling villa even seems to omit how exactly the armed and dangerous gangsters are killed, maybe for reasons of rating certificate.
That said, THE MECHANIC is brutal enough by any standards. Its true quality though is the suspense: how long until the wheels will come off this pairing - and who will deal the last blow?
6 Likes
Is that I crushed on Jan-Michael Vincent for years as a gay teenager.
I loved this movie growing up. And despite Michael Winner’s lack of visual chops, I still have a fondness for it. I just wish they had filmed Lewis John Carlino’s script as written, and that Monte Hellman had remained attached to direct.
If the reviews are okay for the 4K release, I will probably buy it–if only to recall and honor my teenage queer self.
4 Likes
The Schwarzenegger film was fantastic in this regard.
5 Likes
Good at the time but even better now. I’d be thrilled to receive another Bond movie like Tomorrow Never Dies.
8 Likes
Black Sunday (1977)
This is how suspense thrillers were made once - with umcompromising portraits of people turned into terrorists and law enforcement only a few steps away from being just as ruthless, desperate and dangerous.
And this is how action back then was filmed: not with show-off camera moves but with a precise overview of the surroundings the action takes place in, so you always know where the characters are and why they are in danger. The camera moves when it needs to, the edit comes when it is necessary, not because criminally shortened attention spans demand new satisfaction.
And this is how violence back then was depicted: ugly, sudden and with terrible consequences, not as “cool” or “fun”.
John Frankenheimer´s “Black Sunday” about a terrorist attack with a splinter bomb about to explode over the Super Bowl stadium, attempting to kill 80.000 people perfectly combines a contemplation of violent extremism (Marthe Keller and Bruce Dern deliver career high performances) and a nail biting suspense thriller which - in contrast to too many films these days - ends when the threat is derailed; no endless endings tacked on.
John Williams´ terrific score is perfectly used as well.
And it is fun to see Robert Shaw as an unflinchingly cruel hero deal with Walter Gotell as an arrogant American Secret Service operative.
8 Likes