A book came out a couple of decades ago called "City Boys", which looked at the urban tough guy actors who began appearing on the Warner lot when the talkies came in. Cagney and Bogart receive the lion's share of the attention in this treatise, not surprisingly, but the author also records...

I believe he was finishing up CIRCUS WORLD (64) when the cancer was discovered and he opted for immediate surgery. KATIE ELDER was considered his big comeback after 'beating the big C' even though he already had two other films in the can.

Just like he says everytime Fred Astaire is on the screen 'Don't you think he looks like Stan Laurel?' Something else that kills the mood. You can see Astaire's impersonation of Laurel during the "A Fine Romance" number in SWINGTIME - (36) . It was probably the idea of it's director, Geor...

When Ford was offered to make a movie on his friend Spig he turned it down. It was too close to him. Then he decided he didn't want anyone else to make a movie on his friend. You can tell Ford threw himself into this film by the way he allows Ward Bond to ape himself onscreen - to the point of loani...

It's a very episodic film, to the point where time seems to almost evaporate at times concerning the Wead's marriage (they're courting, they're raising a family, they've separated....) but you're right Kingme, it is a very charming movie.

In regards to The Maltese Falcon (1941), if the lighting is flat and the overall film is not visually interesting, what makes this Noir while the original 1931 version and 1936's Satan Met a Lady are not generally considered Noir? You answered your own question, MichiganJ. It's not. FALCON is a gre...

Now you know damn well that we are speaking of a director's style and not the genre they made films in. There is a reason that Hawks' westerns do not look and play like Ford's westerns. There are familiar components in both of their films but they are taken in different directions that makes it easy...

Dewey1960 wrote:Did someone say THE BIG SLEEP wasn't noir? Did I somehow wake up dreaming?
"Sometimes I wonder what strange fate brought me out of the storm to
that house that stood alone in the shadows..."

Yes Dewey! That was me. Loud and clear! Hawks did not make noir films. He made Hawks films....

Watching Reagan in the 1964 version always reminds me of that SNL skit where Phil Hartman plays the President as a benign, doddering simpleton among visitors to the White House, but the moment that everyone clears out Reagan turns into a powerful force of nature barking orders to all of his underlin...

So did the recent Will Smith version adhere closer to the book or did they also expand on certain elements just as the Heston film did?

Or Dix Steele slowly, inexorably pushing himself toward his own doomed fate? Or were you being factitious? What doomed fate was that? He lost his girl because he couldn't control his own paranoia anger. I'm sure that was a fate that Mitchum's character in OUT OF THE PAST (47) would had given his ey...

You really think there is no fatalistic sense of Roy Earle being pushed to his doom? Earle was a career criminal embarking on one last job against his better judgement, but he still went ahead with it. He was in control. He pushed himself to his doom. Noir hero's generally get swept up in situation...

I've always looked at this as a Ford film, but a melancholy Ford film. He fills it with his latest stock company (most had died off) but everyone is older and heavier. There is a sense of poignancy that hangs over the entire film. Ford was nearing his twilight and I'm always amazed that he found the...

I enjoy all of these films (except BEAT THE DEVIL , who's comedy - whether black or not - never really gels) and would not consider any of them noir. There is no sense of fatalism that any of the characters are being pushed to their doom. MALTESE FALCON and HIGH SIERRA are terrific crime films, THEY...

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt8/MovieJoe/silver/bronze/000chico.jpg The Marx Brothers (all five of them) and Zeppo's bride, Marion Benda in 1927. From left to right: Gummo, Harpo, Chico and Groucho. Seated: Zeppo and (of course) Marion. Zeppo and Marion divorced in 1954. Pictures of Gummo wi...