Continuing the exploration of the outer limits of film noir I will now discuss one of the last examples of the genre with Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). In the seventeen year period between 1941 and 1958, film noir had come to dominate Hollywood. Loosely based on the novel “Badge of Evil” by Whit […]
Classic Movies
Touch Of Noir: The Outer Limits Of Film Noir With ‘The Maltese Falcon’
There are two films most often cited as the bookends, the outer limits of film noir: The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958). By near consensus, John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon marks the beginning of the genre, and it will be the topic of Part I of this look at the boundaries of […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: The Tingler (Dir. William Castle, 1959)
In the late 1950s, horror movie schlockmeister William Castle pioneered interactive in-theater gimmicks as a way to drum up audience cash (and buzzy word-of-mouth) at a time when television threatened to steal away the same moviegoers who had made the 1930s and ’40s boom years for the U.S. film industry. Whereas other filmmakers of the […]
TCM Film Festival: The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, 1928)
My favorite part of watching silent movies is the variability of the experience depending on the format. While it’s true that every movie should be experienced on the big screen, it is doubly true for films from the silent period. Oftentimes, if these films exist at all, they have not been well preserved, or even […]
TCM Classic Film Festival: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
“People will think what I want them to think!” – Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time according to many people, including the American Film Institute, Sight & Sound magazine, and film critic Roger Ebert. It seems Kane’s commandment for people to think what he wants […]