REVIEW: Scarlet Street [1945]

So you won’t forget me. There’s a great horror concept within Fritz Lang‘s Scarlet Street. Unfortunately it’s pushed aside for a film noir that never quite gains traction. The problem as I see it stems from the fact that screenwriter Dudley Nichols tries to frame aging pushover Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) as a sympathetic character throughout—an unsuspecting victim in the making rather than the haunted figure he becomes at its end. The latter is his most interesting form, a desperate man with nowhere to turn as a voice from…

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REVIEW: House of Strangers [1949]

“The name we hope to live down” I never expected to be as entertained as I was after watching Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s very well-acted House of Strangers. It is a story of familial bonds and the blood, sweat, and tears that go into raising a family; how money and power can easily usurp the intrinsic necessity of love. Patriarch Gino Monetti (Edward G. Robinson in a fantastic role toeing the line of Italian caricature, but never going over) came to America with his wife and lived in a one-bedroom flat…

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REVIEW: Michael Jackson’s This Is It [2009]

“A little more booty” It’s hard to believe that Michael Jackson passed away just four months ago. I don’t say that because I miss the guy—honestly, he hadn’t been in my consciousness since all the child molestation hoopla made him more a joke that talent—but because the footage shot of rehearsals for what was to be his final curtain call tour has already been spliced together into a tribute documentary. Not to say that This Is It is a complete “cashing in” on his death, but one can’t look at…

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REVIEW: Double Indemnity [1944]

“Ten times twice as dangerous” What many call the ultimate film noir, the murder mystery that is spoiled at the start, setting the stage for a retelling by our protagonist of the perfect crime, is unraveled before our eyes. Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity revolves around an insurance fraud murder that appears foolproof until the seams start to tear. Walter Neff, the top salesman two months in a row, falls in love with the young wife of an oilman, a woman looking for a way to leave her troubled marriage. Who…

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REVIEW: The Stranger [1946]

“I watched them, here like God, looking at little ants” With a plot that contains a Nazi war criminal hiding out in New England with his past erased, playing the role of school teacher and marrying the judge’s daughter, all while being on the hunt by an Allied Commission man, you’d think some good things could happen. Then you see that it stars and is directed by Orson Welles … you can’t lose. Unfortunately, absolutes are too misleading because Welles proves here that he is not infallible. In a heavy-handed…

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