Noir

In a Lonely Place

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  • Title: In a Lonely Place
  • IMDb: link

Throwback Tuesday takes us back 75 years to the 1950 thriller featuring Humphrey Bogart as the temperamental screenwriter Dixon Steele who local police wrongly believe is responsible for the murder of a young cocktail waitress (Martha Stewart) which leads to continued harassment, although the events of that night do introduce him to his lovely neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) and the beginning of a love affair. Despite the amount of time spent on its aftermath, including a memorable scene in the police station where Dix is first questioned, it’s actually little more than an unusual setup to our two leads together.

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The Great Films – The Third Man

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  • Title: The Third Man
  • IMDb: link

Set in post-WWII Europe, director Carol Reed‘s cinematic masterpiece begins with the arrival of American pulp writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) in occupied Austria only to learn the friend he had come to visit on his last dime, Harry Lime (Orson Welles), is dead. Despite everyone he meets telling him he should return home, Holly sticks around the city playing amateur detective hoping to learn more about how and why Harry died.

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Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.

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  • Title: Chinatown
  • IMDb: link

I don’t know if 1974’s Chinatown is without doubt the best film for everyone involved, both in front and behind the camera, but one could certainly make the case. Director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne come together with a neo-noir staple which provided Jack Nicholson one of his most famous roles as private investigator J. J. Gittes who struggles to find the truth surrounding the death of chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power (Darrell Zwerling), who Gittes was hired to surveil by a woman (Diane Ladd) pretending to be his wife (Faye Dunaway), and uncover how that death plays into a larger conspiracy of the Los Angeles draught and a land scheme which allows 30s Los Angeles to become a major character in the film.

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Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown. Read More »

London Fields

/ / Home Video
  • Title: London Fields
  • IMDb: link

London Fields DVD review

London Fields is a flawed but ambitious film that struggles mightily with adapting the 1989 novel of the same name for the big screen. The film’s biggest strength is Amber Heard, cast in the role femme fatale Nicola Six who toys with men’s affections for her own selfish gratification and amusement. Despite the film’s many failings, Heard’s performance isn’t one of them nor is the cinematography of Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Pacific Rim) who so lovingly frames the beautiful star on-screen. Semi-clairvoyant, Nicola knows the time and place of her death (but not the identity of her killer).

Our other main character is American novelist Samson Young (Billy Bob Thornton) in London attempting to find inspiration for one more novel. Immediately buying into her tale, Samson convinces Nicola to let the author tell her story. Like with Heard, Thornton is put to relatively good use (although the scripting of the noir voiceover fails him at times – but also provides one of the film’s more clever moments as the film pauses to allow Samson to rewrite a scene).

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