‘Sea of Love’ is a neglected neo-noir with hidden depth

July 2, 2013 by

Sea of Love/1989/Universal Pictures/113 min.

“Sea of Love” is what you might call a neurotic and erotic thriller, dealing as it does with one of the most terrifying settings imaginable: the New York City singles scene.

Deftly directed by Harold Becker, with a magnificent script by Richard Price, “Sea of Love” is a deeply satisfying neo-noir, which has been oddly neglected since its 1989 release.

One of the movie’s many strengths is a knock-out lead performance by Al Pacino as veteran NYC police detective Frank Keller. Frank is feisty, hard-working and intense, but he’s got weaknesses aplenty: he drinks too much, as does his elderly father (William Hickey), he’s sick of his job, and his ex-wife left him to hook up with his fellow cop, Gruber (Richard Jenkins).

Meanwhile, Frank’s got a crime to solve: Two men have been shot in the head in their bedrooms. Lipstick-smeared cigarette butts point to a female killer. Said killer apparently finds her victims by answering singles’ ads in a magazine.

Frank figures: why not place an ad and see if the murderess shows up for a get-to-know-you drink? So, aided by jovial chubster Det. Sherman Touhey (John Goodman), they meet a procession of available women, including one who quips, lest you forget you’re watching a neo-noir: “Fate sucks, I swear!”

The most intriguing candidate, though, is a slim, flinty blonde in a red-leather jacket named Helen Cruger (Ellen Barkin). Finding that he’s attracted to her, Frank puts her name at the bottom of the suspect list, and the two begin an uneasy love affair. We learn that Helen runs a shoe store on 57th Street and that she’s divorced with a young daughter.

The passion grows and the police work proceeds, but neither are smooth sailing especially when another man (this one married, with a family) turns up dead, with the same MO. No one likes to put pressure on a relationship in those early, heady days, but at the same time it’s best to know asap if firearms are tucked inside a gal’s baggage.

It’s a tense wait to see how Frank rates as a judge of character. But I didn’t mind the wait one bit; in fact, I didn’t want this flick to end. Even though the plot is fairly straightforward, there are many layers of subtext to the central narrative and there’s an earthy realness in every scene. For example, the opening is a police bust that has nothing to do with the imminent murders – don’t blink and you’ll see young Samuel L. Jackson.

All in a day’s work: Sherman (John Goodman) and Frank (Al Pacino) go on fake dates to catch a killer who targets victims through the singles pages.

In the DVD commentary, director Becker, a New York native, calls these slightly off-track parts “moments that build the rich texture of New York life.” To that end, Becker took particular care casting the many smaller roles, choosing “New York actors who would give authenticity and richness to the scene.”

Pacino’s wonderful in this part, his first screen role after a several-year hiatus during which he worked in theater, his first love. Though it’s not much of a stretch for him, the always-engaging Goodman makes the ideal partner for Pacino. Barkin effortlessly inhabits Helen – a tough working girl who gives as good as she gets, as Becker puts it. (Becker further describes Barkin as being beautiful with a boxer’s nose, which might not exactly endear him to her.)

Of course, Gotham City itself also serves as a major character, with brash, bold attitude and cheeky swagger, that has lent an air of mystery to many a noir. Becker says he tapped cinematographer Ronnie Taylor to help him tell a story with light and shadow.

Harold Jones’ sax-drenched score helps conjure the mood of a New York nightscape: thrilling and sad; transient and eternally alluring. (The soundtrack also includes a Tom Waits cover of “Sea of Love.” The original was a 1959 Phil Phillips song.)

Helen (Ellen Barkin) and Frank (Pacino) deal with each other’s baggage.

Another key ingredient: “Sea of Love’s” first-rate script by Richard Price, a precise and accurate rendering of police work and their lingo as well as a sympathetic take on singles seeking other singles.

And it’s funny. There are many LOL moments – for instance, when Frank and Sherman are assessing their lonely-heart suspects, Sherman asks Frank: “Think you could go for a babe with a dick?” to which Frank replies: “Depends on her personality, really.”

I suspect that “Sea of Love” served as inspiration for 1992’s “Basic Instinct,” written by Joe Eszterhas, who reportedly snagged a $3 million paycheck for the story of police detective Michael Douglas falling in love with murder suspect Sharon Stone. I’d bet $3 million that Price didn’t get nearly as much Eszterhas. “Basic Instinct” can boast high gloss, inventive cinematography and a famous shot of Stone without underwear, but “Sea of Love” is a smarter, far more human, and funnier movie.

Does anyone know what Richard Price is doing these days? In this era of online dating, maybe we need a Sea-quel.

“Sea of Love” is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal on Amazon.

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‘From the Head’ intrigues, but doesn’t live up to its potential

June 18, 2013 by

From the Head/2013 VoD/Breaking Glass Pictures/95 min.

Three years at a job can feel like a milestone or a miracle. Working as a bathroom attendant at a seedy strip club, it’s an eternity.

In “From the Head,” a film made by and starring George Griffith, we spend a day in the life of Shoes, a wry, worldly grifter on his third anniversary of hanging out behind the men’s room door of a Times Square club, drinking, smoking and secretly smirking at patrons as they pause to leave their tips.

We see him interact with customers, joking, advising, observing – even solicitously plucking a stray blonde hair off a man’s suit. Shoes has literary aspirations and all of these moments might be fodder for his work.

The film, impressionistic and candid, snags the harsh look and tawdry feel of the place. Griffith deftly shows the camaraderie among co-workers (shared drinks, a casual display of a brand-new boob job) and seamlessly orchestrates the parade of memorable customers in and out of the men’s room – from the guys who refuse to tip to those who reveal their genuine (mostly unrequited) feelings for the strippers.

Griffith has a gem of an idea here – a sly insider’s view of a “hell hole” fairly bursting with potential for drama. Unfortunately, the film’s drama doesn’t quite get off the ground – despite the tawdry, titillating backdrop, “From the Head” feels oddly flat and sluggish.

Griffith’s main character (Shoes) must distance himself to survive the hostility, sadness and desperation around him, but we don’t get much of a glimpse beyond the wall he has built. The constant cold sneer needs to be tempered by at least a suggestion of vulnerability in order for viewers to feel his depth of pain and connect with his plight.

“From the Head” is available on cable VOD. It releases July 9 on DVD.  

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The Noir File: Bogie, Bacall shine in quirky ‘Dark Passage’

June 13, 2013 by

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and  pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICKS OF THE WEEK

“Dark Passage” was the third of four films Bogart and Bacall made together.

“Dark Passage” (1947, Delmer Daves). Friday, June 14:  8 p.m. (5 p.m.)

I recently wrote about 1947’s “Lady in the Lake,” a Raymond Chandler/Philip Marlowe tale, starring and directed by Robert Montgomery. Its chief claim to fame is the experimental subjective camera – the story is told entirely from Marlowe’s point of view.

In that review, I noted that “Dark Passage,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, also from 1947, uses a subjective camera as well, though just for the first half-hour of the movie. The limited use of the technique in “Dark Passage” pays off much better than the full-on treatment in “Lady.” Though “Dark Passage” wasn’t a huge hit in its day – audiences weren’t crazy about being deprived of Bogart – it’s a film noir treasure that rarely gets its due.

You can read the full FNB review here.

NOIR WRITERS SERIES: DAVID GOODIS
All this month on its Friday Night Spotlight screenings,  TCM is presenting a series of classic film noirs, with each Friday night devoted to movies based on or written by (or both) one of  six top-notch noir authors: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, David Goodis, Jonathan Latimer and Cornell Woolrich.

Tonight the spotlight is on David Goodis, one of the strangest and most poignantly self-destructive of the great film noir novelists. Goodis, a well-educated  Philadelphian, and an outsider for most of his life, came to Hollywood when his best-selling novel, “Dark Passage” was sold to Warner Brothers as a vehicle for the red hot movie team of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. “Dark Passage” allowed Bogie and Bacall to shine, and is now considered a classic.

“Dark Passage” uses a subjective camera for the first half-hour of the movie.

But Goodis, who liked to explore the lower depths,  proved too weird even for Movieland, and he soon returned East where he spent the rest of his relatively brief life (1917-1967) writing pulp novels for paperback publishers, which he occasionally sold to the movies. (See below.)

They were cheap, supposedly trashy books, churned out fast. Goodis filled them with a  keen insight into darkness, loneliness and the underworld, a flair for strong perverse characterization and a poetic command of language few writers in his genre could match. “Dark Passage” remains his most famous novel. The most personal and revealing  may be “The Burglar,” directed by his Philly friend Paul Wendkos. It’s a powerful film, but the book is better.

David Goodis was weird, even for Hollywood.

(The “Noir Writers” films, all of which show on Friday evening, June 14, were curated and will be introduced by film noir expert Eddie Muller.)

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Dark Passage” (See Above.)

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Nightfall” (1956, Jacques Tourneur). With Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft and Brian Keith. Reviewed on FNB, May 29, 2012.

11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.): “The Burglar” (1957, Paul Wendkos). David Goodis’  eerie, haunting novel about a gang of burglars, inlcuding platonic lovers Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield, and how they come apart. The diretcor, Paul Wendkos (“The Mephisto Waltz”) was another Philadelphia guy and a friend of Goodis’, and he did very well by the book, which is one of the great pulp paperback novels of the ’50s. The movie isn’t on that level, but, in its way, it’s a neglected, if melancholy, gem.

Charles Aznavour and Michèle Mercier in François Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player.”

1:15 a.m. (10:15 p.m.): “Shoot the Piano Player” (1960, François Truffaut). The greatest movie ever made from a David Goodis novel is also the ultimate fusion of film noir with the French New Wave. Noir-lover François Truffaut (“Jules and Jim”) takes one of Goodis’ best novels, “Down There,” resets it in a Paris dive, and comes up with melancholy black-and-white movie magic. Truffaut makes the material his own. He keeps the original  tale of a concert pianist (legendary torch singer Charles Aznavour) who, heartbroken at the loss of his love, goes down there to the depths of show biz – tinkling the keys in a neighborhood bar, until, despite his best efforts, he falls in love again and falls in with criminals. Like most Goodis stories, it’s a bluesy tale touched with terror.  But Truffaut opens it up with innovative filmmaking and breezy, saucy, seemingly off-the-cuff scenes that shoot vibrant life into a very dark subject. [Read more…]

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‘The Bling Ring’ brings you inside a baffling world

June 13, 2013 by

The Bling Ring/2013/American Zoetrope, et al/87 min.

Writer/director Sofia Coppola (“The Virgin Suicides,” “Lost in Translation,” “Marie Antoinette,” “Somewhere”) has a knack for creating richly textured worlds, capturing the precise look of a place, feeling of a moment and mood of the characters.

In her latest film, “The Bling Ring,” a noirish tale based on real events, the milieu she so deftly depicts is one she presumably knows pretty well from her own experience – a chapter of high school for a group of five privileged kids from suburban Los Angeles. This clique, however, has an unusual gambit for getting a high – they like to steal stuff from celebrities.

These primp-prowl-and-pilfer kids from Calabasas made international headlines in 2009 after breaking into homes and absconding with more than $3 million in jewelry, clothes and accessories from celebrities including Paris Hilton (who appears in the film), Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson and Audrina Patridge. The movie is a fictionalized version of a Vanity Fair feature story (now a book) by Nancy Jo Sales.

After tracking their targets’ whereabouts via gossip and news sites, then finding their addresses on search engines, the gorgeous “gang” nonchalantly sets about quietly letting themselves into these stylish residences, snooping around the celebs’ red-carpet-ready stuff and making off with whatever catches their eyes. Oh and then flaunting their swag, glorious swag, and posting about it on Facebook.

These stunningly self-absorbed Angelenos – played by Emma Watson, Israel Broussard, Claire Julien, Taissa Farmiga and Katie Chang as the brazen ringleader – are observed more than they are judged. Their aberrant behavior, it appears, is fueled by a near-lethal cocktail of hyper-materialism, rampant narcissism, obsession with celebrity (real and fake), hollow spirituality and social media, not to mention actual booze and drugs.

And that constant of high-school angst: a hunger for popularity, attention and belonging. “In ‘The Bling Ring,’ the kids are trying to figure out their identity. I could understand that age and wanting to be part of a group,” said Coppola at a recent event at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. “I like stories about people in transition or figuring out their place. I like stories about internal struggle.”

“The Bling Ring,” starts out like a B crime movie – crickets breaking the silence of a peaceful night just before a sleek, secluded home is burgled – but soon sheds any inkling of a low-budget vibe. We are immediately immersed in what feels like a glossy, baffling and fascinating game. It’s hard not to indulge your inner-voyeur. [Read more…]

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‘Wish You Were Here’ thriller/drama is a mixed bag

June 10, 2013 by

Image from Entertainment One Films. From left: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Felicity Price and Antony Starr.

The Australian thriller/domestic drama “Wish You Were Here,” directed by Kieran Darcy-Smith, opened last weekend in New York and LA. Unfortunately, I found it dull, despite strong performances. You can read the NYT review by Stephen Holden here.

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The Aero hosts an evening with Sofia Coppola in person

June 4, 2013 by

Sofia Coppola

Having just seen “The Bling Ring,” Sofia Coppola’s terrific new neo-noir based on real events, I am especially excited about An Evening with Sofia Coppola, presented by the American Cinematheque.

The night begins with 2003’s “Lost in Translation,” starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, as two Americans who cross paths one night in a luxury hotel bar in Tokyo and form an unlikely friendship. The film earned Coppola an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Next up is “The Virgin Suicides,” Coppola’s adaption of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel exploring adolescent repression and rebellion in an upper-class Detroit suburb in the 1970s. The local boys are mesmerized by the mysterious Lisbon sisters, who are kept on a short leash by overprotective parents James Woods and Kathleen Turner. When one of the girls (Kirsten Dunst) strikes up a relationship with one of the guys (Josh Hartnett), it sets in motion a chain of events that ends in tragedy.

There will be a discussion between films with Coppola.

An Evening with Sofia Coppola takes place on Wednesday, June 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica.

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More Burt on the big screen at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater

May 28, 2013 by

The Billy Wilder Theater at UCLA will present a choice double bill on Sunday, June 2, at 7 p.m.: two film-noir titles starring Burt Lancaster. First is the prison drama “Brute Force” (1947, Jules Dassin), in which Lancaster plays an angry inmate desperate to escape his sadistic captors.

Variety’s review of “Brute Force” noted that “Yvonne De Carlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines and Anita Colby are the women on the ‘outside’ whose machinations, wiles or charms accounted for their men being on the ‘inside.’ ” Natch. (Lancaster and De Carlo were paired again in 1949’s “Criss Cross,” directed by Robert Siodmak.)

“Brute Force” will be followed by “Kiss the Blood Off My Hands” (1948, Norman Foster). Lancaster plays a traumatized and violent ex-prisoner of war living in London and trying, unsuccessfully of course, to get his life together. Co-starring Joan Fontaine.

The evening is part of the Lancaster centennial celebration presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program. The celebration of Lancaster’s movies runs through June 30. Author Kate Buford is the special guest on June 2.

Additionally, on Monday, June 3, at 7:30 p.m., the Archive’s look at emerging voices in Czech cinema comes to a close with director David Ondříček in person for his taut neo-noir police thriller, “In the Shadow” (2012), which was the Czech Republic’s official Oscar entry for 2013.

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Beatty and Penn make ‘Mickey One’ an arty nightmare

May 22, 2013 by

By Mike Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and  pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK 

“Mickey One” (1965, Arthur Penn). Friday, May 24, 12:30 a.m.  (9:30 p.m.)

In “Mickey One,” Warren Beatty plays a Chicago comic who has angered the mob.

The man on the run in “Mickey One,” Arthur Penn’s and Warren Beatty’s nightmare of a 1965 neo-noir, is a Chicago standup comedian  trapped in an urban world of disorientation and fear. It’s one of Beatty’s most offbeat roles: a smart-ass hipster Lenny Bruce type who’s  gotten on the mob’s list for  a transgression  that he doesn’t remember (that possibly doesn’t even exist) and now feels himself in danger every time he walks out on stage. Mickey is a prototypical film noir outsider, lost in the big city night, in a darkness interrupted by neon guideposts to Hell.

Donna Michelle

Around the terrified comedian is a gallery of bizarre characters who might have been assembled for some noirish Wonderland:  Hurd Hatfield (who once played Dorian Gray) as a devious club owner, Franchot Tone as Mickey’s elderly mentor, Alexandra Stewart as the girl who loves him (maybe), Playboy Playmate-of-the-Year Donna Michelle as the babe of babes, Teddy Hart as Mickey’s pint-size agent-manager, Jeff Corey as a club guy, and Kamatari Fujiwara (who was one of the two squabbling peasants in  Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress”) as a conceptual artist.

This neglected film, written by Alan M. Surgal, is one of the artiest and most experimental of all ‘60s black-and-white neo-noirs. And though Surgal’s script is pretentious to a fault, “Mickey One” is beautifully made, a classic of ‘60s razzle-dazzle film technique – often more reminiscent of  early ‘60s foreign art film style than anything out of the Hollywood mainstream.

The movie was stunningly photographed by Ghislain Cloquet, who shot some of the French film masterpieces of Alain Resnais (“Night and Fog”) and Robert Bresson (“Au Hasard Balthazar”).  And the picture has one of the finest jazz scores in the movies, written and orchestrated by Eddie Sauter and improvised by saxophone genius Stan Getz.

One thing “Mickey One” doesn’t have is funny jokes. Mickey’s act couldn’t make a hyena laugh. But maybe that’s the point. The next time Penn and Beatty got together, it was to make “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), which does have funny jokes, as well as  violence and beauty. Here, the director and his star may fail, but they fail grandly, with ambition, daring, style and images that stay in your head.

Wednesday, May 22

3:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m.): “The Blue Gardenia” (1953, Fritz Lang), Working girl Anne Baxter lets her guard down and gets mixed up in the murder of slimy Raymond Burr. (As the girls in “Chicago” say, “He had it coming.”)  The rest of the lineup includes Ann Sothern, Nat King Cole and George “Superman” Reeves. Not Lang’s best, but you won’t want to miss it anyway.

10:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m.): “The Outfit” (1973, John Flynn).  Here’s another adaptation of one of Donald Westlake’s (alias “Richard Stark’s”) ultra-hard-boiled “Parker” novels – the series that inspired “Point Blank.” This time, Robert Duvall plays the “Parker” character, and just as unstoppably as Lee Marvin did. Out to avenge his brother, aided (maybe) by Karen Black and Joe Don Baker, Duvall is up against villain Robert Ryan. The  stellar noir cast includes Timothy Carey, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North and Elisha Cook, Jr. The movie is underrated too. You’ll be surprised at how good it is – unless you look over that cast list again.

Saturday, May 25

4:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m.) “Foreign Correspondent” (1940, Alfred Hitchcock). With Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, and George Sanders. Reviewed on FNB February 20, 2013.

Tuesday, May 28

8 p.m. (5 p.n.): “Hard Times” (1975, Walter Hill). Charles Bronson, James Coburn and the illicit world of back-alley, bare-knuckle fighting during the American Depression. (Bronson is the boxer, Coburn his manager.)  With Jill Ireland and Strother Martin. Tough stuff.

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Bullitt” (1968, Peter Yates). With Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall. Reviewed on FNB October 27, 2012.

Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Neo Noir Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

‘Sightseers’ is more arduous slog than absurd journey

May 10, 2013 by

Sightseers/2012/IFC Films/89 min.

British horror director Ben Wheatley’s new film “Sightseers” has a brilliant comic premise: A frumpy couple takes a caravan holiday in Northern England to enjoy a little romance, see some historic sights and do a bit of writing. Chris (Steve Oram) is a wannabe author and Tina (Alice Lowe) is his muse, natch.

This idyll is inevitably interrupted by pesky people, i. e. fellow tourists, who grate on the pair’s nerves. After accidentally running down a loutish litterbug, Chris and Tina figure they might as well do away with other pests, posers and partiers.

Chris and Tina shift easily from annoying to absurdly amoral. And this dark setup is potentially entertaining – most of us have a story about obnoxious people we’ve met while traveling and really wish we hadn’t. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t find “Sightseers” very funny, mainly because the script (by Oram and Lowe) seems clumsy, and Chris and Tina’s clichéd relationship is overly manipulated.

I can’t escape the feeling that Wheatley, whose last film was “Kill List,” another tale of unpleasant people doing ghastly deeds, infuses his films with a sense of spontaneity, creepy atmosphere, a snide hipster vibe and not a whole lot else.

That said, I did enjoy the film’s final twist. If you find yourself in a misanthropic frame of mind, this movie could be a trip worth taking.

“Sightseers” opens today at Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema in New York and at Landmark’s Nuart Theatre in West LA.

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The Noir File: Widmark is unforgettable as Tommy Udo

May 9, 2013 by

By Mike Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK

Grinning gangster Tommy Udo was a career-defining role for Richard Widmark.

“Kiss of Death” (1947, dir. Henry Hathaway). Tuesday, May 14; 8 p.m. (5 p.m.). One of the most memorable, and scariest, of all film noir villains is Tommy Udo from “Kiss of Death,” as played by the young Richard Widmark. Tommy was a constantly grinning, giggling gunman with a pale, thin, deadly-looking face, topped by a trim fedora – a face and a chuckle that carried the promise of cold-blooded murder.

In “Kiss of Death” – another of director Henry Hathaway’s semi-true crime movies, this time co-scripted by the great Ben Hecht – Victor Mature plays Nick Bianco, an ex-crook trying to go straight, for his sweet wife Nettie (Coleen Gray). To escape his past, Nick becomes a mole recruited by the cops (including Brian Donlevy and Karl Malden) to infiltrate Udo’s mob and get the goods on this gangster. Udo falls for his new mob-mate, giggling, like a ton of bricks. Obviously, something very bad will happen when this psychopathic hood discovers that his new gun buddy is a traitor.

“Kiss of Death” is a classic, vintage Hollywood crime thriller, one of the film noirs that everyone has to see – to savor Hecht’s smart script and Hathaway’s taut direction, and to enjoy the terrific work of the entire killer cast and company. But mostly, you have to see it for Widmark. His Tommy Udo is an impersonation of pure evil so right-on that it almost freezes your blood to watch and hear him – and so convincing that a real-life member of the Mob, the notorious killer “Crazy Joey” Gallo, patterned his entire public personality after Widmark’s performance.

“Crazy Joey” Gallo

The role made Widmark a star, and, though he tried never to repeat it, and played mostly good guys for the rest of his career, he could never really get away from Tommy Udo and his pale, cold eyes, and what James Agee called his “falsetto baby talk, laced with tittering laughs.”

Tommy Udo is the last guy in the world you want to have his eye on you, the last guy whose laugh you want to hear on a dark street. And he’s the last guy you want to see standing behind a sick old lady, in a wheelchair, at the top of a staircase. Giggling.

Friday, May 10

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “The Informer” (1935, John Ford). With Victor McLaglen, Preston Foster and Heather Angel. Reviewed on FNB December 12, 2012.

11 p.m. (8 p.m.): “Under Capricorn” (1949, Alfred Hitchcock). With Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Margaret Leighton. Reviewed on FNB November 17, 2012. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Neo Noir Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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