Your LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN Picture of the Day

My latest Obsession

I've decided to stick around in Dark Alley for my latest article on Libertas. It's a visual essay on the underrated Fritz Lang noir, HUMAN DESIRE (1954), starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford.

Check it out HERE.

Coleen Gray: A Haiku Quartet

This post is part of the For the Love of Film (Noir) Fundraiser Blogathon. Go HERE to donate.

She was the quintessential "good girl" of Film Noir. While the scheming, murderous bad girls of noir got all the attention, Gray was quietly lending her talents to some of the key films of the genre, including KISS OF DEATH, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, and THE KILLING.

In fact, her performance in NIGHTMARE ALLEY is essential to the film. In a role that could have come off as cloying and one-note, Gray imbues Molly with a conflicted conscience and a grounded genuineness that makes her character's goodness feel real. The realness of Molly's goodness makes Stan's descent into ruin that much more tragic.

Here's my haiku tribute to the wonderful Coleen Gray.

I.
Nice girl goes slumming.
Watch out for Tommy Udo,
Wheelchair assassin.

II.
Electra the Amazing,
Cited for indecent exposure.
Say a prayer for the Geek.

III.
Oh Leech Woman, your
John Wayne costar days are long
Gone! B-flicks pay bills.

IV.
Good Girl of Film Noir.
Such seedy stories. Who thought
She would find Jesus.

For the Love of Film (Noir)

It's been almost five days since the For the Love of Film (Noir) blogathon fundraiser started, and even though I contributed a post over at LFM, I just realized I haven't actually donated any MONEY to the cause.



Yeah, so I'm picking my jaw up off the floor and heading on over to donate.

And if you're reading this blog, then I'd suggest you go donate too. Click the neat-o image below to go to the donation page.



Just think, your donation (and mine) will go towards restoring THE SOUND OF FURY (aka TRY AND GET ME), a 1950 noir starring Lloyd Bridges and directed by Cy Endfield. That's worth shelling out a few clams for, I'd say. As it stands right now, the donations are behind this year compared to last, so our options are: Go heist an armored car for the dough, or DONATE more.

If you don't feel like donating, perhaps this guy (courtesy of Robert Siodmak's CRISS CROSS) will convince you:



I hate to threaten, but this IS a film noir fundraiser, so it seems appropriate.

Thanks to The Siren and Marilyn Ferdinand (and Greg Ferrara!) for putting this whole shebang together.

NIGHT AND THE CITY 12

NIGHT AND THE CITY 11

NIGHT AND THE CITY 10

NIGHT AND THE CITY 9

NIGHT AND THE CITY 8

NIGHT AND THE CITY 7

NIGHT AND THE CITY 6

NIGHT AND THE CITY 5

NIGHT AND THE CITY 4

NIGHT AND THE CITY 3

NIGHT AND THE CITY 2

NIGHT AND THE CITY 1

The Derelict Goes to Dark Street: GUN CRAZY (Joseph H Lewis, 1950)

This week's "Dark Street" feature is GUN CRAZY!

This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (Edward A Blatt, 1944)

In honor of John Garfield's birthday, TCM is running his movies all day Thursday, March 4th.

As far as I'm concerned, any movie with John Garfield is worth watching. But the one I'm most looking forward to is an underrated gem of a movie that really affected me the first time I saw it and it continues to move me each time I've seen it since.

It's BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, playing on Thursday, March 4, on TCM at 3:30 PM EST. It's a strange sort of film that is part angsty-doomed romance, part metaphysical morality play, and part film blanc with a dash of film noir. It's about a group of passengers on an eerie ocean steam ship who think they are traveling across the Atlantic from war-torn Britain to America. But where they're really headed is the eternal destination, either Heaven or Hell. These folks are dead and they're all passengers on the ship "between two worlds," the in-between ship that traverses the divide between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It's the ship that sails an ocean limbo, shrouded in mist, somewhere between life and afterlife.

This Week's Classic Cinema Obsession: MOONRISE (Frank Borzage, 1948)

This week's obsession is a movie I haven't seen. Yet.

It's MOONRISE (Frank Borzage, 1948) and it's playing Wednesday night at 10:00 PM EST on TCM and I cannot wait.

It's one of those movies that cinephiles and in-the-know types are hep to but it's not available on DVD and it wasn't a big hit at the time of its initial release in 1948. In other words, we're talking cult status, forgotten masterpiece stuff. I've never seen it and I'm dying to catch a glimpse.

MOONRISE falls into a sub-genre of noir that I think is best described as "Romance Noir" (NORA PRENTISS is another example of the type, which I briefly reviewed here).

Lyrical romance with a side dish of psychological melodrama is the order of the day in the rundown diner of Romance Noir. Sure, there's murder and violence in these types of films, but the real pulse of Romance Noir is found, of course, in the love story. That's one of the reason's I'm excited to watch MOONRISE -- I want to get lost in the love story, a love story with a dark noir-ish sensibility, all shadows, forbidden love, a little masochism, the kind that hurts so good, etc. etc., all that angsty wounded-hearts film noir suffering....

"But remember," the Romance Noir seems to be saying, "love never fails, love might even save, there might be a light at the end of that long, dark, black-hearted tunnel, there might be redemption in the arms of someone you love...." I have a feeling this is where MOONRISE is coming from and if I'm right, it's gonna be good. Count me in.