4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 4, 2024

It’s a Gift is built out of the framework of the domestic lifestyle. This is where it gets its comedy. Take for exhibit A an early sequence. Harold Bissonette (pronounced bis-on-ay) tries to shave with a straight edge despite the interference of his daughter. It leads him to resort to...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on January 2, 2024

“All the women here are named Angela. And all the men are named George.” “Why?” “Why not?” – Jack Okey and Susan Fleming This kind of laissez-faire, anything-goes mentality is one of the obvious strengths of Million Dollar Legs‘ comic tableau. There n   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 24, 2023

Bill Forsyth is a director who has flown under my radar, and yet only after a week’s time and a handful of films, he’s quietly become a new favorite. Now I heartily understand why he’s one of Scotland’s most beloved directors. Part of his appeal is because he wrote and...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 30, 2023

On even a cursory level Touch of Evil has all the ready hallmarks of Orson Welles the auteur. Working in tandem with veteran Universal cinematographer Russell Metty (they had collaborated before on The Stranger), they develop the director’s preferred mise en scene from claustrophobic dutch ang   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 28, 2023

Mr. Arkadin (also known as Confidential Report) has the abundance of canted angles and striking visual flourishes one usually attributes to the films of Orson Welles. It also boasts his ever more disorienting sense of space and shot-reverse-shot even as the international cast, financing, and locale   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 25, 2023

The Clay Pigeon is a film that I have spent several years trying to track down, and I’ve finally been able to see it. From the outside, it feels like fairly run-of-the-mill post-war noir fare. It’s directed by an up-and-coming workhorse in Richard Fleischer and stars real-life couple Ba   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 22, 2023

Recently some coworkers were waxing about what they would do if they won the power ball. How they would spend the money, where they would go, and also the drawbacks that come in the wake of what seems like a purely golden opportunity. I’ve never much thought about it, but...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 15, 2023

Although it’s not a highly touted picture, Stranger on The Third Floor feels like an important enough footnote to aficionados of film noir because it embodies a few of the earliest definable features of the movement. It’s not an entirely new concept per se, but it feels like it’s r   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 10, 2023

If you wanted to string together a noir cast with the quintessential mélange of rogues who never quite made it to bona fide A-lister status, Crashout more than fits the bill. It’s a different kind of mission movie for a different kind of mission and a different brand of protagonist....   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 8, 2023

There’s some instant shorthand at play as the titular woman takes a bus into town to set down some roots for awhile. It’s apropos given the salacious title and the opening ballad looking to capitalize on the first impression. Beverly Michaels steps into view and does the rest, more than   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 6, 2023

The film opens when a little black girl named Carolyn tumbles into a well buried beneath some weeds. There’s a melodramatic handling of the material, but already we see something rather uncommon with the period noir. Normally black characters live on the periphery of film noir if they exist a   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 3, 2023

In a movie like 711 Ocean Drive, Edmond O’Brien proved himself capable of being a cad over the course of his performance. With Shield for Murder, there’s no buildup or pretense. He establishes himself as a stone-cold killer right from the outset before we even get a peek at the...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 1, 2023

It serves the filmmakers to begin with an opening crawl about how organized crime tried to halt production of the movie, and they would have succeeded too if not for the bravery of the police on set. Whether or not it’s true, it plays as easy publicity for the film...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on October 27, 2023

We just lost Robbie Robertson and being an avid fan of The Band, I was genuinely affected by the loss. The relationship between Martin Scorsese and Robertson is hardly a secret from The Last Waltz to their many film score collaborations, but Robertson also has Native American heritage through his...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on October 6, 2023

Gigi (1958) Lerner & Loewe’s adaptation of Colette’s Gigi is a picture accentuating the France of Hollywood’s most opulent dreams and confections frequented by the consummate French people of the movies: Maurice Chevalier, Leslie Caron, and Louis Jordan. Whether it’s Ern   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on October 4, 2023

If Royal Wedding started off the decade with the auspicious coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, then The Reluctant Debutante depicts another cultural milestone in its own right: the last “Season” before the newly-instated Queen decided to officially disband the social tradition. There&#82   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on October 2, 2023

The 1950s saw director Vincente Minnelli continually evolving from mostly musicals — a pleasing genre he never totally forsook — into a period of his career ripe with luscious Metrocolor dramas. Movies such as Tea and Sympathy, Some Came Running, and Home from the Hill, don’t get   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 29, 2023

“I don’t care about being respected. I’m trying to live as a true Christian.” – Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh It seems the world over has remained transfixed by the life of Vincent Van Gogh, which is rather ironic since he failed to gain much traction in his own lifetime....   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 27, 2023

I have fond memories of traipsing across the Old Course in St. Andrews and attending the Military Tattoo near the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. There’s something untamed about that landscape remaining austere and beautiful, perfectly suited for tartans, bellowing bagpipes, and the rat-ta-tat of dr   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on September 25, 2023

Undercurrent hardly holds a substantial place in any noir conversations partially because Vincente Minnelli’s reputation in part seems antithetical to the dark style born out of chiaroscuro and German Expressionism. His background was squarely in luscious art design and stage productions. Lik   read more