USA

  • Leon Barsha – Convicted (1938)

    1931-1940CrimeDramaLeon BarshaUSA
    Convicted (1938)
    Convicted (1938)

    Convicted tells the story of a diligent detective named Burns (Quigley) who is forced to arrest Chick Wheeler (Edgar Edwards), brother of Burns’ sweetheart Jerry Wheeler (Hayworth), for murder. The more he thinks about it, the more Burns is convinced that Chick is innocent. With Jerry’s help, Burns tracks down the genuine miscreant in the nightclub where the heroine works.Read More »

  • Robert Aldrich – The Longest Yard (1974)

    Robert Aldrich1971-1980ComedyCrimeUSA
    The Longest Yard (1974)
    The Longest Yard (1974)

    Ex-football star Paul Crewe (Burt Reynolds) ends up in a prison run by sadistic sports-nut Warden Hazen (Eddie Albert). Strong-armed into forming an inmate football team, Crewe manages to instill an esprit de corps previously lacking in the prisoners’ lives. Besides, they now have the chance to beat the guards’ football team, headed by the hissable Capt. Knauer (Ed Lauter). Hazen orders Crewe to throw the match; otherwise, Crewe will never get the pardon he’s been promised. The football game that follows consumes nearly a third of the picture.Read More »

  • Barry Mahon – Sex Club International (1967)

    Barry Mahon1961-1970DramaEroticaUSA
    Sex Club International (1967)
    Sex Club International (1967)

    Plot: RUN SWINGER RUN tells the tale of young Laura who runs away from her mother’s boarding house and finds shelter with a weird pimp named Schneider. Soon she’s a high-priced call girl, living a life filled with diamonds and pearls, until she learns a terrible secret… SEX CLUBS INTERNATIONAL follows entrepreneur Carol Kane who, after setting up a lucrative sex service, has the mob muscle in with a scheme to blackmail her elite clientele.Read More »

  • Anatole Litvak – The Long Night (1947)

    Anatole Litvak1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsFilm NoirThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Shortly after a violent encounter with magician Maximilian (Vincent Price), Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) is shot by police. As he lies dying in his apartment, he reflects on his past. The flashbacks follow Joe as he falls in love with young Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes), who is also being courted by Maximilian. Jo Ann begins to favor the compassionate Joe over the possessive magician, and Maximilian heads to Joe’s apartment intending to kill him, resulting in a dramatic standoff.Read More »

  • Richard Tuggle & Clint Eastwood – Tightrope (1984)

    Clint Eastwood1981-1990CrimeDramaRichard TuggleUSA
    Tightrope (1984)
    Tightrope (1984)

    Quote:
    New Orleans single dad and cop Wes Block goes after a serial rapist-killer but when he gets too close to the target the hunter suddenly becomes the hunted.Read More »

  • Simon Nuchtern – The Girl Grabbers (1968)

    1961-1970CrimeExploitationSimon NuchternUSA
    The Girl Grabbers (1968)
    The Girl Grabbers (1968)

    Nick (JOHN SPENCE) is a suave denim-wearing young pimp who worries a lot about his hair. Louie (STEFAN PETERS) is a monosyllabic knife-wielding goof of undetermined sexuality (with his most noticeable physical feature being red, greasy, slug-like lips). Together they are The Girl Grabbers.

    As the opening titles roll, these two smirking hellions are wandering the streets of 1960’s Greenwich Village, knocking groceries out of the arms of women with big hairdos, and molesting butts — as Girl Grabbers everywhere are wont to do. Unsatisfied with such simple pranks, they hold the brazen midday robbery of Tania (LUDMILLA TCHOR), a very average-looking redhead with an awkward Euro-accent. Nick stuffing her panties in her mouth, then rolling around on top of her fully clothed while giggling like a retarded infant.Read More »

  • Cy Endfield – Try and Get Me AKA The Sound of Fury (1950)

    Cy Endfield1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsCrimeFilm NoirUSA

    Todd Wiener writes:
    In 1947, novelist and B-movie screenwriter Jo Pagano published his third novel titled The Condemned. The novel was based upon the 1933 kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart in San Jose, California, and the subsequent lynching of two suspects by a hysterical mob fueled by a frenzied media. Considered the only public lynching covered with such media scrutiny, The New York Times stated the event “was an outburst characterized by hysteria and ribaldry.” Pagano would adapt his novel into the screenplay The Sound of Fury (Fritz Lang’s film Fury (1936) is based on the same shocking event).Read More »

  • Robert Siodmak – Phantom Lady (1944)

    Robert Siodmak1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsDramaFilm NoirUSA

    Quote:
    Phantom Lady (1944) is one of the high points of ’40s film noir, the title alone evoking a potent mythology of this era. At the center of its narrative is the seemingly hopeless search for the title character who potentially serves as the only reliable witness in the murder trial for Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis), falsely accused of killing his wife. But the search is frustrated by Henderson’s inability to remember any details about the woman outside of a flamboyant hat she wore during the night they spent together, an unlikely memory lapse that only intensifies his apparent guilt. Furthermore, no one else who saw Henderson and the woman together will admit to the police that they had seen her.Read More »

  • Trinh T. Minh-ha – Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989)

    Trinh T. Minh-ha1981-1990DocumentaryEthnographic CinemaExperimentalUSA
    Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989)
    Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989)

    Vietnamese-born Trinh T. Minh-ha’s profoundly personal documentary explores the role of Vietnamese women historically and in contemporary society. Using dance, printed texts, folk poetry and the words and experiences of Vietnamese women in Vietnam—from both North and South—and the United States, Trinh’s film challenges official culture with the voices of women. A theoretically and formally complex work, Surname Viet Given Name Nam explores the difficulty of translation, and themes of dislocation and exile, critiquing both traditional society and life since the war.Read More »

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