Tag: Poverty Row
-
In Noir, Life Insurance Appeals to Profit-Minded Killers
Few noir plots are as coldly logical as insurance murder. Unlike inheritance killings, which require wealth, insurance turns death into an accessible commodity. It democratizes murder. Movie gangsters who kill often say it’s strictly business, nothing personal. But with insurance fraudsters, it’s typically a family affair, and it’s always deeply personal. Here are some noirs…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…