The most UNIQUE 50's noir pics of all time
937291
Sadly little Miss Patty Mc Cormack was SO perfect in this role, she never reached her true potential as an actress. Perhaps she should have taken up piano playing ......

Of course the adults were quite good especially Nancy Kelly, but tale is all about little Rhoda, the way she looked, acted, talked, what she did and WHO she came from.
The entire movie has a surreal feel and even Rhoda's braids, gingham dresses, and tap shoes are oh so odd and out of place. You want to say, "Can't you see something's wrong with her?" Of course there is but its revealed much too late.

It's hard to put the movie in a true genre, it has a sort of a 50's Hitchcockian feel . For a pervasive feeling of perverted dread in the form of a sweet little psychopath, it's one of the BEST. Perfectly filmed in black and white as well.

And the ending , Well it's quite SHOCKING  :) !
2574812
great movie, classic late noir, terrific San Francisco location filming
4559858
Lovely collection of Santa Fe pictures. About 10% of them are in color. The B&W pictures are sharp and clear with beautifully weighted grayscale from eye-popping black to sparkling white. Excellent printing job.

This is not a "history" of the Santa Fe. This is for the Santa Fe Railroad Fan, who probably already has read a dozen or more histories and knows the players and plot by heart. That's not to say that this book has no relevant text. The captions of the pictures are very informative, and there are some sidebars and special pages of text. But if you're searching for a history book, keep looking.

If you want mouth-watering pictures of the AT&SF in its prime, both as a steam railroad and later as a diesel road, this is a great little photo survey. 125 pages, and I'd guess about 150 pictures. Most of the pictures were new to me, and that's saying something; I have thousands of AT&SF pictures in my collection. There were only a few iconic AT&SF publicity shots.

I knocked off a star, and I had to think about that very much, because I didn't want to. But in the end this could have had more color shots. For the periods represented, I know there were tons of color pictures available. On the other hand, the predominantly B&W photography is served up so brilliantly that one almost doesn't miss color. Ansel Adams fans will love some of the streamliner shots. (no, they're not AA pictures, but they are reminiscent of his style of grayscale control with the "Zone System.") So, yes, it's nice to see B&W in the Photoshop era treated with the finest technology ever afforded that dying art, and for that I'm quite forgiving of the mere handful of color pictures, but what I'd give for some of those great Northerns and Hudsons steaming it up under a blue sky, with the green-dotted landscape around Raton Pass. So, I decided to give it 4 stars. Yet I keep it among my 5 star books, so it's an ambivalent rating.

Heck with the stars. I think most of you will love this book.
660551
Filled with tart one-liners and sharp performances, MURDER, MY SWEET (aka "Farewell, My Lovely") is a good example of just how sublime film noir could be with the RKO Studios.  Most people tend to regard Warner Brothers as the house of choice when it came to noir, but RKO cranked out some real doozies, too.

Dick Powell forever shed his wholesome, goody-goody image when he played hard-boiled Detective Philip Marlowe.  Hired to track down the ex-wife of nutty stand-over man Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), Marlowe's trail later leads him into an altogether more puzzling case involving a priceless jade necklace, the sultry second wife of a millionaire (Claire Trevor) and her lovely stepdaughter (Anne Shirley).

MURDER, MY SWEET is a complete ride from beginning to end.  Although the plot is downright convuluted and confusing, the film is compelling largely because of Powell's performance and the snappy screenplay of John Paxton (based on the original novel by Raymond Chandler).

Audiences would have forever pegged Dick Powell for his tap-happy roles in Busby Berkeley musicals like "42nd Street" had the character of Marlowe not come along and allowed a new side of his incredible acting range to shine through.  He's remarkable in this movie.  Likewise this film also established radiant ingenue Anne Shirley (from "Anne of Green Gables" and "Stella Dallas") in a sophisticated new light, although her career sadly ended with this film.  Claire Trevor, that perennial film noir femme fatale, doesn't disappoint.

Two thumbs up from me!
4416687
"Classic Hollywood" archivist par excellence, Holland's Richard Koper, has delivered an extremely appealing and visually striking look at the sexiest blonde bombshells and flaxen-haired starlets that won the hearts of movie fans everywhere in the glittering and garish 1950s.

This reviewer was delighted to see not only so many of his personal favorites contained here (including Merry Anders, Mari Blanchard, Marian Carr [a GORGEOUS woman], Peggie Castle [ditto], Myrna Dell, June Kenney, Barbara Lawrence, the tragic Belinda Lee and Lila Leeds, the outrageous, and somehow, largely forgotten Peggy June Maley, Dolores Michaels, the unforgettable Barbara Payton, Fay Spain, Karen Steele, the ABSOLUTELY LUSCIOUS Sally Todd, and Kerry Vaughn), but also a few women whose work and lovely countenance had totally escaped his attention until know (including Lucy Knoch, Diana Mumby, and Sandra Wirth).

Richard Koper has plumbed the depths of several big-time and obscure photo archives worldwide to compile this knockout collection of glamourous portraits, scene stills and pin-up art, while adding his own sparkling and knowledgable commentary throughout. The end result is a winning project, lovingly compiled and rendered, and one which I hope will be just the first of many similar-themed books from this extremely talented man. Highly Recommended!!!
1745202
Two of the really good examples of Film Noir.  Great classic performances for Edward G. Robinson (Illegal) and Robert Mitchem (The Big Steal).
1058132
This is a classic example of outstanding black and white photography from the 1950s. O Winston Link was a master of lighting a very large scene with flashbulbs and capturing railroad action. A must for rail fans and black and white photography fans.
4534438
I love everything about this camera. It makes every photo look like a snapshot of the 1970's. I love it! Beware: film can get expensive.
3366403
Michael Colonnese's book, Sex and Death, I suppose calls to mind the film noir of the 1940s. But in this book it is combined with a quirky sense of humor that makes for a unique reading experience. Amidst the murder and mayhem, the book is as funny as hec. The mystery is well hidden until the very end of the book--I was surprised. I highly recommend this book for mystery fans, fans of film noir, and to anyone wanting a good laugh as well as a great puzzle.
632453
For fans of the movie-created world of 50's New York Society, this one's a real treat.  However if you are looking for a taught, hard-edged noir thriller, this ain't it!  Tune in for the costumes, the hilarious over-the-top acting, and the stagey apartment sets all done in glorious color and Cinemascope as only Fox could do in the 50's.  Apparently someone at Fox thought this little potboiler deserved the same cinematographic treatment as "Ben Hur"!  Gene Tierney is lovely, Ginger Rogers is delightfully catty, and most of the rest of the cast is window dressing.  Unfortunately, the mystery unravels a little too early to hold interest till the final frame.
4017088
My interest in photography began in my high school years when my father gave me an old 3" 4" folding camera that used sheet film at which time I started looking for photo ideas in magazines that were available to me; LIFE, of course was a great source for anyone interested in photojournalism.  CORONET, published in Chicago, was a magazine that I would call a Readers Digest for intellectuals. It featured a big photo section with work from some of the top photographers of that period whose work was of salon quality but sadly printed on uncoated stock. Among which were female nudes, very tasteful, by such masters as Erwin Blumenfeld, Hurrell, Don Wallace, and McSherry-Powles to name a few. (Photos devoted to the other arts were printed on glossy, coated stock.) The nudes were interspersed among scenics, portraits, and "artsy-stuff" from all over the world.  Naturally I gravitated to the female nudes.  I studied the lighting used and tried to visualize and develop my own sense of lighting.  I turned to women's fashion magazines where I could find the absolute best photography available from the pages of Vogue and Harpers Bazaar. I didn't know it but the fashion photography world was undergoing a revolutionary change when the photographers left their studios and did their work out on the streets of great cities as New York, Paris, London and far afield to remote locations.  Today we take such images for granted.
Along the way I got my hand on some Hollywood film magazines where I was introduced to the art of the studio publicity still photos which featured the best images of the stars working at that time.  I never went to the movies often and much later when I did see some of the vintage films I became acquainted with Edith Head and her work.  I thought she was bizarre with her severe look, her carefully coiffed hair and her dark glasses; later I realized this was probably intentionally done to make her stand out.  I also saw a short film on her career which fuelled my interest even more.
When this book was announced, I immediately and ordered it from Amazon, read it cover to cover when I got it and it is now a permanent addition to my library.  The most important feature of the book to me is the quality of the photos.  They are the best because they had to pass the approval of the studios publicity department; BUT, in this book there are no defects in the photos that one sometimes finds in even to most pricey "coffee table" books. The overall quality of the book is as good as that of the photos, even down to such nice touches as using silk screen printing on the dust jacket, something that most people wouldn't even notice.
I recommend this book to any one interested in fashion, or photography, and especially to those of you who want to know more about this interesting and talented woman.
3377036
Fantastic example of the noir genre.  Everybody is out to double-cross everyone else. Some aspects are a bit dated, but the cast is wonderful and the filming locations are worth the price if admission.
1025777
Preceptive analysis of the " noir style " of filmaking covering the years 1940-50, and the film type, Hard Boiled, by far the most exemplary of this, dare I say it, genre. Whether fim noir is indeed a genre or a film style or both is a never ending debate which author Krutnik aptly covers in chapter 2 " Genre and the problem of film noir ".
Other chapters cover Hard Boiled crime fiction, the tough investigative thriller, 1940's crime films, the role of masculinity in noir films and even some Freudian psychoanalysis and of course, fate, are thrown into the mix.

Like I said, the main focus here is on the Hard Boiled film, and though I like and admire such films as MILDRED PIERCE, I am far more comfortable watching RAW DEAL, a film I immediately associate with film noir. No Horror-noir, Cowboy-noir, Costumed-Adventure-noir, Neo-noir here. Just private eyes and crooks and dames and night and shadows and fate, 1940-50. The good stuff.

And just let me add that this book is well written. You can understand it. You don't have to re-read each page several times to try to decipher what the author is attempting to say, the fault of many academic noir essayists. Krutnik writes in a clear, concise style. He makes his points in a highly readable fashion. Agree or disagree with him, you know where he stands and what he means. I'm really enjoying reading this book.

However, there is just one minor drawback. There are no photos. I really like photos in a book on film noir because so much of what the author is saying can be helpfully illustrated by photographs. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN needs no visual guide when discussing it as a film, but PHANTOM LADY benefits greatly from photographic illustration. So you really have to have some understanding of film noir and it's look, or having benefited from already seeing most of the films discussed. It's just not a good first book for those getting started with noir films.
Photographs would have made this a 6-star book, but in all fairness I can only give it 5-stars, the top rating allowed.
1686929
Being a 68 year old Baby Boomer I know who "Wild Bill Elliott" is because of seeing his westerns on t.v. as a kid growing up in the 50's. I have been a movie lover from the time that I was a kid. I had no idea that Elliott made a series of detective movies in the 50's. I recently bought the collection of those five crime movies and I must say that he certainly did outshine Jack Webb from Dragnet. This series of movies are a definite must have for all lovers of movies, both old and new. All five are in glorious black and white.
1016514
Very quick delivery--thank you, Amazon.  As to the movie, the sound and picture quality are terrible (I bought 5 or 6 film noirs from this period all at the same time--the others were great but this one is a mess as to picture and sound quality.  HOWEVER, if you don't mind those defects, this is a very interesting and unique story.  Actually the title is misleading.  It's the woman's husband, not the woman, who is "on the run."  He witnesses a murder by a gangland thug, the thug knows he witnessed it, so the cops warn the man that he's in danger of being hunted down by the crooks.  He's offered police protection but opts instead to hide alone somewhere in the big city.  (The setting is San Francisco and there are plenty of fun, authentic views of cable cars, streetcars, trolley buses and automobiles of the period without the glamorization later "nostalgia films" give to those subjects.  You really feel you're walking down a busy street in SF in the early 1950s.)  The story consists of the wife and a reporter trying to find the husband and protect him.  This movie holds your attention from beginning to end and I think you'll forgive the poor picture and sound quality because the story is so interesting.
3131610
Gilda may be the best classic film noir ever for a number of reasons, I mean the best of the black and white classics of the 40's and 50's. The many reviewers on this site have done a good job describing the plot, the passion, and Rita's unequal performance.  But Gilda is much more than that.  It is the incarnation of the 40's film atmosphere of elegance and romance.  We are in post war 1945 and the American film noir genre is blossoming, and ironically where?  Not in L.A. or N.Y. but in Buenos Ayres where ex Nazis populate the countryside. Another way to look at Gilda is through nostalgic eyes. You have to be old enough to remember the post war years of the optimism turned pessimism.  And in the middle of it comes Gilda, a movie that nobody would dare remake and stay alive, that gave us the once in a lifetime gift of the love Godess.
2056625
This set contains 30 unique images of men from fashion catalogs of the 70s.  They were probably pretty sexy at the time; now they're pretty hilarious.  Great quality postcards--thick paper, slightly rounded postcards.  These will be a hit!