Tag: Vince Edwards
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The Suburban Jungle: When Noir Bled Out of the City
Many American films noir of the early 1940s were anchored to big cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York. So were a number of returning World War II GIs. As veterans reentered civilian life and began migrating away from urban centers to newly developing byways of suburbia, noir followed. Away from shadowy alleyways and…
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Dreams of a comfortable life in the suburbs can lead a man to murder
“I want to be a contractor,” announces Claude (Vince Edwards), a determined, 30ish guy in the middle of an unusual kind of job interview at the start of “Murder by Contract” (1958). The shot cuts to an abrupt closeup as he utters those words, emphasizing that this is a turning point in his life, the…