Tag: William Bendix
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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…
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Crime tourists, Part I: Yanks behaving badly in foreign lands
Orson Welles, ‘The Third Man’ (1949). By Paul Parcellin Film noir loves morally sketchy locales — the kind of places where law and order is on life support and police can be manipulated like a vending machine. Like America’s Wild West, post-war Europe and Asia’s rubble strewn roadways were a magnet for drifters, bootleggers, grifters…