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The Chase and Bury Me Dead:Here are the Amazon Reviews:
Editorial Reviews
Volume two in our series of Film Noir double-bills features three stars better known for their TV personas - Robert Cummings (Love That Bob), June Lockhart (the mom on Lassie) and Hugh Beaumont (the 'Beave's' dad on Leave it to Beaver) - but whose hard-boiled performances here are nothing like those TV characters. The Chase (1946) has Robert Cummings playing an ex-GI who by chance is hired to be the chauffeur for a ruthless gangster. He is soon drawn into a twisted nightmarish plot involving the gangster's unfaithful wife and a charge for a murder he did not commit. The second feature, Bury Me Dead (1947), starts off with a bang when a woman (June Lockhart) shows up as a mourner at her own funeral! With the help of her family lawyer (Hugh Beaumont) the woman begins an investigation to uncover who's really buried in her place and who wanted her dead in the first place. Features cinematography by John Alton. Two film noir gems for the price of one! Bonus Features: Commentaries by Jay Fenton, Film Restoration Consultant Scene Selection Bios & Filmographies Film Noir Movie Poster Gallery Film Noir Trailers Bonus: 'Noirish' Superman Cartoon "Showdown" (1942) - the man of steel takes on gangsters! Specs: DVD9; Dolby Digital Mono; 153 minutes; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - NR; Year - 1946, 1947; SRP - $9.99.
The Chase reverts to a theme of a perverted justice that trails a character in a meaningless universe of fate or perverse designed coincidence.Notice the technical info on the two films and the tv stars listed with their hard boiled performances ,their versatility of roles brought to the fore.
Here's the Amazon review of Shock:
Amazon.com
Shock is an enjoyable film noir that belongs in a subgenre--let's call it the psychoanalytic murder melodrama--which flourished after the success of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. Here, the set-up is delicious: nervous wife Anabel Shaw, already anxious about her soldier husband's delayed return home, witnesses a murder in a neighboring hotel room. Going into a deep state of--you guessed it--shock, she needs the care of San Francisco's leading psychiatrist, who just happens to be staying at the same hotel. Unfortunately, said analyst is none other than the murderer himself (Vincent Price), and he quickly realizes that if the lady comes out of her catatonic state, he'll be exposed for killing his wife. Things slow down once the action shifts to Price's private sanitarium, but Lynn Bari is fun to watch as his va-va-voom assistant/mistress/femme fatale, and Price himself indicates his young aptitude for the kind of sinister, tortured roles that would make him a mainstay of Edgar Allan Poe stories. There's also fun in listening to the psychoanalytic jargon spouted along the way, a distinctly Hollywood version of Freud. All in all, this unheralded 1946 picture counts at least as a minor rediscovery in the noir canon. --Robert Horton
Product Description
Film noir, a classic film style of the ‘40s and ‘50s, is noted for its dark themes, stark camera angles and high-contrast lighting. Comprising many of Hollywood’s finest films, film noir tells realistic stories about crime, mystery, femmes fatales and conflict.
This post-World War II suspense thriller sets off an emotional roller coaster after the psychologically fragile wife of a POW (Anabel Shaw) witnesses a brutal murder from a hotel window while waiting to be reunited with her husband (Frank Latimer). By the time he arrives, she’s nearly comatose with shock. The hotel’s psychiatrist (Vincent Price) is called in to help. But just as she begins to recognize him as the murderer she saw, he realizes she was a witness to his crime. So he arranges to take her to his private sanitarium where he and his nurse-mistress (Lynn Bari) can insure that no one takes the young woman’s ravings seriously and they can secretly administer enough "treatment" to silence her forever. Meanwhile, her husband and the police begin to suspect that everything is not as it seems and as they get closer to the truth, this complex mystery takes some unexpected twists!
Strange Illusion (45) the review
Strange Illusion (Enhanced) 1945
This film has been enhanced using a Video Enhancement Program that reduces noise and enhances video quality.
When Paul Cartwright (James Lydon) has a nightmare about his father s death, it is only the beginning of real life nightmares for Paul and his family. In the dream Paul sees the crash that killed his father - only it looks to be on purpose. When Paul meets his mother s new boyfriend, Brett Curtis, Paul sees the man from his dream. As Paul compares more of the dream to real life events he realizes that Brett is the man who killed his father. However, Brett is also realizing that Paul is on to him.
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, Strange Illusion is a suspense filled journey to bring a guilty man to justice. Also starring with James Lydon are Warren William as Brett Curtis, Sally Eilers as Paul s mother Virginia, and Jayne Hazard as Dorothy, Paul s sister. If you enjoy Strange Illusion, check out Ulmer s big hit Detour by Triad Productions.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039941/
Noir City 7—Eddie Muller’s Introductory Remarks to The Unsuspected and Desperate
2 February 2009 5:19 PM, PST Twitch See recent Twitch news »
It is a tradition at Noir City, Eddie Muller reminded his audience, that they screen one film at each festival that is utterly incomprehensible. “Tonight,” Muller grinned, “is the night.” The Unsuspected claims the honor, which is not to say that the film isn’t fantastic, but no one will be asked to recapitulate the plot on their way home on Muni. To attempt so would mean possibly riding to the end of the line (“which ends up in, like, Hell”). The Unsuspected is based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong. Armstrong is a terrific writer also responsible for the Marilyn Monroe noir Don’t Bother to Knock, based on Armstrong’s novel Mischief.
Muller conceded his program notes for The Unsuspected were slightly incorrect. He billed the film as “lustrous studio filmmaking at its finest”; but, the film is actually an independent Michael Curtiz production distributed by Warner Brothers. »
- Michael Guillen
Woman on the run
"I'm not a bad guy when you get to know me...a little obnoxious, but pleasant." Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe in a fine noir, February 27, 2009
By
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews(TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
What a pleasure it is to come across an old suspense noir you've either forgotten about or never heard of and discover it's a solid and engrossing movie. Woman on the Run, starring Ann Sheridan and Dennis O'Keefe, is that movie. It's the story of a man out walking his dog one night in San Francisco who witnesses a mob-related killing...and realizes the killer saw him. The cops plan to take him into protective custody but he doesn't trust them to keep him alive. He has another idea. He disappears. And when the cops visit the man's wife, they discover a woman who seems not to care one way or the other. Her marriage has been on the skids for quite awhile. She won't hinder; she won't help. She just wants out. But as she learns more about her husband, she decides he at least needs a fair chance. So before long she starts looking for the guy. And so are the cops. And so is a newspaper reporter after a scoop. And so is the killer. But no one knows where he's hiding. She decides to team up with the reporter to beat the cops and the killer to her husband. When half way through the movie we realize what's going on, and she doesn't, the tension escalates briskly. It all comes together in a beach-front amusement park at night. It may be 1950 and there's no neon, but there's lots of lights, a giggling, life-size mechanical clown, cotton candy stands, a movie house playing The Big Lift, a boardwalk filled with laughing people, pitch black shadows under the piers and the roller-coaster from hell. Woman on the Run was an indie picture. No one would confuse it with an A movie from one the crumbling major studios, but it's way above a B programmer. I'd match the last 17 minutes in the amusement park against any film.
Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation.
In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach.
The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime.
The radio program the film was based upon ran from 1934 until 1948.
Sponsored by Edwards Coffee, this featured Hal Burdick as the "night editor." Hal Burdick would receive readers’ requests for stories, in a "letter to the editor" format, which would tell on the program. Burdick played all characters in the program. The stories varied greatly including tales of war, adventure, crime, and an occasional ghost story.
It was shot on location in New York City.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 DVD Release
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
//
[edit] Plot
Arriving at New York City's Pennsylvania Station after a trip to Cuba, Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who is smuggling $50,000 worth of diamonds into the country, realizes she's being followed by the authorities. She mails the diamonds to her husband, Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), instead of carrying them around, and then tries to shake the Treasury agent following her.
Feeling sick, Shelia nearly faints on the street, so a cop takes her to a local clinic. While there, she enounters a little girl and inadvertently infects her. Shelia is misdiagnosed as having a common cold, and she leaves and returns home. After the girl is admitted to the hospital, she is found to have smallpox.
Meanwhile, Matt has been cheating on Sheila with her sister, Francie (Lola Albright), and then attempts to take off without either of them when the diamonds finally arrive through the mail. Unfortunately for him, the fence cannot buy the diamonds because they are too hot. Matt will have to wait for ten days for the cash, so he cannot leave New York. Sheila confronts Francie, who kills herself afterward due to Matt's betrayal of them both. This gives Sheila more reason to get revenge on him.
Finding a growing number of smallpox victims, city officials decide to vaccinate everyone in New York to prevent an epidemic, but quickly run out of serum. This causes a panic in the city. Tracking the victims, agents realize that the disease carrier and the diamond smuggler are one and the same. However, an increasingly sick Sheila continues to elude capture. Still unaware that she has smallpox, she returns to the doctor at the clinic to get more medicine. The doctor explains her illness and tries to talk her into turning herself in, but she shoots him in the shoulder and escapes.
Sheila eventually catches up with Matt, who tries to escape from the police, but falls from a building ledge to his death. Sheila nearly attempts to drop herself from the ledge, until the doctor tells her the little girl she met had died. Remorseful, Sheila turns herself in and, before succumbing to the disease, provides authorities with a badly-needed list of those she contacted.
Lefty Farrell (O'Brien) links up with con artists Brandy Kirby (Scott) and Vincent Mailer (Knox). The three concoct a scheme to rob a rich couple out of ten million dollars by having O'Brien pose as the couple's long-lost son. When the husband refuses to change his will, Kirby and Mailer decide to kill them. When Farrell confesses the scam to the elderly couple it prompts Mailer to add him to his list of potential victims
Contents[hide] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Wall
1] Plot
The psychological drama tells the story of Peter, a European desperate to enter the United States. Because he doesn't have the proper papers for asylum, he jumps ship and sneaks into New York City. While in New York, he's aided by down-on-her-luck factory worker Maggie (Grahame) and a World War II vet, now jazz musician, who Peter helped when he was shot down in the war. Peter hopes to obtain legal papers when he can prove that he was instrumental in aiding Allied underground activities during the war. He has only 24-hours to prove his case.
Synopsis
With the exception of the vastly superior Caged, Columbia's Women's Prison was the quintessential "babes behind bars" drama of the 1950s. Ida Lupino (who else?) stars as Amelia VanZant, the sadistic supervisor of the titular prison. Unable to establish any sort of relationship with a man, Amelia takes it out on her long-suffering inmates. When prison psychiatrist Clark (Howard Duff) tries to improve conditions for the women, he too is targetted for destruction by the vituperous Ms. VanZant. The cast includes such perennial "hard-boiled dames" as Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Phyllis Thaxter, Gertrude Michael and Mae Clarke. Not taken very seriously in the first place, Women's Prison was elevated to the level of "high camp" by youthful film buffs of the 1960s and 1970s. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Just after World War II, paratroopers Captain Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) and Sergeant Johnny Drake (William Prince) are mysteriously ordered to travel to Washington, DC. When Drake learns that he is to be awarded the Medal of Honor (and Murdock the Distinguished Service Cross), he disappears before newspaper photographers can take his picture. Murdock follows the clues and tracks his friend to Gulf City, where he learns Drake is dead – burned to death in a car accident.
Murdock finds out that Drake joined the Army under an assumed name to avoid a murder charge. He was accused of killing a rich old man named Chandler because he was in love with his beautiful young wife Coral (Lizabeth Scott). Murdock goes to a nightclub to question Louis Ord (George Chandler), a witness in the murder trial. Ord reveals that Drake had given him a letter for Murdock. Murdock also meets Coral and Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky), the club owner, there. Murdock's drink is drugged. When he wakes up the next morning, he finds Ord's dead body planted in his hotel room. He manages to dispose of the corpse before police Lieutenant Kincaid (Charles Cane), responding to an anonymous tip, shows up to question him.
Murdock teams up with Coral. Suspecting that Martinelli had Ord killed in order to get the letter, Murdock breaks into his office, only to find the safe already open. Just before he is knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant, he smells jasmine, the same aroma as Coral's perfume. When Murdock awakens, Martinelli has him roughed up by his thug, Krause (Marvin Miller), to try to find out what is in the coded letter. However, Murdock manages to trick his captors and escape.
Now suspicious of Coral, Murdock goes to her apartment to confront her. She claims to be innocent, but finally admits that she shot her husband in self defense. She gave the murder weapon to Martinelli to dispose of, but he has been blackmailing her ever since. In love with her himself, Murdock agrees to leave town with her, but decides to retrieve the incriminating weapon first, despite Coral's fears. He threatens Martinelli with a gun, eliciting some startling revelations. The club owner reveals that Coral is his wife. He killed Chandler and framed Drake so that Coral could inherit the estate before the bigamy could be discovered. Murdock gets what he came for and forces Martinelli to precede him out of the building. As he opens the door, Martinelli is shot and killed.
Murdock jumps into the waiting car and drives off with Coral. As they are speeding away, he accuses her of having just tried to kill him. When she shoots him, the car crashes. He survives, but she suffers fatal injuries. In the hospital, Murdock comforts her in her final moments.
[edit] Plot
Robert Mitchum as Police Captain Thomas McQuigg in The Racket
The plot of the film is very close to the original play and 1928 movie. Racketeer and mobster Nick Scanlon (Ryan) has managed to buy several of the local government and law-enforcement officials of a large midwestern American city. However, he can't seem to touch the incorruptible police captain Tom McQueeg (Mitchum), who refuses all attempts at bribery. The city’s prosecuting attorney, Welch (Collins), and a police detective, Turck (Conrad), are crooked and make McQueeg's job as an honest officer nearly impossible. McQueeg persuades a sexy nightclub singer (Scott) to testify against Scanlon which makes her marked for death from the mob. McQueeg not only wants to nail Scanlon, but also stop all the mob corruption in the city - without getting himself or his witness killed.
Directed by
Fritz Lang
Produced by
Robert Arthur
Written by
William P. McGivern (serial)Sydney Boehm
Starring
Glenn FordGloria GrahameLee Marvin
Music by
Henry Vars (uncredited)
Cinematography
Charles Lang
Editing by
Charles Nelson
Studio
Columbia Pictures
Distributed by
Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)
October 14, 1953 (US)
Running time
89 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
The Big Heat is a 1953 film noir directed by Fritz Lang, starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin. It is about a cop who takes on the crime syndicate that controls his city after the brutal murder of his beloved wife. The film was written by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm based on a serial by William P. McGivern which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, and was published as a novel in 1952.
Bannion visits Mrs Duncan (Jeanette Nolan). He asks for particulars on the second home and she resents the implication of his suspicions. The next day Bannion gets a dressing-down by Lieutenant Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey) who is under pressure from "upstairs" to close the case.
Chapman is later found dead after being tortured and covered with cigarette burns. Bannion sets about investigating her murder even though it is not his case or his jurisdiction. After receiving threatening calls to his home, he confronts Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), the local mob boss. It's an open secret that Lagana runs the city, even to the point that he has cops guarding his house while his daughter hosts a party. Lagana resents Bannion's accusations in his own home during such an event: "I've seen some dummies in my time, but you're in a class by yourself."
Bannion finds that people are too scared to stand up to the crime syndicate. When warnings to Bannion to leave things alone go unheeded, his car is blown up and his wife (Jocelyn Brando) is killed in the explosion. Feeling that the department will do little to bring the murderers to justice, Bannion resigns the force and sets off on a one-man crusade to get Lagana and his second-in-command Vince Stone (Lee Marvin).
When Stone viciously "punishes" a girl in a nightclub — by burning her hand with a cigarette butt — Bannion stands up to him and orders him and his bodyguard out of the joint. This impresses Stone's girlfriend Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). She tries to get friendly with Bannion who keeps pointing out that she gets her money from a thief. Marsh states: "I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better." But when she unwittingly reminds him of the time he courted his late wife he sends her packing, to which she retorts: "Well, you're about as romantic as a pair of handcuffs."
Marsh was seen with Bannion, and when she returns to Stone's penthouse, Stone accuses her of talking to Bannion about his activities and throws boiling coffee in her face. She is taken to hospital by none other than Police Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell) who was playing poker with Stone and his friends at the flat. When Higgins warns that he will have to file a report, Stone reminds him that he pays him to deal with that sort of thing.
With her face half-scarred, Marsh returns to Bannion who agrees to put her up for a while. Bannion's enquiries have led him to conclude that a man called Larry hired a mechanic to set the dynamite in the car that killed his wife. Marsh tells him that it is Larry Gordon (Adam Williams), one of Stone's associates. Bannion confronts Gordon and forces him to admit to the bombing of his car. This whole thing has started because Bertha Duncan, widow of the cop who committed suicide, has papers he collected that could expose Stone and Lagana. They were really intended for the DA, but Mrs Duncan has kept them for herself and is collecting blackmail payments from Lagana.
Heeding Marsh's entreaties that killing for revenge would make him no better than those who killed his wife, Bannion refrains from killing Gordon, instead spreading the word that he talked. Gordon is seized and murdered by Stone's men before he can make his escape. Bannion now confronts Mrs Duncan, accusing her of betraying Chapman to her death and of protecting "Lagana and Stone for the sake of a soft plush life", but then cops sent by Lagana make him leave.
Stone decides to try and kidnap Bannion's little daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett) who is staying with her aunt and uncle with a police guard outside their flat. When the guard suddenly leaves, the uncle calls in a few army buddies to take over. Satisfied that she is in good hands, Bannion sets off to deal with Stone. On the way he meets Lieutenant Wilks, who is now prepared to make a stand against the mob, admitting that, in spite of his own wife's pressure over what will happen to his pension, "It's the first time in years I've breathed good clean air."
Debbie Marsh goes to meet Mrs Duncan. Noticing that they are wearing the same expensive coats, she remarks that they are both "sisters under the mink" and the fact that they have benefited from their association with gangsters. She then kills Mrs Duncan, thus starting the process that will see Tom Duncan's evidence surface and bring about Stone and Lagana's downfall. When Stone returns to his penthouse, Marsh throws boiling coffee over him just as he had done to her. Stone shoots Marsh and after a short gun battle is captured by Bannion who had followed him to the flat. As Marsh lies dying, Bannion describes his late wife to her in terms of their relationship rather than the physical "police description" he gave earlier: "You and Katie would have gotten along fine," he tells her.
Stone is arrested for Marsh's murder. When Duncan's evidence is made public Lagana and Commissioner Higgins are indicted. Bannion returns to his job at Homicide.
Contents[hide]
Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the look of the film and wrote, "Cinematographer Burnett Guffey is relentless in capturing the spiritual desolation of the characters with ominous shots of the myriad railroad tracks interweaving and separating in a train yard at night. It becomes a metaphor for the human paths criss-crossing each other. Penetrating and searing, Human Desire is a nagging allegory about the darkness of human motivation and the corruption of the soul, and of desperate characters who live unfulfilled lives. It's not one of Lang's great pictures (it becomes too heavy-handed in parts), but anything Lang does has a power that is hard to forget. This one entertains as a riveting melodrama."[2]
Critic Dave Kehr wrote of the film, "Gloria Grahame, at her brassiest, pleads with Glenn Ford to do away with her slob of a husband, Broderick Crawford...A gripping melodrama, marred only by Ford's inability to register an appropriate sense of doom."[3]
Hard-drinking Carl Buckley is a railroad worker fired from his job. His seductive wife pays a visit to a railroad official to try to get his job back. When Buckley suspects that his sexy, younger wife Vicki (Grahame) has done more than just talk with a railroad official, he first brutally beats her then he tracks down the railroad man and eventually stabs him to death in a jealous rage. Train conductor, and Korean War vet, Jeff Warren (Ford) knows that Vicki was a witness at the murder scene, but because of mutual attraction, refuses to testify against her. The two begin an affair with each other. Vicki then decides Warren should kill her violent husband and comes up with a plan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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99 River Street
Directed by
Phil Karlson
Produced by
Edward Small
Written by
Phil Karlson (uncredited)John Payne (uncredited)Robert SmithGeorge Zuckerman (story)
Starring
John PayneEvelyn KeyesBrad DexterFrank FaylenPeggie Castle
Music by
Arthur LangeEmil Newman
Cinematography
Franz Planer
Distributed by
United Artists
Release date(s)
October 2, 1953 (U.S. release)
Country
United States runtime = 83 min.
Language
English
99 River Street is a 1953 black and white film. The film, starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, and Peggie Castle. 99 River Street, considered film noir, was directed by Phil Karlson, produced by Edward Small, with cinematography by Franz Planer.
Contents[hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Critical reaction
4 References
5 External links
//
Plot
The film takes place over one night in New York City. Ernie Driscoll is a former boxer who had to give up fighting after sustaining an injury in the ring. He is now a New York taxi driver. His wife, Pauline, unhappy living a poor life, is having an affair with a richer man who happens to be a criminal. The criminal, after being unable to sell some stolen diamonds, kills Pauline and then attempts to frame her husband with the crime.
The Prowler is a 1951 black-and-white thriller film directed by Joseph Losey. The film, considered film noir, was produced by Sam Spiegel (as S.P. Eagle).
[edit] Plot
Van Heflin plays Webb Garwood, a disgruntled cop called to investigate a voyeur by Susan Gilvray (played by Evelyn Keyes). Her husband works nights as an overnight radio personality. The cop falls in love with the young and attractive married woman. Obsessed, he woos her despite her initial reluctance. After they fall in love, Garwood, who finds out about an insurance policy on the man's life, dreams up a scheme in which a phantom "prowler" would be a good scapegoat if her husband should happen to die mysteriously. After becoming a prowler himself, Heflin murders the husband and makes it look like self-defense.
The woman, now pregnant, and the cop take it on the lam.
He attended Columbia University, but left in 1926 without graduating, when his first novel, Cover Charge, was published. Cover Charge was a Jazz Age work inspired by the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He soon turned to pulp and detective fiction, often published under his pseudonyms. For example, William Irish was the byline in Dime Detective Magazine (February, 1942) on his 1942 story "It Had to Be Murder," (source of the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window) and based on H. G. Wells' short story Through A Window. François Truffaut filmed Woolrich's The Bride Wore Black and Waltz Into Darkness in 1968 and 1969, respectively, the latter as Mississippi Mermaid. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story "It Had to Be Murder" and its use for Rear Window was litigated before the United States Supreme Court in Stewart v. Abend, 495 U.S. 207 (1990).
Woolrich was homosexual, and quite promiscuous in his youth.[1] In 1930, whilst working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles, Woolrich married Violet Virginia Blackton (1910-65), daughter of silent film producer J. Stuart Blackton. They separated after three months, and the marriage was annulled in 1933.
Woolrich returned to New York where he and his mother moved into the Hotel Marseilles (Broadway and West 113th Street). He lived there until her death on October 6, 1957, which prompted his move to the Hotel Franconia (20 West 72nd Street).[2]
Alcoholism and an amputated leg (caused by an infection from a too-tight shoe which went untreated) left him a recluse, although he did socialize on occasion with young admirers such as writer Ron Goulart. He did not attend the premiere of Truffaut's film of his novel The Bride Wore Black in 1968, even though it was held in New York City. He died weighing 89 pounds. He is interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
Woolrich bequeathed his estate of about $850,000 to Columbia University, to endow scholarships in his mother's memory for journalism students.
Hi! Tony,I hope that you and your family have a pleasant journey. (Adventure)Now
I will address each film…individually…
The Chase (1946)
Insane hoods pursue shell-shocked vet. Totally surreal obscure noir melodrama
(?) like no other movie you have ever seen.Oh! Yes, I have watched this film and
your critiquesums this film up for me…By the way, I purchased this film (which
is on a double feature DVD with afilm entitled…Bury Me
Dead.Below is a comment left over there on Amazon.com by an Amazon.com
customer about the film…“The Chase” is unusually violent, even
by 1940’s film noir standards. There’s two scenes where women get slapped or
punched, one where a man gets killed by a big dog, one with a woman getting
stabbed, two scenes of people getting shot, and one with a car getting destroyed
(with two people inside) by a speeding train!”
I Love Trouble (1948)
Hot-jive noir. Laughs and smooth-as-nylons repartee, while guys get
slapped hard, drugged, and slugged from behind.Now, if only the power-that-be
would restore this film and place it on DVD…(Just like they recently did with
the hard-to-find 1946 film Night Editor.)
I Married a
Communist (1949) Commies as hoods. Never flags. Erotic
fission and violent noir pyrotechnics make for enthralling & wild ride.Once
again, you summed in up in a Twitter second!(By the way it was just released as
part of the WB DVDr collection.)
Shock (1946) Perverse
b-noir. Murder witness goes catatonic. Her shrink is the killer. A dark
Lynn Bari smolders. Enticingly preposterous! Agreed…enough said…I have to
purchase this film just to add to my Fox DVD Collection. Because I all ready own
the 1946 film “Shock” on DVDr.
Strange Illusion (1945)
Bizarre Hamlet remake. Edgar Ulmer turns PRC b into camp expressionist noir of
foul villains with a knockout finale. Once again, you summed this film up in a
Twitter second!
The Unsuspected (1947) Camp noir! Curtiz directs,
Woody Bredell lenses, Waxman scores, Claude Rains over-acts, and Audrey Totter
is a hoot!Oh! Yes, this is one of my favorite film noir…, which was just
released as part of the Warner Bros. DVDr releases. I will probably rewatched
this film later today.__________________________________________________________
Woman on the Run (1950)
Intelligent b-thriller set on the streets, tenements, dives, and wharves of
Frisco, with a roller-coaster climax. Author Eric Beetner, wrote an article (for
the Film Noir Foundation) comparing overrated film (noirs) to underrated film
(noir) and guess which film that he thought was overrated.Answer: The Woman in
the Window and can you guess which he film thought was underrated?
My
closing words…Tony; I hope you and your family have a pleasant break and
Godspeed!Take care!DeeDee
Comment by DeeDee —
December 5, 2009 @ 2:45
am___________________________________________________________
Hi! Tony,Oh! Yes, Sony plan to release the 1946 film Night
Editor finally, a restored print of this classic film noir.
I’am so
sorry, but no images of both box sets are available yet…unfortunately, for me I
have only watched 2 films from these 2 boxsets and they are: The Killer that
Stalked New York (1950) and Night Editor (1946).___________________________________________________________
WHAT:Bad Girls of Film
Noir, Vol. 1WHEN:February 9thSTUDIO:SonyPRICE: Retail $24.96, Our:
$19.99TITLES:The Killer that Stalked New York (1950), Two of a Kind (1951), Bad
for Each Other (1953) & The Glass Wall (1953)______________________________________________________________
——————————————————WHAT:Bad
Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2WHEN: February 9thSTUDIO:SonyPRICE: Retail $24.96,
Our: $19.99
TITLES:Night Editor (1946), One Girl’s Confession (1953),(One
Girl’s Confession (1953),will be screened at NoirCity next month) Over-Exposed
(1956) & Women’s Prison (1955)______________________________________________________________
——————————————————
With Rita Hayworth
and Film Noir Classics, Vol. 2 sets also expected in the first half of next
year, Sony is kicking of the new year right with the announcement of their Bad
Girls of Noir Collections for release on February 9th.
Each collection
(above) is a two-disc set with minimal bonus features. Details below.
They
will retail for $24.96 each, but are available at ClassicFlix.com for only
$19.99 each.
Bad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 1
In the 40’s and 50’s
the juiciest roles for actresses in Hollywood were often in B-pictures that
explored the dark side of life: starring roles as cool, calculating gals who
could stick a knife in a man’s back and make him like it. Lizabeth
Scott, Gloria Grahame, and Evelyn Keyes were some of the best of the period, and
are among Noir fans’ favorites for their roles in
such classics of the genre as Dead Reckoning and The Racket (Scott), The Big
Heat and Human Desire (Grahame), 99 River Street and The Prowler
(Keyes).
Here’s your chance to see them at work in some
great films straight out of the vault, newly restored and re-mastered, for the
first time on DVD. Co-starred with the likes of Edmond O’Brien, Charlton Heston,
and Vittorio Gassman these dames shine a like the brightest stars in Hollywood,
and each film packs in plenty of the best bad girl behavior.
BONUS FEATURES:
Terry Moore on Two of a KindThe Payoff-All Star
Theatre EpisodeBad Girls of Film Noir, Vol. 2
Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter, Jan
Sterling, Ida Lupino and Janis Carter. Forgery, adultery, theft, blackmail and
murder. The Bad Girls of Noir are back, in Volume 2, and these gorgeous gals
with malice in their hearts are sure to thrill hard-boiled fans of Noir.
Fan favorite Cleo Moore finally gets her due in three films
that highlight the talents of the beauty who was compared to Marilyn Monroe, but
whom fans love for her earnest, if stilted portrayals of dim-witted gals who
can’t catch a break. Four films, restored and re-mastered are all new to DVD,
and sure to provide plenty of excitement for the noir aficionado. Watch out for
these gals, they’re dangerous–which makes them oh, so fun to watch.
By the
way, I see the “great” Lou Boxer, is following you on Google.
DeeDee
_________________
Comment by DeeDee —
December 5, 2009 @ 2:57
am
Hi! Tony,Here goes some more FYI…Perhaps
the most important writer to the world of film-noir, Cornell
Woolrich, would have been 106 today. His work was turned into numerous
films and tv episodes.Mr. Woolrich’s work…STREET OF CHANCE, THE LEOPARD MAN,
PHANTOM LADY, MARK OF THE WHISTLER, DEADLINE AT DAWN, FALL GUY, THE CHASE, THE
GUILTY, BLACK ANGEL, FEAR IN THE NIGHT, I WOULDN’T BE IN YOUR SHOES, NIGHT HAS
100O EYES, THE WINDOW, REAR WINDOW, OBSESSION, NIGHTMARE.This post was copied
and pasted and the credit for it goes to another true noiraholic…Thanks,
DeeDee
Comment by DeeDee — December
5, 2009 @ 7:09 am
Thanks so much DeeDee for your fantastic contribution here.
Great to hear that so many neglected noirs are finding their way on to DVD.
Looking forward to your next undercover report!
Comment by Tony D'Ambra — December
5, 2009 @ 10:24
am
A fantastic contribution indeed here by Dee Dee, and one I’m afraid I
can’t match even one-tenth of the way, not that I would want to. Tony, have a
wonderful trip up north, I can’t wait to hear all about it, and maybe even a
post will go up appraisaing us of the partculars. Of course I will jot down
these noirs you recommend, but again I wish you a fabulous time!
Comment by Sam Juliano — December 7, 2009 @ 12:21
pm
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