Category: true crime
-
When Noir Got Into the True Crime Game — Docudramas: How True Were They?
Ted de Corsia, “The Naked City” (1948) — just one of the 8 million stories. By Paul Parcellin 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…
-
Ripped From the Headlines, Part III: True Stories About Dangerous Characters, Corrupt Officials and Gangs of Criminals Who Hold the Public at Bay
John Dall, Peggy Cummins, “Gun Crazy” (1950). By Paul Parcellin It only takes a couple of desperate, determined outsiders with a gun to start a crime wave. At times, a single perpetrator can do the work of two — or more. That’s what happens in several of the films based on true stories that make…
-
Ripped From the Headlines: True Crimes Explode onto the Screen in Noir Movies
Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944) By Paul Parcellin It’s no wonder that Hollywood in the 1940s and ’50s scooped up lurid true crime stories and made hard-hitting, gritty dramas out of them. Following the war, the public’s appetite for rough textured tales could not be surpassed. Cold, savage murders that bled off the…
-
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…
-
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…