“‘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…”
“‘The Blue Gardenia’ occupies a curious space inside noir. In many ways, it acts as an indirect response to many of the films that preceded it, with their icy femmes fatales…”
“Lang’s film becomes a committed act of social justice advocacy, raging against its enforced limitation, and striving to break the formal apparatus that could often be employed to constrain Classic Hollywood cinema.”
“I can’t make any grand pronouncements or bold proclamations, except that I need to either learn to read program descriptions more critically or invest in a plane ticket to Montreal next July.”
“While Lang never fully embraced socialist principles over the course of his career, he always seemed to have a violent distaste for the men who stood on the shoulders of those who were less fortunate, knowing full well that social class does not correlate a strong moral conscious.”
“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.”
“It’s going to be a #NoirSummer, and hopefully some of the world’s filmmakers are paying attention to the simple yet effective methods of their predecessors.”