4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 14, 2019

Joseph L. Mankiewicz will always hold the prestige of a writer over a director and yet working off a script by Phillip Yordan, he guides the picture with an assured hand. House of Strangers manages to be intermittently stylish and deeply evocative highlighted by fiery performances. Ironically, it b   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 12, 2019

What Delmer Daves has gathered together is an oddly compelling mix of rural drama with undertones of horror somehow merged into what we might be able to pass off as a strain of noir. What I find particularly intriguing is not so much the mysterious Red House at the core...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 10, 2019

Scarlet Street is an obvious reunion picture bringing together Fritz Lang, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennet and Dan Duryea among others from the prior year. Dudley Nichols’ story, while taking elements from La Chienne, which had already been made into a film by French master Jean Renoir in 193   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 8, 2019

This is my entry in the 2019 Reel Infatuation Blogathon hosted by Silvering Screenings and Font and Frock. Minor spoilers for Captain America follow… Let’s just get this out of the way. It’s the last thing I want to do to rehash The Avengers because my most appreciative remark abo   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 6, 2019

World War II gave rise to a whole cottage industry of war films during the conflict and for generations to come. There are, of course, so many facets of the war to explore whether it’s Europe, The Pacific, North Africa, and any number of elements. However, something that always fascinated me w   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 5, 2019

The first time I ever saw The Woman in The Window it always struck me as odd. Here was the fellow who was known as a gangster through and through and yet he was playing a bookish professor buried in his work and obsessed about psychoanalytic theory. His idea for...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 4, 2019

“Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven” – John Milton in Paradise Lost Though some noir film layered in London fog is probably up for contention, otherwise, there’s arguably no movie murkier than this atmospheric sea-faring delight from Michael Curtiz. But what puts i   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 3, 2019

The production itself was fraught with some turbulence thanks to the contentious relationship between Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson. The latter actor was irritated how his costar was constantly trying to increase her part and keep him off balance with frequent dialogue changes. Regardless,   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on June 2, 2019

When I was a kid we had an old VHS of Bugs Bunny shorts and one of the caricatures in a gangster-themed storyline — although I didn’t know it at the time — was undoubtedly Edward G. Robinson. That voice. That mug. That smug self-assuredness. They’re inimitable. Even then I...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 31, 2019

It’s not exactly The Godfather but in its opening monologue, using the awkward tween, like-laden mouthpiece of Kayla, Bo Burnham re-exerts his creative voice on the media landscape. What is more, in a world becoming continually more obsessed with relevance, shareability, and trends, Eighth Gra   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 29, 2019

Executive Suite is a story of the high rise corporate jungle where on a daily basis it’s a Darwinian experiment not only pitting company against company but, on a microscale, man against man. After all, in the most cynical sense, that’s what free market capitalism is. Top to bottom, the   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 26, 2019

I grew up with Hogan’s Heroes reruns on our Magnavox analog television. In fact, at one point it was my favorite show because it had such a colorful cast, it was perennially entertaining and utterly goofy to the extreme. But others have understandably decried the show because they see it find   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 23, 2019

There is arguably no director who is, in retrospect, more important to the film movement that became classified as film noir than German emigre Robert Siodmak. His name isn’t quite as well known as the Billy Wilders or Fritz Langs necessarily but one can contend his influence on this style...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 22, 2019

Helen Ferguson (Barbara Stanwyck) is slighted by her slimy boyfriend who ditches her for a blonde and the only thing he offers her in return is a train ticket out of town. What can she do but take it dejectedly with barely any money, 8-months pregnant, without any future at all? She’s in...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 21, 2019

“In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives…It is the servant of our common needs — the confidante of our inmost secrets…life and happiness wait upon its ring…and horror…and loneliness…and…death!!   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 20, 2019

“See you in 1960. Maybe you’ll be someone by then. ” ~ Barbara Stanwyck  At the Academy Awards in 1978, Bill Holden took a momentary aside to thank his co-presenter, Barbara Stanwyck, for her encouragement and support in helping to forge his career in its nascent stages. That pict   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 18, 2019

I’m not sure why but like Tommy Udo, the name Harry Fabian always stays with me when I think of Richard Widmark. One is the apex of sadistic evil and the other an archetypical noir hero met with utter calamity. It’s true that for those who know a bit of the oeuvre...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 17, 2019

Just a day ago a whole slew of individuals shared their 5 Favorite Films of the 1950s for National Classic Movie Day. Thank you again to The Film & TV Cafe for spearheading that quality endeavor! In retrospect, I realized all my choices were really “A Pictures,” which were difficult   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 16, 2019

Thank you Classic Film & TV Cafe for hosting this Blogathon! Though it’s tantamount to utter absurdity to try and whittle all my personal favorites of the decade down to five choices (I might cheat a little), this is part of the fun of such lists, isn’t it? Each one is highly...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on May 15, 2019

There’s something intriguing about the opening titles of Where The Sidewalk Ends thanks to a stripped-down quality ditching a conventional score for whistling and recognizable street noise as the credits come painted on the sidewalk. Feet trample over the names in the picture and we get a ver   read more