Last year I reviewed the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) starring James Stewart and Doris Day. I wasn’t in love with it, but Day was solid and the sweeping cinematography captivated me. During the recent TCM Classic Film Festival I was able to watch the original installment of Hitchcock’s kidnapping…
There’s a formula to film noirs, and while not strictly enforced there are particular elements one looks for – the morally ambiguous hero, interplay between light and shadow, an evil femme fatale. It is both this adherence to and divergence from convention that makes director Andre de Toth’s Pitfall so special. Recently released on a…
The Phantom of Crestwood is the equivalent of watching a radio serial play out on-screen. Maybe that’s because it was! As the film’s introduction states, the series was broadcast via radio with the final episode, solving the murder, revealed in the film. Call it deceptive or ingenious, The Phantom of Crestwood would attract just as…
Originally published December 15th, 2015 Maybe it’s the forced togetherness and spirit of brotherhood that makes the holidays so perfect for the noir genre. Whether it’s the glittery Hollywood pulp of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) or the nightclubs and trains in Lady on a Train, the subgenre of “Christmas noirs” are always funner and…
Twilight Time could never have predicted the recent passing of Omar Sharif, star of their latest Blu-ray release, The Night of the Generals. Directed by Anatole Litvak, this WWII murder mystery sees Sharif paired up again with Peter O’Toole, his co-star in Lawrence of Arabia (1962); both stars were contractually bound to make this, and…
Originally published August 15th, 2012 Finally back on track with a film review, this time getting prepped for Halloween a few months early (although I have a pretty awesome theme of Halloween movies for the blog). Today’s film is the 1934 Edgar G. Ulmer film The Black Cat which made my TCM Top Twelve…
Fallen Angel is certainly the perfect title for a film noir; the term, attributed to the ultimate fallen angel, Lucifer, immediately conjures up images of Hell, sin, and dark dames leading you astray. Those are all elements peripherally in Otto Preminger’s film, but screenwriter Harry Kleiner ends up taking a wrong turn into domestic drama…
