crimeonfilm.com – crime films and TV, mostly film noir

Johnny Depp to Play Whitey Bulger After All

Whitey as the godfather. You’ve heard it all here before. So, Johnny Depp is going to take another shot at playing a famous gangster. The money was finally right, according to Deadline Hollywood. How do you think this one will stack up next to “The Departed,” the other Whitey picture that was made before he…
Horror Hotel: Don’t Drink the Water!

The Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles has been the scene of strange goings on. I t’s probably not overdoing it to say that the Cecil Hotel, recently rebranded as the Cecil Hotel Apartments, is one of L.A.’s spookiest buildings. At least two bona fide serial killers – “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez in 1985 and Jack…
Crime Writer Ripped Hitch for ‘Flabby Mass of Clichés’

Farley Granger and Robert Walker in ‘Strangers on a Train.’ Alfred Hitchcock at work. A number of celebrated writers have had tortured relationships with Hollywood. Take Raymond Chandler, the writer whose work is closely associated with Los Angeles (he detested the city), and whose crime fiction elevated the genre to an art form. Chandler…
The Booze, Blood and Bombs of ‘Boardwalk Empire’

Here’s a link to an article I wrote for Creative Screenwriting Magazine on “Boardwalk Empire” showrunner and former “Sopranos” writer and producer Terence Winter. We chatted about killing off cast members without mercy, growing up in Brooklyn — he once worked in mob boss Paul Castellano’s butcher shop, and “Boardwalk Empire” executive producer Martin Scorsese…
Leonard’s Page Turners Also Lit Up the Screen

Novelist Elmore Leonard created characters that were violent, frightening and hilarious, often all at the same time. The larger than life personalities in his books frequently made their way to the big screen. I’m mainly thinking about his gangsters, including Chili Palmer and Ray “Bones” Barboni (“Get Shorty”), and Ordell Robbie (“Jackie Brown”) to name…
Tarantino’s Twists and Turns Add Up Perfectly

Vincent, left, and Jules settle a score. Some may quibble with “Pulp Fiction”’s herky jerky storyline. It dodges back and forth from the past to the present without warning. The trouble is, at first it’s challenging to figure out exactly what is happening in the present and what took place in the past. You have…
It Took Two Directors to Tell the Murder, Inc. Story

Humphrey Bogart as Dist. Atty. Martin Ferguson “The Enforcer” is one of the lesser appreciated Bogart films, but it deserves more attention than it gets. Granted, it’s no “Maltese Falcon.” It would be a tall order equaling “Falcon” director John Huston’s artistry. But “Enforcer” directors Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh (uncredited) pull off an impressive…
British Invasion: Boorman Uncorks Psychedelic Noir

Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin and Carroll O’Connor in ‘Point Blank’ (1967). Why is L.A. the location of choice for so many crime films and stories about the dark side of life? Maybe it’s just because the bulk of all film production is done in Hollywood and it’s cheaper to shoot in your own backyard. But…
High Mass: Whitey Bulger, LSD and a Devil’s Deal

Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger? Yup, the actor who played Dillinger in “Public Enemies” is going to play another crime icon, and the movie is slated for release next year. More about that later. Dick Lehr, a former Boston Globe reporter and co-author of a new book about the life of James “Whitey” Bulger was…
This Scarface is in Chicago, Not Miami

Living dangerously, Tony Camonte muscles in on his boss’s girlfriend. “Scarface” (1932) is one of the seminal American gangster films of the 1930s, along with “Little Caesar,” “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Public Enemy.” Each one tells the story of a gangster’s rise in the bootlegging business and his assent to the top of a powerful…