Tag: Dana Andrews

REVIEW: Ball of Fire [1941]

Jared Mobarak

“Don’t tell me the jive session has beat off without baby!” With the likes of His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, and Bringing Up Baby, it may seem odd that my first foray into Howard Hawks‘ oeuvre would be the screwball comedy Ball of Fire. Considering I’m criminally behind on catching up with the cinematic 40s and 50s, it is. Co-conceived and -scripted by Billy Wilder, this hyper-real world contains more than just a passing similarity to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Between mentioning the Disney film…

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REVIEW: While the City Sleeps [1956]

Jared Mobarak

“Ask Mother” It may be difficult to accurately critique Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps since the conversation afterwards amongst friends pretty much tore apart any credibility the film had. What, upon completion, felt to me as a pretty solid film noir despite its schizophrenic story threads and tone soon saw its worth decreased with every nitpicked plothole we stumbled upon. From surreal moments of absurdity, to insanely coincidental occurrences, to bafflingly glossed-over events, to poorly written characters, the movie is more a comedy of errors than a taut suspense…

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