Hungry for those wet Parisian streets, the city lights, and cadavres en lambeaux in the pale moonlight? Enter three highly atmospheric, star-studded Crime Noirs, one of which is a stealth classic of Gallic Pulp. Stars Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, and Annie Girardot bring the tales of à sang froid malice and mayhem to life. The films featured are Gilles Grangier’s Speaking of Murder (Le rouge est mis) and Édouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur) and Witness in the City (Un Témoin dans la ville). Beware of French husbands when cucklolded — they show no pity. Bonne chance, victimes!
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
French Noir Collection
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957-59 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 265 minutes / Street Date November 29, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95
Starring: Jean Gabin, Jeanne Moreau, Lino Ventura, Marcel Bozzuffi, Gérard Oury, Sandra Milo, Annie Girardot, Paul Frankeur,...
- 11/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Paul Wendkos directed this 1957 noir from the screenplay (and book) by David Goodis, the writer responsible for Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player. Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield are a duo of unlikely jewel thieves and Martha Vickers, the problem child of Bogart’s The Big Sleep, is still a beautiful fly in the ointment.
The post The Burglar appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Burglar appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 4/4/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
French director Jean-Jacques Beineix, who made waves with stylish works of 1980s cinema including “Diva” and “Betty Blue,” died Thursday at 75.
He died at home in Paris after a long illness, his brother told Le Monde.
Beineix started out as an assistant director to filmmakers including Claude Berri, Rene Clement and Jerry Lewis. After making a short film, he made his feature debut in 1981 with “Diva,” which won the Cesar for best first feature and three more Cesar awards. The story revolves around a young postman infatuated with an American opera singer who gets caught up in an international intrigue when he tries to make a bootleg recording of her performance.
The thriller was one of the most successful French films to play internationally in the 1980s. It ushered in a new style of filmmaking that melded auteur and genre elements, and Luc Besson and Leos Carax also made films...
He died at home in Paris after a long illness, his brother told Le Monde.
Beineix started out as an assistant director to filmmakers including Claude Berri, Rene Clement and Jerry Lewis. After making a short film, he made his feature debut in 1981 with “Diva,” which won the Cesar for best first feature and three more Cesar awards. The story revolves around a young postman infatuated with an American opera singer who gets caught up in an international intrigue when he tries to make a bootleg recording of her performance.
The thriller was one of the most successful French films to play internationally in the 1980s. It ushered in a new style of filmmaking that melded auteur and genre elements, and Luc Besson and Leos Carax also made films...
- 1/14/2022
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Actor David Morse joins Josh and Joe to talk about his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Slaughter Rule (2002)
Dancer In The Dark (2000)
A History Of Violence (2005)
The Indian Runner (1991)
Inside Moves (1980) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Death Wish (1974) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary
The Virtuoso (2021)
The Crossing Guard (1995)
Prototype (1983)
Cry in the Wild: The Taking of Peggy Ann (1991)
Seven Beauties (1975)
Swept Away (1974)
Mimic (1997)
Hannibal (2001)
Mean Streets (1973)
Taxi Driver (1976) – Rod Lurie’s trailer commentary
The Godfather Part II (1974) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary
Being There (1979) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary
The Ghost of Peter Sellers (2018)
A Shot In The Dark (1964) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary
Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Papillon (1973)
Straight Time (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Straw Dogs (1971) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Wait Until Dark (1967) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Catch 22 (1970) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Desperate Hours (1990)
The Bounty...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Slaughter Rule (2002)
Dancer In The Dark (2000)
A History Of Violence (2005)
The Indian Runner (1991)
Inside Moves (1980) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Death Wish (1974) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary
The Virtuoso (2021)
The Crossing Guard (1995)
Prototype (1983)
Cry in the Wild: The Taking of Peggy Ann (1991)
Seven Beauties (1975)
Swept Away (1974)
Mimic (1997)
Hannibal (2001)
Mean Streets (1973)
Taxi Driver (1976) – Rod Lurie’s trailer commentary
The Godfather Part II (1974) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary
Being There (1979) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary
The Ghost of Peter Sellers (2018)
A Shot In The Dark (1964) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary
Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Papillon (1973)
Straight Time (1978) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Straw Dogs (1971) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Wait Until Dark (1967) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review
Catch 22 (1970) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Desperate Hours (1990)
The Bounty...
- 5/18/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Director René Clément brings an entertainingly eccentric David Goodis crime story to the screen in high style. A big score is being prepped by an odd gang, played by a terrific lineup of talent: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari and the elusive Tisa Farrow. Only partly an action thriller, this one is weird but good — lovers of hardboiled crime stories can’t go wrong. Studiocanal has restored the original version, a full forty minutes longer than what was briefly shown here.
And Hope to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Film Editor: Roger Dwyre
Original Music: Francis Lai
Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...
And Hope to Die
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1972 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / La course du lièvre à travers les champs / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Lea Massari, Tisa Farrow, Jean Gaven, André Lawrence, Nadine Nabokov, Jean Coutu, Daniel Breton, Emmanuelle Béart.
Cinematography: Edmond Richard
Film Editor: Roger Dwyre
Original Music: Francis Lai
Written by Sébastien Japrisot from...
- 1/12/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The director of Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies, Pearl Jam’s Jeremy and many more reflects on his career and some of the movies that made him.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Arlington Road (1999)
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Firewall (2006)
The Orphanage (2007)
Nostalgia (2018)
Avatar (2009)
Titanic (1997)
Chef (2014)
The Laundromat (2019)
Honeymoon In Vegas (1992)
Demonlover (2003)
Under The Sand (2000)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Under The Skin (2013)
The Great Beauty (2013)
Slap Shot (1977)
Network (1976)
Straw Dogs (1971)
The Pawnbroker (1964)
Star Wars (1977)
The Exorcist (1973)
Jaws (1975)
The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)
All The President’s Men (1976)
Liquid Sky (1982)
The Brother From Another Planet (1984)
City Of Hope (1991)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Snowpiercer (2013)
The Flintstones (1994)
Matinee (1993)
Batman (1989)
Transformers (2007)
A History Of Violence (2005)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Psycho (1960)
Psycho (1998)
Mandy (2018)
Phantom Thread (2017)
Magnolia (1999)
Boogie Nights (1997)
The Master (2012)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
The Mustang (2019)
Inherent Vice (2014)
The New World (2005)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
The Last Word (2017)
Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
The Burglar (1957)
What Lies Beneath...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Arlington Road (1999)
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
Firewall (2006)
The Orphanage (2007)
Nostalgia (2018)
Avatar (2009)
Titanic (1997)
Chef (2014)
The Laundromat (2019)
Honeymoon In Vegas (1992)
Demonlover (2003)
Under The Sand (2000)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Under The Skin (2013)
The Great Beauty (2013)
Slap Shot (1977)
Network (1976)
Straw Dogs (1971)
The Pawnbroker (1964)
Star Wars (1977)
The Exorcist (1973)
Jaws (1975)
The World’s Greatest Athlete (1973)
All The President’s Men (1976)
Liquid Sky (1982)
The Brother From Another Planet (1984)
City Of Hope (1991)
Stop Making Sense (1984)
Snowpiercer (2013)
The Flintstones (1994)
Matinee (1993)
Batman (1989)
Transformers (2007)
A History Of Violence (2005)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Psycho (1960)
Psycho (1998)
Mandy (2018)
Phantom Thread (2017)
Magnolia (1999)
Boogie Nights (1997)
The Master (2012)
There Will Be Blood (2007)
The Mustang (2019)
Inherent Vice (2014)
The New World (2005)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
The Last Word (2017)
Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
The Burglar (1957)
What Lies Beneath...
- 4/21/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
TV stalwart Paul Wendkos' biggest success in movies was as the director of the Gidget series. I'm Scottish so I don't know what that was. But it turns out he had a real gift for expressionistic noir, as demonstrated in his debut film The Burglar, which was scripted by pulp noir icon David Goodis, whose novels provided source material for Delmer Daves' Dark Passage, Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall, Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, René Clément's And Hope to Die, Beineix's Moon in the Gutter (the author was big in France) and Sam Fuller's Street of No Return.The movie, a low-budget affair, substitutes flair and vigor for production values, and stars lifelong noir patsy/creep Dan Duryea and up-and-coming sex bomb Jayne Mansfield, with the result that it always seems to be in the wrong aspect ratio. Duryea's cranium seems to have an extra story built...
- 11/8/2016
- MUBI
Kirsten Howard Oct 18, 2016
As we approach the 10th anniversary of The Lost Room, we reminisce about the series with co-creator Christopher Leone...
Many people pine for the one that got away. For a swathe of science fiction fans, their great lost love is Joss Whedon’s space western show Firefly, but for a few of us there was also another sci-fi show cruelly cut off in its prime after just a few great episodes in the 00s – and that show is The Lost Room.
See related Arrow season 5 exclusive: Kevin Smith talks Onomatopoeia Arrow season 4 episode 23 review: Schism Legends Of Tomorrow: exploring season 1’s cliffhanger ending Supergirl: Melissa Benoist talks season 1 cliffhanger, impending crossovers
I didn’t have access to SyFy (which was still going by Sci-Fi Channel back then) when The Lost Room aired, so I missed it. Turns out I wasn’t the only one -...
As we approach the 10th anniversary of The Lost Room, we reminisce about the series with co-creator Christopher Leone...
Many people pine for the one that got away. For a swathe of science fiction fans, their great lost love is Joss Whedon’s space western show Firefly, but for a few of us there was also another sci-fi show cruelly cut off in its prime after just a few great episodes in the 00s – and that show is The Lost Room.
See related Arrow season 5 exclusive: Kevin Smith talks Onomatopoeia Arrow season 4 episode 23 review: Schism Legends Of Tomorrow: exploring season 1’s cliffhanger ending Supergirl: Melissa Benoist talks season 1 cliffhanger, impending crossovers
I didn’t have access to SyFy (which was still going by Sci-Fi Channel back then) when The Lost Room aired, so I missed it. Turns out I wasn’t the only one -...
- 10/17/2016
- Den of Geek
Bogie's back and Bacall's got him! Or, at least she's got his voice, and a bundle of bandages. A David Goodis hardboiled crime tale becomes an absurd pile of coincidences and accidental relationships, all wrapped up (literally) in a giant plastic-surgery gimmick. Bogart and his new bride Bacall are charming, but there's a show -stealer at large: the great Agnes Moorehead plays the most entertainingly horrible harpy in film history. Dark Passage Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 106 min. / Street Date May 17, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 16.59 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead, Bruce Bennett, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Douglas Kennedy, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson Cinematography Sid Hickox Art Direction Charles H. Clarke Film Editor David Weisbart Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Delmer Daves from a novel by David Goodis Produced by Jerry Wald, Jack L. Warner Directed by Delmer Daves
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Dark Passage...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Dark Passage...
- 5/28/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Austin Film Society's "French Noir" series continues tonight with a Free Member Friday screening at The Marchesa of Henri Verneuil's The Burglars, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Omar Sharif, and Dyan Cannon. Based on the pulp novel by David Goodis, tonight's digital screening is free for all Afs members, and the movie will also screen on Sunday afternoon at The Marchesa.
Monday night, SXSW alumni Above All Else (Don's review) is presented by The Texas Observer. Austin filmmaker John Fiege and two subjects from the documentary about the Keystone Xl pipeline protests in East Texas will be on hand for a post-film panel discussion with Forrest Wilder, associate editor of The Texas Observer. The current Essential Cinema series, "Songs Of The South," continues this week on Tuesday night with a screening of To Kill A Mockingbird. Richard Linklater is taking the week off from the new installment of "Jewels In The Wasteland,...
Monday night, SXSW alumni Above All Else (Don's review) is presented by The Texas Observer. Austin filmmaker John Fiege and two subjects from the documentary about the Keystone Xl pipeline protests in East Texas will be on hand for a post-film panel discussion with Forrest Wilder, associate editor of The Texas Observer. The current Essential Cinema series, "Songs Of The South," continues this week on Tuesday night with a screening of To Kill A Mockingbird. Richard Linklater is taking the week off from the new installment of "Jewels In The Wasteland,...
- 4/17/2015
- by Matt Shiverdecker
- Slackerwood
La course du lièvre à travers les champs (The Race of the Hare Across the Fields a.k.a. ...and Hope to Die, 1972) is an interesting late entry in the career of French crime specialist René Clément, a kind of smorgasbord of his favorite stuff: hardboiled crime, knotty sexual triangles, a hero on the run, convoluted crime schemes, with a harkening back to childhood sins that suggests his classic Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games, 1952). This might suggest desperation to recapture past glories, but the film is also stuffed with experimentation and up-to-the-minute influences (a train station confrontation early on suggests Leone) which confirm the filmmaker as alert to new possibilities.
But the film could just as easily be approached through the sensibility of its writer, Sébastien Japrisot, a key figure in French cinema and crime cinema, or even through that of the author of the source novel, David Goodis.
But the film could just as easily be approached through the sensibility of its writer, Sébastien Japrisot, a key figure in French cinema and crime cinema, or even through that of the author of the source novel, David Goodis.
- 2/21/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Hammett, Chandler, Cain: the modern mystery thriller starts with them. They are the godfathers of that sensibility that would come to be called noir which would, in time, overflow the printed page and onto the stage, the big screen, and eventually even to television. Identified primarily with mysteries, the concept of flawed human beings ethically tripping and stumbling in a moral No Man’s Land, equidistant between Right and Wrong, Good and Bad would bleed across genre lines. There would be noir Westerns (Blood on the Moon, 1948), noir war movies (Attack!, 1956), noir horror (The Body Snatcher, 1945), even noir melodramas like Cain’s own Mildred Pierce, adapted for the screen in 1945.
But they all started with what Hammett, Chandler, and Cain did on the page, and each provided an evolutionary step which took what had once been usually dismissed as a flyweight genre dedicated to colorful private investigators and clever puzzles,...
But they all started with what Hammett, Chandler, and Cain did on the page, and each provided an evolutionary step which took what had once been usually dismissed as a flyweight genre dedicated to colorful private investigators and clever puzzles,...
- 9/19/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
All amnesiac thrillers get off to an intriguing start then tend to fall away when their heroes and heroines start to recover their memories. The first half-hour of the Danish ID:a is consistently gripping, as its beautiful heroine awakes in a French river with a scar, a gun, a bag containing €2m and no identity. Her search to discover her past takes her to Denmark, Holland and back to France, and includes some agreeable suspense, a great deal of violence, some rather vague leftwing politics and some narrative holes.
ID:a is worth a visit, as is The Woman in the Fifth, Pawel Pawlikowski's first film since My Summer of Love seven years ago and his first thriller. Not exactly an amnesia film but pretty close, it's based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy, the American writer resident in London, whose novel The Big Picture was filmed in France two...
ID:a is worth a visit, as is The Woman in the Fifth, Pawel Pawlikowski's first film since My Summer of Love seven years ago and his first thriller. Not exactly an amnesia film but pretty close, it's based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy, the American writer resident in London, whose novel The Big Picture was filmed in France two...
- 2/19/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Second #3760, 62:40
Jeffrey, having arrived later than expected to pick up Sandy after school, has just been spotted by Sandy’s boyfriend Mike, who is doing a variation of jumping jack exercises with the football team (in full uniform, including helmets) on a tennis court across the street in a scene that oddly predicts the “Do the Locomotion” scene in Inland Empire. We are back in the sunlight now, the deeply coded normalcy of high school, the girls in their long skirts recalling the teenage rebel movies of the 1950s. The frame captures no one looking at anyone. Dead gazes. A frame filled with people and trees and grass and a building and a car. The end of spring. The beginning of summer.
Sandy. The fact of Sandy. In her classic 1974 book From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, Molly Haskell wrote:
In the penumbral world of the detective story,...
Jeffrey, having arrived later than expected to pick up Sandy after school, has just been spotted by Sandy’s boyfriend Mike, who is doing a variation of jumping jack exercises with the football team (in full uniform, including helmets) on a tennis court across the street in a scene that oddly predicts the “Do the Locomotion” scene in Inland Empire. We are back in the sunlight now, the deeply coded normalcy of high school, the girls in their long skirts recalling the teenage rebel movies of the 1950s. The frame captures no one looking at anyone. Dead gazes. A frame filled with people and trees and grass and a building and a car. The end of spring. The beginning of summer.
Sandy. The fact of Sandy. In her classic 1974 book From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies, Molly Haskell wrote:
In the penumbral world of the detective story,...
- 2/15/2012
- by Nicholas Rombes
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Toh reports that actor/writer/director/provocateur Vincent Gallo has signed on to star in Don’t Shoot the Piano Player, which based on the 1956 novel Down There by David Goodis. This will be the second adaptation of Goodis‘ novel, with the other being iconic director François Truffaut‘s 1960 take on the material, Shoot the Piano Player. Here, Gallo will play a Hollywood composer (originally a classical pianist in both the novel and the 1960 movie) who “loses it all.” What that means exactly in this new version is up in the air, but, in the French adaptation, it all revolved around the suicide of the main character’s wife, which I assume will be the instigating event once again. Michael Rapaport is also being eyed for a role as a gangster, and talks should end with him relatively soon.
Don’t Shoot the Piano Player is a passion project of actor Alexandre Nahon,...
Don’t Shoot the Piano Player is a passion project of actor Alexandre Nahon,...
- 1/26/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Despicable Me 2
Javier Bardem has dropped out of playing the lead villain El Macho in "Despicable Me 2" at Universal Pictures.
Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig and Julie Andrews remain committed to the upcoming animated comedy which hits theatres July 2013. [Source: Heat Vision]
Don't Shoot the Piano Player
Vincent Gallo is set to star in Alexandre Nahon's "Don’t Shoot the Piano Player" for Bleiberg Entertainment.
Based on the David Goodis novel "Down There", Gallo plays a Hollywood composer who loses it all. Shooting kicks off in Los Angeles and New York this summer. [Source: Thompson on Hollywood]
The Hauntrepreneur
Russell Brand is attached to star in the feature "The Hauntrepreneur" for Paramount Pictures and Platinum Dunes.
Scott Rosenberg penned the script which revolves around a family that has trouble adjusting to a new town and hires a peculiar man who calls himself the Hauntrepreneur to help them.
In an attempt to bring them together,...
Javier Bardem has dropped out of playing the lead villain El Macho in "Despicable Me 2" at Universal Pictures.
Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Kristen Wiig and Julie Andrews remain committed to the upcoming animated comedy which hits theatres July 2013. [Source: Heat Vision]
Don't Shoot the Piano Player
Vincent Gallo is set to star in Alexandre Nahon's "Don’t Shoot the Piano Player" for Bleiberg Entertainment.
Based on the David Goodis novel "Down There", Gallo plays a Hollywood composer who loses it all. Shooting kicks off in Los Angeles and New York this summer. [Source: Thompson on Hollywood]
The Hauntrepreneur
Russell Brand is attached to star in the feature "The Hauntrepreneur" for Paramount Pictures and Platinum Dunes.
Scott Rosenberg penned the script which revolves around a family that has trouble adjusting to a new town and hires a peculiar man who calls himself the Hauntrepreneur to help them.
In an attempt to bring them together,...
- 1/26/2012
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
At least in our eyes, any news on the enigma that is Vincent Gallo is good news. His performance as the titular, tortured artist in Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro" was a welcome reminder just how much the talened writer/director/actor/musician has to offer and, while he's unfortunately already noted that his last effort behind the camera "Promises Written In The Water" isn't going to see a theatrical release anytime soon, he's recently been taking on interesting acting roles with Jerzy Skolimowski's "Essential Killing," a sure-to-be wacky part in "The Legend Of Kaspar Hauser" as well as an appearance in 'Twilight' actor Peter Facinelli's "Loosies." Gallo now looks to have added another lead role to his plate, as Thompson On Hollywood reports he's set to star in Alexandre Nahon's adaptation of David Goodis' "Down There" -- a novel previously adapted by Francois...
- 1/25/2012
- The Playlist
Park City – Vincent Gallo has agreed to star in “Don’t Shoot the Piano Player” for Alexandre Nahon who will direct the feature film from his own script. Bleiberg Entertainment is fully financing the film which is based on the David Goodis novel, “Down There,” which was previously adapted into the 1960 film by Francois Truffaut called “Shoot the Piano Player.” Pre-sales will begin for the film around the Berlin International Film Festival next month, with the project looking to shoot in Los Angeles and New York this summer. Nahon, who co-stars in Julie Delpy’s Sundance film “2 Days in New York,” is also...
- 1/24/2012
- Thompson on Hollywood
François Truffaut believed that artworks resemble their makers. As the BFI presents a retrospective of his films, it is clear that the man who made them was the most humane of directors
It seems a cliché that a film might change your life. Yet a film by the French director François Truffaut changed mine. Having just heard of how, in the 1950s in Northern Ireland, a child was brought up in a hen house, I watched L'Enfant sauvage (Wild Child) (1969) late one night on BBC2. It presented the story of Victor, a young boy discovered, in the years following the French revolution, living wild and alone in the woods of France. The film so mesmerised and moved me that I began researching a book on Victor and children like him.
In L'Enfant sauvage, Truffaut himself played Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard, the young man who educated the wild boy, teaching him language,...
It seems a cliché that a film might change your life. Yet a film by the French director François Truffaut changed mine. Having just heard of how, in the 1950s in Northern Ireland, a child was brought up in a hen house, I watched L'Enfant sauvage (Wild Child) (1969) late one night on BBC2. It presented the story of Victor, a young boy discovered, in the years following the French revolution, living wild and alone in the woods of France. The film so mesmerised and moved me that I began researching a book on Victor and children like him.
In L'Enfant sauvage, Truffaut himself played Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard, the young man who educated the wild boy, teaching him language,...
- 2/19/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
In the grand scheme of father and son/daughter directors, Jacques Tourneur is the one clear case of offspring surpassing his parent. It may not have seemed so at the time, since father Maurice Tourneur had been in charge of big movies like The Last of the Mohicans (1920), while Jacques was "merely" the director of "B" horrors like Cat People (1942). But now it's fairly obvious that Jacques was much more than his "B" movie budgets. Of the major second-stringers, he was the only one who never seemed to be scrounging, digging to discover art within trash. Rather, he elevated his films to some kind of new level of ethereal, mysterious, shadowy beauty.
One of his many hard-to-find movies, Nightfall (1957), gets a released on DVD this week as part of Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics II. It has a particularly wretched little plot, from a David Goodis story: Aldo Ray stars...
One of his many hard-to-find movies, Nightfall (1957), gets a released on DVD this week as part of Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics II. It has a particularly wretched little plot, from a David Goodis story: Aldo Ray stars...
- 7/10/2010
- by Jeffrey M. Anderson
- Cinematical
Film and TV director made famous by his 'Gidget' surf movies
Despite a long and varied career, in which he made several excellent films noirs, westerns, thrillers and war dramas, and a fair number of superior television movies, it was the wry fate of the film and television director Paul Wendkos, who has died of a lung infection aged 87, that his death was announced widely with the words "Gidget director dies".
The popular teen surf movies – Gidget (1959), Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) – directed by Wendkos, are interesting documents of pre-hippy conservative California youth culture. Gidget, a contraction of girl and midget, is the nickname of a 16-year-old adolescent (played in succession by Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol) trying to cope with the problems of growing up, mainly defined by her relationship with her boyfriend, Moondoggie (James Darren).
According to the Variety review of...
Despite a long and varied career, in which he made several excellent films noirs, westerns, thrillers and war dramas, and a fair number of superior television movies, it was the wry fate of the film and television director Paul Wendkos, who has died of a lung infection aged 87, that his death was announced widely with the words "Gidget director dies".
The popular teen surf movies – Gidget (1959), Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) – directed by Wendkos, are interesting documents of pre-hippy conservative California youth culture. Gidget, a contraction of girl and midget, is the nickname of a 16-year-old adolescent (played in succession by Sandra Dee, Deborah Walley and Cindy Carol) trying to cope with the problems of growing up, mainly defined by her relationship with her boyfriend, Moondoggie (James Darren).
According to the Variety review of...
- 12/1/2009
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Steve Niles
Writer – Criminal MacAbre, Cal McDonald Stories
Founder of Bloody Pulp Books
http://www.bloodypulpbooks.com
Fangoria: Alright Steve, horror writer extraordinaire, put down the pencil for a second and talk to us horror fans.
Steve Niles: Pencil? What is this, 1901?
Fangoria: You’re in high demand right now! How many projects are you working on as of this interview?
Steve Niles: I have severe freelancer disease. I am incapable of saying no to work. Right now I’m wrapping a new novel and about six new comic series for the next few years. I’ve been working on a video I’m doing most of them with Idw and Wildstorm. Can’t say much now but it’s all new and some really different stuff for me. Film-wise, I waiting for the first draft of a Criminal MacAbre script from Kyle Ward for Universal, reading a...
Writer – Criminal MacAbre, Cal McDonald Stories
Founder of Bloody Pulp Books
http://www.bloodypulpbooks.com
Fangoria: Alright Steve, horror writer extraordinaire, put down the pencil for a second and talk to us horror fans.
Steve Niles: Pencil? What is this, 1901?
Fangoria: You’re in high demand right now! How many projects are you working on as of this interview?
Steve Niles: I have severe freelancer disease. I am incapable of saying no to work. Right now I’m wrapping a new novel and about six new comic series for the next few years. I’ve been working on a video I’m doing most of them with Idw and Wildstorm. Can’t say much now but it’s all new and some really different stuff for me. Film-wise, I waiting for the first draft of a Criminal MacAbre script from Kyle Ward for Universal, reading a...
- 11/16/2009
- by no-reply@fangoria.com (Mike Fish)
- Fangoria
Richard Stark's Parker, Book One: The Hunter
Darwyn Cooke
Idw, July 2009, $24.99
Richard Stark’s Parker novels come out of a particular period in literary history: the heyday of the disposable paperback for men. Paperbacks had appeared in their modern form just before WWII, and servicemen got used to carrying small paperbound books in whatever pockets they could jam a book into. The boom continued through the postwar years, with a flood of short thrillers, detective stories, and soft-core porn – all to stave off boredom for a man waiting for dinner time on a business trip in some hick town, or hanging out at the Px on his army base, or riding the streetcar home at night.
The Hunter was published in 1962, at the height of that boom – a good decade before the ‘70s taught publishers that women were even more dependable consumers of paperbacks, and the long shift to romances and their ilk began.
Darwyn Cooke
Idw, July 2009, $24.99
Richard Stark’s Parker novels come out of a particular period in literary history: the heyday of the disposable paperback for men. Paperbacks had appeared in their modern form just before WWII, and servicemen got used to carrying small paperbound books in whatever pockets they could jam a book into. The boom continued through the postwar years, with a flood of short thrillers, detective stories, and soft-core porn – all to stave off boredom for a man waiting for dinner time on a business trip in some hick town, or hanging out at the Px on his army base, or riding the streetcar home at night.
The Hunter was published in 1962, at the height of that boom – a good decade before the ‘70s taught publishers that women were even more dependable consumers of paperbacks, and the long shift to romances and their ilk began.
- 8/28/2009
- by Andrew Wheeler
- Comicmix.com
French filmmaker Jean-Jacques Beineix.
Jean-jacques Beineix:
Divas and Lions and Moons, Oh My!
By Alex Simon
The Noveulle Vague, or “French New Wave” was launched by a group of film critics and cinefiles who began France’s legendary Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in the 1950s. With Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless in 1959, the movement was launched, emphasizing behavior over aesthetics, content over form, and pastiche of other film genres (particularly those born in the U.S., with a healthy dollop of Italian neorealism) over the more traditional narratives of French films from years past. Francois Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda (see our interview with her below) Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette all fell under the spell of magazine co-founder and theorist Andre Bazin, laying the groundwork for a series of articles, monographs and critiques that formed the so-called “auteur theory,” (or more specifically “"La politique des auteurs" ("The policy of authors,...
Jean-jacques Beineix:
Divas and Lions and Moons, Oh My!
By Alex Simon
The Noveulle Vague, or “French New Wave” was launched by a group of film critics and cinefiles who began France’s legendary Cahiers du Cinéma magazine in the 1950s. With Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless in 1959, the movement was launched, emphasizing behavior over aesthetics, content over form, and pastiche of other film genres (particularly those born in the U.S., with a healthy dollop of Italian neorealism) over the more traditional narratives of French films from years past. Francois Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Agnes Varda (see our interview with her below) Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, and Jacques Rivette all fell under the spell of magazine co-founder and theorist Andre Bazin, laying the groundwork for a series of articles, monographs and critiques that formed the so-called “auteur theory,” (or more specifically “"La politique des auteurs" ("The policy of authors,...
- 7/14/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Moby's upcoming album was inspired in part by a speech by David Lynch on freedom in creativity, so it only makes sense that he would get the director to contribute the video for the first single. I admit I was put-off by the crude animation at first, but after watching it a few more times I warmed up to the scratchy noir aesthetic. It's like Lynch's life work distilled into a three minute meditation on loss and hysteria, filtered through the work of Harry Stephen Keeler, David Goodis and Michael Kupperman. For all those Lynch fans, how do you feel this fits in his oeuvre?...
- 4/15/2009
- by Wintle
- FilmJunk
One of the interesting things about David Goodis’s career, Steve Seid mentioned by way of introduction to François Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player, 1960), is that—even though Goodis’s first connection to filmmaking occurred in 1947 with Dark Passage and The Unfaithful—attempts to adapt his work have continued to the present day; Seid recently met someone working with Goodis’s 1951 novel Cassidy’s Girl. Along the way, going all the way back to 1954-1955, the French have been particularly attracted to Goodis’s novels and—of the twelve existing feature adaptations—eight have their roots in French filmmaking.
The earliest was Pierre Chenals’ Section des disparus made in Argentina during the mid-50s, continuing on with Henri Verneuil’s Le Casse (The Burglars, 1971), René Clement’s La Course du Lièvre à Travers Les Champs (And Hope To Die, 1972), Jean-Jacques Beineix’s La Lune Dans...
The earliest was Pierre Chenals’ Section des disparus made in Argentina during the mid-50s, continuing on with Henri Verneuil’s Le Casse (The Burglars, 1971), René Clement’s La Course du Lièvre à Travers Les Champs (And Hope To Die, 1972), Jean-Jacques Beineix’s La Lune Dans...
- 8/6/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
Pfa curator Steve Seid reiterated that David Goodis—in the wake of the 1947 film adaptation of his novel Dark Passage—quickly secured a contract as a studio writer in Hollywood; but, had a rapid downfall and by 1950 moved back to Philadelphia. “The irony is that you can see in a single double-bill the entire output from his time in Los Angeles,” Seid quipped. Other filmic adaptations like Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall eventually lead Goodis’s work back to Hollywood; but, not the author himself.
Seid then introduced Dan Hodges, a San Franciscan author specializing in film noir, whose work will be included in the forthcoming 4th Edition of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Hodges is also a key figure in the San Franciscan film noir salon The Danger & Despair Knitting Circle.
Seid then introduced Dan Hodges, a San Franciscan author specializing in film noir, whose work will be included in the forthcoming 4th Edition of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Hodges is also a key figure in the San Franciscan film noir salon The Danger & Despair Knitting Circle.
- 8/6/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
Kicking off the “Streets of No Return” series with a screening of Delmer Daves’s Dark Passage (1947), Pfa curator Steve Seid outlined in his introductory remarks that hopefully—along with the series’ objective of spotlighting the work of a lesser-known pulp writer like David Goodis—would be an attempt to gain a sense (over the length of the series) of the concept of filmic adaptation of literary works; to finesse what’s left behind when novels are adapted, or what is included to make them screenworthy; and to determine if justice has been done to the writings of David Goodis.
Succinctly profiling that Goodis began writing in the late ‘30s, with a brief irreconcilable stint in Hollywood in the late ‘40s, Goodis parted ways with Hollywood to return to “a decrepit life” in his hometown Philadelphia until his death in the ‘60s. Even while he was alive, however, non-Hollywood film...
Succinctly profiling that Goodis began writing in the late ‘30s, with a brief irreconcilable stint in Hollywood in the late ‘40s, Goodis parted ways with Hollywood to return to “a decrepit life” in his hometown Philadelphia until his death in the ‘60s. Even while he was alive, however, non-Hollywood film...
- 8/4/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
“It’s surprising that pulp writer David Goodis never named a novel Cul-de-Sac,” ponders Pacific Film Archives curator Steve Seid, “His stories conjure a dead end, littered with the wreckage of lonely losers and lowlifes. An ill fate befalls the typical Goodis fall guy, who often glimpses the high life, however fleetingly, but then through some irascible compulsion or sinister defect must stumble back to the seamy streets. Goodis’s own life follows the same pattern: at age thirty, he saw his novel Dark Passage adapted for the screen and parlayed that into a contract at Warner Bros., but his questionable proclivities made him an outcast even in Hollywood. Back in his hometown of Philadelphia, he churned out paperback originals while prowling the seedy saloons with unguarded desire. At age forty-nine, he was dead of cirrhosis. Though Goodis persisted in relative obscurity, his works falling in and out of print,...
- 7/31/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
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