Tightrope Walker: Dirk Bogarde’s Post-War Rebellion
“Rejection is the purest form of rebellion. Bogarde was never embraced by Hollywood in large part because ambivalence is not a bankable asset. He left too many questions unanswered.”
Crime Scene #10: ‘Key Largo’ and a Hurricane of Justice
“John Huston’s 1948 film ‘Key Largo’ is yet another classical Hollywood studio system film in which barely a single frame was shot on location.”
Crime Scene #8: ‘Detour’ – Nowheresville, USA
“‘Detour’ plays like a fever dream powered by guilt and dread; an existential noir about an American male lost in the nothingness and vastness of the country.”
The Light of Human Love and Community: On ‘Moontide’ and ‘Port of Shadows’
“‘Moontide’ and ‘Port of Shadows’ offer a fascinating study into key differences in Hollywood and European filmmaking and storytelling during the 1930s and early 1940s, a time when the studio system reigned supreme…”
Know the Cast: ‘Detour’
‘Detour’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every main performer and character in Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1945 film noir movie.
Intentionally Disposable Art: The Teen Agers Films
“What do we do with the Teen Agers movies, which were no more intended to be seen 75 years later than a dinner cooked in 1947 was intended to be eaten in 2021?”
Black Gold: Cinema, Wealth and Blackness
Brian Brems on ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, ‘Da 5 Bloods’ and ‘Trespass’
Lost: Akira Kurosawa Noir
“In Kurosawa’s noir films, characters struggle to move beyond loss — personal, financial and national — only to find that more loss awaits them.”
Have None, Will Travel: The Villainy of Economics in ‘Blood on the Moon’
“There’s a dark warning at the heart of ‘Blood on the Moon’ that still rings true today.”
The Gothic Splendour of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rebecca’
“Rebecca’s greatness stems from its faithful approach to the Gothic roots of du Maurier’s novel, foregrounding all of the most important themes like repression of the past and marriages full of conflict.”
Light in a Dark Room: The Legacy of ‘The Snake Pit’
“‘The Snake Pit’ became the first Hollywood film to address mental health in such a raw way, and set a standard for future films that similarly explore the topic.”
Why She Fights: On ‘So Proudly We Hail!’ and Female Camaraderie
“While a number of combat films released in 1943 focus almost exclusively on the male war effort, ‘So Proudly We Hail!’ finds nobility, heroism, anger, racism, sacrifice and camaraderie in its female characters.”
‘The Curse of the Cat People’: Val Lewton’s Groundbreaking Introduction of Childhood Fantasy
“Lewton’s insights into both childhood and adult inner personal conflicts are legacies which deserve recognition in the foundational history of horror, both for psychological thrillers and fantasy films.”
The Man Who Laughs: Richard Widmark’s Early Noirs
“Widmark offers a succession of performances in ‘Kiss of Death, ‘The Street with No Name’ and ‘Road House’ that show a young actor building, then resisting, and then reconciling his own burgeoning screen persona.”
Speaking Power to Truth: Roberto Rossellini’s ‘Paisan’
“Rossellini astonishingly blends the good and the bad into an imperfect merging of society in all its multiplicity of guises. Death, desolation and violence are as pervasive in the film as love and empathy.”
Narcissus’ Pink Mirror: On Fantasy and Queer Desire
“Fantasy exists to create a place of greater safety, a rejection of the real world in favour of one that allows for an open, unapologetic queerness.”
Man on Fire: ‘White Heat’ and the Dynamic James Cagney
“Cagney’s sadistic lead in ‘White Heat,’ a searing 1949 crime drama from director Raoul Walsh, is something well past the norms of a conventional male protagonist — or antagonist, for that matter.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘The Woman in the Window’ (Fritz Lang, 1944)
“The film has an unusually conservative vibe for a noir, maintaining that the status quo may be boring but criminality has nothing to offer — not even carnal thrills.”
Of Love and Other Demons: ‘Gilda’ (Charles Vidor, 1946)
“‘Gilda’ is one of the great examples of onscreen masochism.”