The trouble I have with some B movies is not with the cinematography, the acting, the sets or the scenery. It’s the story. Not that many of these films don’t have great premises, but some of their stories lack the connective tissue that helps the viewer...

1946Directed by Charles VidorStarring:Rita Hayworth as GildaGlenn Ford as Johnny FarrellGeorge Macready as Ballin Mundson They say there’s a thin line between love and hate. You need to go along with this questionable adage as you watch Gilda. The story takes...

Take the perfect heist, add three flawed characters and you have a classic film noir. The heist: a small town bank, and $200,000 extra cash every Thursday night to cover the town’s Friday payroll. The bank workers stay late to balance the books. And every...

In film noir, you start with characters looking for the easy life. Whether it’s sex or money (and usually it’s both) they’re not willing to woo the girl or work the job. They believe that playing it straight is for suckers. Tomorrow is Another Day is...

If you were stranded on a desert island with only one noir movie—I know that’s a hard scenario to fathom—but if you had to pick just one, what would it be? My choice is John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle. It’s a caper flick told from six...

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I just finished re-reading Dashiell Hammett's classic,The Maltese Falcon. Because I've seen the movie dozens of times, I hear Bogart as Sam Spade and Mary Astor as Brigid O' Shaughnessy as I read the book. I hear the tremor in Mary Astor's voice, when as Brigid,...

Paramount is in a tizzy. It’s early in 1945 and Alan Ladd, their top earner, is headed back into the US Army in three months time and they’ve got nothing in the can. What is immediately needed is an Alan Ladd vehicle. Paramount settles on my hero, Raymond...

In 1954, ten years after Double Indemnity, Fred MacMurray stars once again as an honest guy lured into sin . Pushover is a morality tale: choose the indolent blonde (easy sex, easy money) or the working life with an industrious little brunette. The...

I love Raymond Chandler. Trouble is my business, too. And if Philip Marlowe was a real person, I’d do my best to make him my next husband—just kidding. Just not. Naturally, when I got word that a new/old Marlowe movie crawled up from the Out-of-Print, I...

The only man who can compete with Humphrey Bogart as  Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe is Dick Powell, an actor previously known for his roles in  1930s and 40s comedies and musicals. The name of the film is Murder My Sweet, an adaptation of...

Starring two of my favorite actors,  Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame,  In a Lonely Place is a story about Dix Steele, a screenwriter with a bad attitude and a volcanic temper. Turns out Dix is a World War II veteran which seems to be the root of his rage and...

Men have been blaming women for their own damn weaknesses for as long as they’ve been telling stories. A favorite scapegoat is the femme fatale, "deadly woman." Deadly has been luring men to their doom since Eve ate the apple and took the rap for humanity getting...

You’ve got a mobster, Mike Lagana, who owns half the police force and all of City Hall. He’s an oily individual until crossed and then he gets ugly. There’s his second-in-command, Vince Stone, played by Lee Marvin at his thuggy best. Our hero, Glenn Ford as Sgt....