Author: pparcellin@gmail.com
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When Noir Made the Leap From Theaters to Television
The first time I saw a film noir I didn’t know what I was watching. Sure, I could tell that it was a crime film, a detective story, a mystery, but no one I knew called those movies “film noir.” The term was not widely used back then, except by French critics, vintage film fans…
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Murderous Couples: ‘Body Heat,’ vs. ‘Double Indemnity’
After I moved to L.A. in 2008 I got together with a Meetup group that was going to see a screening of “Double Indemnity” (1944) at the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood. I was chomping at the bit in anticipation of watching one of my all-time favorite films with a group of cinema enthusiasts. I pictured…
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When bargain basement noir thrived in Hollywood
I’m on a Poverty Row tear these days. As you probably know, many of the films made there aren’t quite as polished as the gems turned out by Paramount, Warner Brothers or 20th Century Fox. But they have a certain something that the big budget movies lack: a rag-tag, rough around the edges quality that…
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Alton and Mann Threw a New Light on Film Noir
Silhouettes, fog, great pools of inky blackness — that’s a king-sized portion of the visual drama in store when viewing films made by both the ace of noir lighting, John Alton, and the master of dramatic action, Anthony Mann. With his supremely choreographed action scenes, Mann could be directing silent pictures, and that’s not a…
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How Three John Alton Films Set a Tantalizing Noir Mood
As legend has it, in the summer of 1923 a 21-year-old John Alton and four friends drove across the country to Los Angeles. They parked in front of the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Blvd., and in the lobby a Gypsy fortune teller read their palms. Alton’s pals, she said, would seek their fortunes elsewhere, but…
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Poverty Row II: Scheming Communists Walk Among Us
Like many up and coming Hollywood actors, Hugh Beaumont appeared in noir B-pictures before he became better known as an all-American TV dad, and he played some pretty despicable characters, too. But more about that later. From the 1920s to the 1950s, scads of B-pictures were produced by small studios located near the intersection of…
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When Hollywood’s B-Movie Factories Mined Noir Gold
So many westerns were filmed at the small, independently owned studios near the intersection of Sunset Blvd. and Gower St. in Hollywood that people began calling it Gower Gulch. From the 1930s to the ’50s it was the epicenter of low-rent film production and the gaggle of studios there was disparagingly known as Poverty Row.…
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Lovesick Wanderer Returns … to a Double Cross
The magnetic attraction between Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) and Anna (Yvonne DeCarlo) is the stuff that drives “Criss Cross” toward its dramatic and deadly conclusion. Steve returns to town after two year’s absence and the first thing on his mind is rekindling their romance. In fact, it’s probably the only reason that he returned. As…
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More Than Just a Gunsel: Elisha Cook Jr. Was the Face of Noir
When he died in 1995 at the age of 91, Elisha Cook Jr. was the last surviving cast memberof John Huston’s 1941 film noir classic “The Maltese Falcon,” whose players included Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Mary Astor. While his was a supporting role, Cook left an indelible impression that remains intact more…
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When Mitchum’s Jail Time Cemented His Bad Boy Image
A lot of red flags should go up when Dr. Jeff Cameron (Robert Mitchum) meets Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue). But she’s a real dish and this is noir, so naturally he ignores the many warning signposts screaming at him that he’s about to drive over a cliff. Margo is an emergency room case whom Jeff…