Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 16, 2019

It’s a year or two since Barack Obama and Joe Biden left the White House, and Joe is pissed off that the man he thought was his BFF hasn’t so much as texted him, preferring instead to go gadding around the globe with celebrities. It takes a suspicious death to...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 16, 2019

I first read many years ago, perhaps more than once, this classic novel of paranoia, gaslighting and what John Clute, when he and I were doing The Encyclopedia of Fantasytogether, christened godgaming — the process whereby a usually malicious person or group persuades another or others that a   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 15, 2019

US / 153 minutes / color / Alcon, 8:38, Madhouse, Entertainment, Georgia Film Music & Digital Entertainment Office, Warner Bros. Dir: Denis Villeneuve Pr: Broderick Johnson, Kira Davis, Andrew A. Kosove, Adam Kolbrenner Scr: Aaron Guzikowski Cine: Roger A. Deakins Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllen   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 13, 2019

A novel that I decided to read because I noticed that Hirahara was nominated for one of the major crime fiction awards (I now, natch, forget which) for her most recent episode in the series. I thought I’d give the first in the series a try. To look at Mas...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 12, 2019

US / 66 minutes / bw / Universal Dir: William Nigh Assoc Pr: Jack Bernhard Scr: Clarence Upson Young Story: Alex Gottlieb Cine: Woody Bredell Cast: Patric Knowles, Lionel Atwill, Anne Gwynne, Samuel S. Hinds, Mona Barrie, Shemp Howard, Paul Cavanagh, Edmund MacDonald, Mantan Moreland, John Gallaudet   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 10, 2019

I picked up Silk for the least literary of reasons: the 1997 Harvill Press edition is just a beautiful little book, an object I greedily wanted to own. And, when I pulled it off the shelf to read a couple of days ago, I did so with little expectation beyond that it’d...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 10, 2019

The blurb to this book describes it as a “propulsive Hitchcockian thriller,” a comment that’s both grossly misleading and in some ways justified. To take the latter first, I can see the connection with classic tales of obsession like Boileau-Narcejac’s Vertigo, which Hitchco   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 9, 2019

This is an inordinately long book (the print is very small, so the count of 730 pages is a bit misleading), and it took me an inordinately long time to read it. I’m in two minds about whether the effort was worth it. In a frame story that takes the...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 8, 2019

vt Rattle the Cage UAE / 92 minutes / color / Image Nation Abu Dhabi, IM Global Dir: Majid Al Ansari Pr: Rami Yasin Scr: Ruckus Skye, Lane Skye Cine: Colin Leveque Cast: Ali Suliman, Saleh Bakri, Yasa, Abdalla Rashid Al Shehhi, Ali Al Jabri, Mansoor Alfeeli, Ahd Kamel, Omar...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 5, 2019

UK / 70 minutes / bw / Danziger, UA Dir: Ernest Morris Pr: Edward J. Danziger, Harry Lee Danziger Scr: Brian Clemens, Eldon Howard Cine: Jimmy Wilson Cast: Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court, Jennifer Jayne, Ferdy Mayne, Ernest Clark, Martin Benson, Diana Chesney, David Lander, Gordon Tanner, Paul Dickson.   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 4, 2019

***My contribution to this year’s Allan Fish Online Film Festival has just appeared at Wonders in the Dark. Hello Out There is a fascinating little movie: I hope I’ve done it at least a modicum of justice. Wonders in the Dark by John Grant US / 31 minutes / bw...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 2, 2019

I was proud to have a story in The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors, a bumper anthology that was extremely well received. You can find more about the book, including some of its early review quotes, here. Well, the fine folks at Alchemy Press have just announced the table of contents...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on June 1, 2019

US / 53 minutes / bw / Republic Dir: Joseph Kane Pr: Nat Levine Scr: Jack Natteford, Betty Burbridge Story: Allan Vaughan Elston, Paul Perez Cine: Jack Marta Cast: Grant Withers, Dorothy Appleby, Arthur Hoyt, Maude Eburne, Harry Davenport, Donald Kirke, Arthur Loft, Lew Kelly, Anthony Pawley, Fern E   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 29, 2019

vt The Proud Challenge Japan / 89 minutes / bw / Toei Dir: Kinji Fukasaku Scr: Susumu Saji Cine: Ichirô Hoshijima Cast: Kôji Tsuruta, Tatsuo Umemiya, Mayumi Ozora, Hitomi Nakahara, Yuko Kuzunoki, Eitarô Ozawa, Tetsurô Tanba. A first-rate piece of Japanese film noir that’s become unaccountably obscu   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 28, 2019

***Each year since the death of its co-founder, Allan Fish, the movies-and-more website Wonders in the Dark mounts a short “online film festival”: in daily posts, different writers each talk about a movie that can be accessed for free online. Wonders in the Dark Welcome to this, the th   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 25, 2019

vt Walk in the Shadow UK / 88 minutes / bw / Saracen, Allied Film Makers, Rank Dir: Basil Dearden Pr: Michael Relph Scr: Janet Green, James McCormick Cine: Otto Heller Cast: Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan, Janet Munro, Paul Rogers, Malcolm Keen, Megs Jenkins, Michael Bryant, Leslie Sands, Norman Wo   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 23, 2019

One of the most ingenious and satisfying novels I’ve read in years, this plays with the tropes of the Golden Age Detection novel (murder during a weekend country house party in roughly the Gosford Park era) to produce something that’s arguably a meditation on the human condition . . . a   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 22, 2019

vt Haunting in Hollow Creek US / 116 minutes / color / Newfoundland, First Edge, FilmRise, Cinematic Dir & Pr: Guisela Moro Scr: Guisela Moro, Steve Daron Cine: Jon Schellenger Cast: Steve Daron, Guisela Moro, Dave Ausem, Tony Reichert, Alyn Darnay, Earleen Carey, Steve Alberts, Michael Varde, A   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 20, 2019

A double bill of two novellas from the immediate post-WWII years, both containing elements that are reflective of their time: in one it’s fairly central to the plot that a character is taking a long time to recover from a war wound, in the other that various central characters fled...   read more

Noirish Posted by John Grant on May 19, 2019

Juniper Song — generally called just Song — is a young single woman of Korean extraction living in LA and with a lifelong addiction to the works of Raymond Chandler, specifically the Marlowe novels. The opening few lines of this novel sold me on it, vibrant as they are with...   read more