Welcome to BlogHub: the Best in Veteran and Emerging Classic Movie Blogs
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
You can rate and share your favorite classic movie posts here.
THE DELINQUENTS (1957)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Sep 5, 2009
Filmed on the cheap in his hometown of Kansas City, Robert Altman’s first full-length feature is Eisenhower-era drive-in fare on the perils drinking, dancing, and “going steady.” The film features a cast of unknowns (and amateurs) balanced with professional read more
99 RIVER STREET (1953) (2)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Aug 16, 2009
“The harder you’re hit, the harder you have to hit.”
Dig this: you’re a prizefighter in the heavyweight division — a real comer after more than sixty bouts, never once knocked down — and you finally get a shot at the greatest crown in sports. Going in read more
THE WEB (1947)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Aug 11, 2009
Look, Ella Raines is in it. Now go find it and watch it.
That’s not advice — it’s just how I tend to respond when I discover a new Raines picture. There are only about twenty or so out there, and I savor each one of them (well, maybe not Singing Guns). While as a Raines film noir, read more
SUSPENSE (1946)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Aug 2, 2009
On the one hand, if you are going to call your movie Suspense, try to make sure you’ve got some. On the other, unless you can imagine someone walking up to the box office and asking for a pair of tickets to “Turgid Potboiler,” Suspense ain’t so bad.
There are about a dozen s read more
KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS (1948)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 24, 2009
With such an evocative title, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands stood out like a beacon on my list of film noirs yet to be seen. With A-listers like Burt Lancaster and Joan Fontaine involved, I assumed it was locked up for legal reasons and would never be available for viewing. Thanks to the magic of boot read more
DARK CITY (1950)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 15, 2009
Charlton Heston makes his big screen splash in Dark City, a rather ambiguously titled film noir from Paramount. Heston’s familiar screen persona is firmly in place in his first studio picture; he comes over almost as fully-fledged as Moses or Ben Hur. He plays Danny Haley, who marched off to w read more
RED LIGHT (1949)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 9, 2009
God must love crime films, because in 1949’s Red Light he gets in on the action.
What a strange and fascinating film. To look at the posters — or maybe they should be referred to as ‘marketing pieces,’ one would think this was a hardboiled film noir with sexy Virginia Mayo p read more
CALCUTTA (1947)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 4, 2009
It’s easy to understand why the studio bosses at Paramount would pair Gail Russell with Alan Ladd in Calcutta. She seems to fit the same mold as Veronica Lake, with whom Ladd struck gold on numerous occasions — beautiful, reserved, demure, vulnerable, and so forth. Russell was only hampe read more
I, THE JURY (1953)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 3, 2009
Guys who get into a lot of fights, and win them, have a secret: Don’t hit a man in the jaw, or even on the nose. Hit him in the mouth, and hit him hard. People just have a thing about their teeth. If there’s a character anywhere in crime films that understands this, it’s Mike Hamme read more
NOIR RISING: JOSEPH LEWIS & BURNETT GUFFEY DOUBLE FEATURE
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jul 1, 2009
Just after the war director Joseph Lewis and cinematographer Burnett Guffey collaborated on two prototypical film noir pictures for Columbia’s B unit. Both My Name is Julia Ross and So Dark the Night are suspense thrillers set overseas. While neither is a full-fledged film noir, each film has read more
FOLLOW ME QUIETLY (1949)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 26, 2009
One of the troubling aspects of watching film noir pictures fifty to sixty years after their theatrical run is our tendency to overlook an important fact or two: the directors and producers of these films, often second features, weren’t aware of the scrutiny their work would eventually fall un read more
BEWITCHED (1945)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 17, 2009
Considering many viewers don’t seem to care for Bewitched, there’s a lot of ink floating around out there about this slick little second feature from MGM. I find myself in the minority, because I think it’s a gem. Make no mistake, in one important way (depending on your point of vi read more
GUILTY BYSTANDER (1950)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 15, 2009
One preliminary note: As someone who loves the posters for classic movies almost as much as the movies themselves (I’m a graphic design professor), I was punched in the gut by the poster for Guilty Bystander. The artist remains anonymous, but the work is magnificent. The poster has a more cont read more
MIAMI EXPOSÉ (1956)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 13, 2009
Sun drenched. By the mid 50s it seems that film noir had moved south in search of better weather. Despite the vacation locale, had Miami Exposé been shot just five years earlier, the result would have appeared darker, drearier, and smelled a little less like coconut oil. Times change and film style read more
WORLD FOR RANSOM (1954)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 12, 2009
World for Ransom is a clunker, but a fun one with a some upside. A youthful Robert Aldrich shot the thing in less than two weeks for next to nothing, which was no great accomplishment since the production implemented many of the physical assets of star Dan Duryea’s China Smith television serie read more
THE TURNING POINT (1952)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 9, 2009
Released in the same year as Robert Wise’s The Captive City, William Dieterle’s The Turning Point covers similar territory: The corrosive effect of the rackets on the post-war American way of life. The film’s primary mission was to deglamorize the mobster, to teach audiences that a read more
OUTRAGE (1950)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on Jun 6, 2009
It’s one thing to say that a film is a “product of its time.” I do this fairly often since I’m normally focused on “the time” as much as I am the film. One of the great things about classic movies is that contemporary viewers are able to immerse themselves in the read more
I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 26, 2009
In 1945 John E. Rankin, the long serving, bombastic, and racist congressman from Mississippi stated “one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this government has its headquarters in Hollywood … the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States. read more
THE STRIP (1951)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 22, 2009
An existential film noir musical? The Strip is one of those pictures that is more interesting for what is says about the values of its era than it is as a piece of entertainment, despite MGM production values and a big-time star. Billed as “MGM’s musical melodrama of the dancer and the read more
PLUNDER ROAD (1957)
Where Danger Lives Posted by Mark on May 19, 2009
I’ve wanted to write about Plunder Road, a film I hold in high esteem, for quite some time, but have shied away time and again because I’m unsure of how best to approach a movie I have great affection for. As someone who criticizes others’ artwork for a living I loathe back-pattin read more