Author: pparcellin@gmail.com
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Dark Candy in Your Stocking: 25 Christmas Noirs
Sometimes you need relief from the hectic days that close out the year. From Thanksgiving ’til New Year’s Day we live with a sense of renewed optimism and anticipation as the new year approaches — well, some of us do, anyway. Chances are you’ll desire a break from the season of cheer, something to counter-balance…
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Amnesia Noir: 30 Films Worth Remembering
Total amnesia, the kind that wipes out memories like a damp sponge on a chalkboard, probably happens more often in movies and television than in real life. Rare as it may be, it’s a frequent problem in cinema — some call it the common cold of film noir. Movies about battle scarred GIs returning from…
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‘The Killers’: Nagging Questions In a Haze of Gunsmoke
In both versions, sports heroes have tragic downfalls and alluring women enter the picture to offer a helping hand — it doesn’t turn out well for the wounded competitors “The Killers” (1946) Robert Siodmak (director) — “The Killers” (1964) Don Siegel (director), The Criterion Collection, [Blu-ray] Why on earth would a man facing the barrel…
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Busted But Not Broken: Greylisted Actor Made Indy Noirs
Edward G. Robinson’s testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) resulted in his being shunned by the major studios. Instead, he appeared in independently produced Poverty Row films Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XVII [Vice Squad / Black Tuesday / Nightmare] [Blu-ray] He’s no matinee idol, but when Edward G. Robinson is…
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‘Moguls’: How the Schenck Brothers Helped Invent Hollywood While Building an Empire of Their Own
Book Review: ‘Moguls’ (2024), by Michael Benson and Craig Singer, Citadel Press The Schenck brothers, Joseph and Nicholas, stood among the most powerful executives of the 20th Century’s movie industry and played a key role in shaping the Hollywood that we know today. Yet their names are hardly hardly household words. With their engrossing new…
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Disenchantment reigns supreme in a ‘City that Never Sleeps’
A cloud of failure hangs over a handful of Chicagoans whose dreary lives are about to become a lot more dramatic. In “City That Never Sleeps” a would-be ballerina, reduced to dancing in a burlesque house; an out of work actor, his face painted silver, poses as a mechanical man in the burlesque theater’s front…
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When Noir Got Into the True Crime Game — Docudramas: How True Were They?
Maybe it was the rigors of World War II that whet the public’s appetite for true crime stories in the 1940s. Returning soldiers, who saw real blood and guts on the battlefield, were less than inspired by movies based on fictional stories, or so the legend goes. They wanted a realistic view of life that…
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Noir Must Be Shot in Black and White, Right? Guess Again
I can already hear the howls of protest over the idea that film noir can be in color, so those who insist that color is verboten in noir will probably want to sit this one out. We all know that noir is usually shot on black and white film, but the luscious hues of those…
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Feverish Dreams, Paranoia? It Must be a Cornell Woolrich Story
Kevin McCarthy, Gage Clarke, “Nightmare” (1956). When it comes to crafting stories of dread and entrapment, Cornell Woolrich stands out among his peers. His darkest work seethes with feverish, paranoid fantasies. Wrongly accused men, caged on death row or free and living under a stifling cloud of suspicion, are driven to prove their innocence. Visions…
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Peter Lorre’s First Starring Role Was a Hit — That Was the Problem
Renowned character actor Peter Lorre created many indelible roles in groundbreaking noirs, thrillers and films of other genres while achieving greatness in Hollywood. Since June 26th marks the 120th anniversary of his birth, this is a good time to look back at some of his remarkable performances from the 1930s onward. Born László Löwenstein in…