Columbia Film Noir II

It’s a strange analogy but film noir on DVD has become something like an oasis in the desert lately. With the trickle of classic titles at an all-time low in R1, it’s film noir which has stirred the pot this summer. VCI brought out New York Confidential and Olive Films licensed Dark City plus the [...]

Gloria Grahame Day on TCM

Mark your calendars - Thursday August 13th on TCM is devoted entirely to Gloria Grahame as part of the channel’s “Summer Under the Stars” month. This gorgeous image was created to mark the occasion:

Naked Alibi

Among the actors and actresses most at home in film noir, the ideal teaming, as evidenced by the header on this site, would be Sterling Hayden and Gloria Grahame. He of the tall, strong, Scandinavian stock flecked with cool authority and she burning with a pouty sensuality that flashes a warning you won’t heed. When [...]

The Good Die Young

(There are a lot of spoilers here, more than I usually include.)
Late in Lewis Gilbert’s The Good Die Young, Miles “Rave” Ravenscourt, expertly played by Laurence Harvey, opines that the men of the film’s title perish in war while the surviving soldiers are, in my words, sort of like sediment shifting to the bottom of [...]

The Cobweb

I have seen the Technicolor light and it is good. The Cobweb, not so much. Let’s say it’s a bad film, a ridiculous film, even a hideously dangerous film. It’s still kind of fun and it still has an auburn-haired Gloria Grahame in a low-cut glamour dress, a darkly lit nightgown and a [...]

In a Lonely Place

I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.

I can’t even pretend to feign objectivity when discussing Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place. I think it’s one of the most exquisite, fascinating films to ever come from Hollywood. [...]

The Big Heat

Of all the director-actor-actress triumvirates that made at least two non-sequel pictures together, my personal favorite might be Fritz Lang’s two films with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame - The Big Heat and Human Desire, released in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Lang had pulled a similar trick before, teaming Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett [...]