He was interviewed by some writer/editor who clipped that and put it on Twitter, so that’s as much of the provenance that I can verify:
https://twitter.com/daveyjenkins/status/1470871077404479499?t=pfd6L0P2y0u3qIq29N6RTg&s=19
https://twitter.com/daveyjenkins/status/1470871412051267592?t=tpOyv7HNlh6waWS_j3iFUA&s=19
LWLies is a film magazine I’m not familiar with: Little White Lies.
Anybody familiar with this magazine?
It’s digital, but it looks like they added print versions through Amazon at some point.
With the recent remake of Nightmare Alley, it occurs to me that there are a lot of great film noirs that too often get overlooked. Here’s a few any fan of the genre should check out:
The Big Heat - Fritz Lang examines crime and corruption in the big city, with Glenn Ford as the Only Honest Cop. Also featuring Lee Marvin and a pot of hot coffee.
Detective Story - Kirk Douglas stars in this adaptation of the play, depicting a day in the life at one of NYC’s precinct houses. Think Barney Miller without the laughs.
Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) - Douglas again, this time directed by Billy Wilder. Too dark and cynical for Americans at the time, it was the biggest flop of both of their careers. Even more relevant today than when it was made.
Elevator to the Gallows - Louis Malle’s first film, and unusual for the genre in that the femme fatale seems to genuinely love and care for the doomed protagonist. Somewhat marred by an irrelevant sub-plot that take up way too much time, but still worth a watch.
D.O.A. (1950 and 1988) - Both are great noir films and center on a fatally poisoned man trying to figure out who poisoned him and why before he dies. Interestingly, although they share the same name and basic plot, they have totally different characters, scenes, and the solutions are different.
Is this just a place where we can throw in movies we like? Because you should watch The Glass Key, with Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd in an adaptation of a Dashiell Hammet novel.
Or how about Drive a Crooked Road, a thrilling story with fast cars, beautiful women and uhh, Mickey Rooney? A smaller movie at 83 minutes, but filled with noir goodness as a naive and lonely young man encounters a mysterious woman and gets mixed up in some shady dealings.
I had intended it to be a place where we could recommend lesser-known noirs, but it looks like the usual titles are springing up.
But Drive A Crooked Road sounds great - I’ll have to look for it.
That’s why I thought of Drive a Crooked Road, It really does seem lesser known. It’s in the first of four bundles of Columbia Pictures noirs. I didn’t watch any of the other ones, but I think they all fit the criteria.
Did you see the other noir thread?
Edit: What just happened? Why am I feeling dizzy?
It is kind of funny seeing Barbara Stanwyck as the femme fatale in Double Indemnity if you grew up watching her play the matriarch on Bonanza.
I think you’re a bit confused. She starred in the original Battlestar Galactica.
Looks like we’re both wrong! It was Big Valley I was thinking of. I don’t see any Battlestar Galactica credit on her IMDB page.
No, it was a joke. Lorne Green starred in Bonanza and went on to Galactica (aka Battlestar Ponderosa)
I asked a friend, who is my go-to source for all things noir, if he had ever seen Drive a Crooked Road, which he hadn’t. He did tell me of two others starring Rooney - Quicksand and Baby Face Nelson.
I just watched A Colt is My Passport, which was billed to me as noir, but I do not think it is. Rather, it is a western. However, it reminded me, through circuitous means, that Brother exists, and I would say it very much qualifies.
(grabs a relevant thread) Those looking to get their noir on can check out The Tourist, a 6-episode Australian miniseries on HBO Max.
The TLDR is: it’s Fargo the series down under.
The slightly longer version is: it’s Mr. Grey from 50 Shades of Gray, Dewey Crowe from Justified, and the woman who isn’t Sandra Bullock from Bird Box in a Coens-esque tale set in the outback about a guy with amnesia - yes really - who of course turns out to have been involved in a bunch of bad and convoluted things. It starts off a bit more traditional Hollywood than the Coens/Noah Hawley, so the leads are a little hotter, the quips a little quippier, and the plot a bit more straightforward. Though by the end things have gotten appropriately weird, quirks are abundant, bodies are everywhere, and while the last episode is all over the place, it all ends in an appropriately place. (Though your mileage of the ending will vary depending on your interpretation … and whether they end up doing another series with the surviving cast, as one character helpfully telegraphs for any network execs out there.)
Thanks for the bump of this thread which reminded me I watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle the other day, and I can highly recommend it.
Just caught Nightmare Alley on HBOMax last night.
Obviously a remake, but great cast and good script and Guillermo del Toro’s usual visual flair.
I, too, just caught Nightmare Alley, and Tom directed me to this thread for some noir recommendations. Let’s assume I haven’t seen anything, and have Netflix, HBO Max, and Kanopy or whatever else the library provides. What should I watch? As in, what would a crash course in noir from 19-whatever to today contain?
I skimmed the thread, and there’s a lot. Discourse didn’t offer to summarize the thread for me, either because it is also intimidated, or I missed that button.
Not wanting to leave it to my leaky memory, maybe a list like this would help? It’s in ranked order, rather than date of production.
Curiously enough, John Dahl’s excellent early 90’s Neo Noir’s aren’t on HBO Max, tho they originally aired on HBO, as I recall.
Red Rock West is on Peacock tho.
