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Badass B-movies

Details: Created: 20 July 2020; Published: 20 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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An Act of Murder, in which a very uncompromising and stubborn judge learns a tough, tough lesson about guilt and morals, is perhaps one of the most forward-thinking film noir offerings in that it comes from the point of view of a man who defends a very strict and outdated view of law and ...

Details: Created: 19 July 2020; Published: 19 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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...in which the Golden Age of Radio meets the Chiller Comedies of the 1940s. No wonder Haunted Honeymoon was a box office bomb, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be ignored. The film, with over-the-top characters and spooky atmospheres, is damn funny ...

Details: Created: 17 July 2020; Published: 17 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“Two gin slings . . . with ice.” With that famous line, Alan Ladd (Shane) as American pilot, Neale Gordon, begins to fall for Virginia Moore (Gail Russell, The Uninvited). He doesn’t want to, but he can’t help himself. Hell, one look at her engaging beauty and I would, too. Holy cow is she a looker ...

Details: Created: 16 July 2020; Published: 16 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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Okay, so A Bullet for Joey, directed by Lewis Allen (Appointment with Danger, The Perfect Marriage) and starring Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, doesn’t exactly fit so tidily into the whole film noir genre, but that doesn’t keep it from sharing certain elements of that cinematic world ...

Details: Created: 16 July 2020; Published: 16 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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From stunning, widescreen vistas in Colorado's Royal Gorge National Park to some deftly handled underwater scenes (filmed in Santa Monica, California), Big House, U.S.A. does not disappoint, going dark with the gruesome murder of a kid at the beginning ...

Details: Created: 15 July 2020; Published: 15 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“You don’t want to go out. You don’t want to go home. What do you want to do, Andie?” The pink, volcanic ensembles. The cast - Molly Ringwald, Harry Dean Stanton, Jon Cryer, Annie Potts, James Spader, and Andrew McCarthy - bringing their best acting to a BRILLIANT script ...

Details: Created: 14 July 2020; Published: 14 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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Classic film noir - with its emphasis on atmosphere and futility - simply doesn’t get any more claustrophobic than in Cornel Wilde’s directorial debut, Storm Fear. A classic thriller which has West (The Naked Prey) starring, producing, and directing ...

Details: Created: 14 July 2020; Published: 14 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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It begins, hilariously enough, with some fairly shitty-looking stock footage of glaciers sliding off into the sea. Big budget this Yeti flick is not. Relatively quickly, we are whisked away to a fishing trip that quickly gets ruined by a ...

Details: Created: 13 July 2020; Published: 13 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“You’ll eat my dinner or one of you walks out of here with a bullet in his head.” John Garfield, one of the original rebels in film cinema, is absolutely on fire in He Ran All The Way and, sitting right next to him, is Shelley Winters, a true partner in crime, as ...

Details: Created: 13 July 2020; Published: 13 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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The “witness” in this film noir title is Barbara Stanwyck. The murderer is George Sanders. I’m not spoiling anything for those who have never seen Witness to Murder. In fact, we see the murder happen in the very first scene as Stanwyck as Cheryl Draper looks out her apartment ...