Want to buy or sell something? Check the classifieds
  • The Fedora Lounge is supported in part by commission earning affiliate links sitewide. Please support us by using them. You may learn more here.

What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

FOXTROT LAMONT

One Too Many
Messages
1,722
Location
St John's Wood, London UK
My addiction to film needed a fast fix Fast, so I'll loosen the rubber band now and put down my coffee. Thanks mate.
Post war British cinema availed all implicit within and without, something I favor personally, and all the more so where a woman or several are integral to script. The best accurate description of twinned love and hate came from Hawthorne's quill wherein his classic The Scarlet Letter sears soul. And my English teacher often punctuated it by asking if love and hate are twins, cannot the same be said for sane and insane? Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville were three American authors ranked with Twain atop Olympus.

I haven't yet seen Tar.
 

cotillion

New in Town
Messages
35
Location
California
I am a huge fan of noir. From the original film noir classics through the 70s neo-noir resurgence to the 21st century neon-noirs, noir adjacent and remakes.

My favorite two movies of 2022 were Decision to Leave and Broker which I just saw for the second times. Decision to Leave really honors Hitchcock's filmmaking with an original angle (though I considered Hitchcock more noir influenced than film noir). Broker presents a sad story that really highlights modern alienation and grey morality struggles.

While both are 21st century movies they do harken back to earlier eras in their filmmaking and writing IMO. Highly recommend both to any that appreciate the genre.
 

Julian Shellhammer

Practically Family
Messages
894
David Harding, Counterspy, released in 1950, but set in the middle of World War 2. A cross-pollination from radio to screen, with Howard St. John as the tough head of counterintelligence. The radio program was the product of Phillips H. Lord, who created Gangbusters, among others.

This movie version blends the experience of a Naval officer, as he carries out the plan of Harding as regards "enemy" agents after US military secrets. The story is bookended by an intro and outro in which we learn that Harding will manhandle the US's current (1950s) foes just as he did with other spies during the war.
 
Messages
12,734
Location
Northern California
Again, Cop Hater (1958) starring Robert Loggia and a 23 year old Jerry Orbach (Lennie Briscoe). Based on the Ed McBain novel of the same name it is a two star movie. As usual, the visuals are entertaining to see, but overall I would agree with the two stars. A whole lot of just okay across the board. It was still worth a watch.
:D
 
Messages
17,217
Location
New York City
MV5BZWJmYTNkMTktZTk2Yi00Mjc4LTkwYzQtZDMxMjNlMTc4MjhhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDQzMTIzMA@@._V1_.jpg

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry from 1974 with Peter Fonda, Susan George and Adam Roarke


This simple car-chase movie works better on screen than it sounds like it should on paper.

It's not because of the plot, though, as Dirty Mary Crazy Larry's plot couldn't be simpler: two guys rob a supermarket's payroll and, with a cute blonde who jumps on board during the heist, spend the rest of the movie trying to outrun the pursuing cops.

None of the cops are interesting, including the "cowboy" sheriff who doesn't carry a gun or badge and who obnoxiously barks orders at everyone as he's just a boring movie cliche.

The car chase scenes are pretty good, but they had already been bettered by the car chase scenes in 1968's Bullitt and 1971's The French Connection. Although those are real movies with car chase scenes in their middle; whereas, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is just one big car chase scene with a flimsy movie wrapped around it.

What works in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is Dirty Mary, played by Susan George, Crazy Larry, played by Peter Fonda and Crazy Larry's heist partner, played by Adam Rourke.

These three are idiots, but not Hollywood slapstick idiots; these three are real-to-life functioning adult idiots who stand as an example of how low intelligence can lead to stupid decision making, which can, in turn, lead to a bad outcome in life. They are fascinating to watch.

Fonda and Roarke planned the heist so that they could finance a car to enter in Nascar with Fonda as the driver and Roarke as his lead mechanic (good grief).

While the heist had a few smart angles, the big getaway strategy - they plan to outrun the cops - is so insanely dumb that you marvel at the passion these two numbskulls bring to its execution.

Further fouling things up, the night before the heist, Fonda picked up, banged and left in a motel room without saying goodbye, a sexy in-a-low-rent-way blonde, the titular Dirty Mary played by George. She is so angry, yet still attracted to him, that the next day she pops into the getaway car at the start of the heist.

George's logical but self-debasing demand is that Fonda should give her some money since he treated her, not like a one-night stand, but like a whore. Sometimes it is smarter to just take your loss and walk away quietly.

Smart or not, she's along for the getaway, which is most of the movie. It's during the long chase scenes interspersed with quiet moments when the three fix the car, switch cars, gas up the car or take a pitstop for food that we learn that they are true-to-life stupid people.

Crazy Larry, Fonda, just likes to drive fast and lives so much for the moment that you're amazed he planned the heist. Dirty Mary, George, is Fonda without the driving as she goes along on this suicide mission because she "has nothing else to do," like, oh say, get a job like a normal person.

Roarke, who lacks a cool titular name, at first seems smarter because he's quieter, but even he proves to be just a pretty dumb somewhat-recovering alcoholic who, maybe, is a touch smarter than the other two, but that bar is set so low, it doesn't matter.

The chase scenes are fun in a sometimes-realistic, sometimes-comic-book way, but it's the interaction of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Roarke and their ridiculous plans and dreams that keeps you engaged.

Plus, for us today, the 1970s style - jeans, shaggy hair, muscle cars and already tired hippie language - is cool and cringeworthy at the same time.

Fonda, who embodied the hippie zeitgeist in several of his movies from that era, is believable as a young stupid guy who just likes driving and Roake is good as the broken sidekick who kinda knows Fonda's plan won't work, but goes along as he also knows he's nothing without Fonda.

It is Susan George, though, as the wonderfully named Dirty Mary - blonde, cute, sexy, trashy and stupid, but with moments of lucidity - running around in a bikini top and tight jeans that gives the movie its real punch.

Fonda tries to get rid of her several times, but she proves adept at staying with the boys. Take her out, and the movie is just two dumb guys being chased by even dumber cops.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry should have been an awful movie, but it isn't. It should have bombed at the box office, but it didn't because, darn it, while you might not care if they ultimately get away, you are fascinated by these three stupid people taking the police on a long chase for no real purpose.

dmclffltd.jpg
 
Messages
19,426
Location
Funkytown, USA
View attachment 492200
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry from 1974 with Peter Fonda, Susan George and Adam Roarke


This simple car-chase movie works better on screen than it sounds like it should on paper.

It's not because of the plot, though, as Dirty Mary Crazy Larry's plot couldn't be simpler: two guys rob a supermarket's payroll and, with a cute blonde who jumps on board during the heist, spend the rest of the movie trying to outrun the pursuing cops.

None of the cops are interesting, including the "cowboy" sheriff who doesn't carry a gun or badge and who obnoxiously barks orders at everyone as he's just a boring movie cliche.

The car chase scenes are pretty good, but they had already been bettered by the car chase scenes in 1968's Bullitt and 1971's The French Connection. Although those are real movies with car chase scenes in their middle; whereas, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is just one big car chase scene with a flimsy movie wrapped around it.

What works in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is Dirty Mary, played by Susan George, Crazy Larry, played by Peter Fonda and Crazy Larry's heist partner, played by Adam Rourke.

These three are idiots, but not Hollywood slapstick idiots; these three are real-to-life functioning adult idiots who stand as an example of how low intelligence can lead to stupid decision making, which can, in turn, lead to a bad outcome in life. They are fascinating to watch.

Fonda and Roarke planned the heist so that they could finance a car to enter in Nascar with Fonda as the driver and Roarke as his lead mechanic (good grief).

While the heist had a few smart angles, the big getaway strategy - they plan to outrun the cops - is so insanely dumb that you marvel at the passion these two numbskulls bring to its execution.

Further fouling things up, the night before the heist, Fonda picked up, banged and left in a motel room without saying goodbye, a sexy in-a-low-rent-way blonde, the titular Dirty Mary played by George. She is so angry, yet still attracted to him, that the next day she pops into the getaway car at the start of the heist.

George's logical but self-debasing demand is that Fonda should give her some money since he treated her, not like a one-night stand, but like a whore. Sometimes it is smarter to just take your loss and walk away quietly.

Smart or not, she's along for the getaway, which is most of the movie. It's during the long chase scenes interspersed with quiet moments when the three fix the car, switch cars, gas up the car or take a pitstop for food that we learn that they are true-to-life stupid people.

Crazy Larry, Fonda, just likes to drive fast and lives so much for the moment that you're amazed he planned the heist. Dirty Mary, George, is Fonda without the driving as she goes along on this suicide mission because she "has nothing else to do," like, oh say, get a job like a normal person.

Roarke, who lacks a cool titular name, at first seems smarter because he's quieter, but even he proves to be just a pretty dumb somewhat-recovering alcoholic who, maybe, is a touch smarter than the other two, but that bar is set so low, it doesn't matter.

The chase scenes are fun in a sometimes-realistic, sometimes-comic-book way, but it's the interaction of Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Roarke and their ridiculous plans and dreams that keeps you engaged.

Plus, for us today, the 1970s style - jeans, shaggy hair, muscle cars and already tired hippie language - is cool and cringeworthy at the same time.

Fonda, who embodied the hippie zeitgeist in several of his movies from that era, is believable as a young stupid guy who just likes driving and Roake is good as the broken sidekick who kinda knows Fonda's plan won't work, but goes along as he also knows he's nothing without Fonda.

It is Susan George, though, as the wonderfully named Dirty Mary - blonde, cute, sexy, trashy and stupid, but with moments of lucidity - running around in a bikini top and tight jeans that gives the movie its real punch.

Fonda tries to get rid of her several times, but she proves adept at staying with the boys. Take her out, and the movie is just two dumb guys being chased by even dumber cops.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry should have been an awful movie, but it isn't. It should have bombed at the box office, but it didn't because, darn it, while you might not care if they ultimately get away, you are fascinated by these three stupid people taking the police on a long chase for no real purpose.

View attachment 492201

I remember seeing that at the drive-in with my dad. Susan George in tight jeans and a halter top was a memorable experience. I really don't remember much about the "plot." All I remember is the car chases in the cornfields, Ms. George's butt, and the ending.

I was looking at it on iMDB and was surprised to see Vic Morrow in it, and an uncredited Roddy McDowell.
 
Messages
17,217
Location
New York City
I remember seeing that at the drive-in with my dad. Susan George in tight jeans and a halter top was a memorable experience. I really don't remember much about the "plot." All I remember is the car chases in the cornfields, Ms. George's butt, and the ending.

I was looking at it on iMDB and was surprised to see Vic Morrow in it, and an uncredited Roddy McDowell.

I like that, you remember the key things. I am almost embarrassed by how much I enjoyed this stupid movie. I'm also surprised George didn't make a bigger name for herself back then.
 
Messages
19,426
Location
Funkytown, USA
I like that, you remember the key things. I am almost embarrassed by how much I enjoyed this stupid movie. I'm also surprised George didn't make a bigger name for herself back then.

Ditto. And she seems to have stuck with films, with only a few TV credits. Usually, these sorts turn up on Magnum P.I., the A Team, the Love Boat, etc. She does have a 2022 credit.
 
Messages
17,217
Location
New York City
Ditto. And she seems to have stuck with films, with only a few TV credits. Usually, these sorts turn up on Magnum P.I., the A Team, the Love Boat, etc. She does have a 2022 credit.

You are spot on as I noticed, too, that she was in a bunch of movies, but she never became even close to being a household name. Had I walked out of the theater in 1974, I'd have said she was going to be a pretty big star. Not necessarily a great actress, but a well-known one.
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,207
Location
Troy, New York, USA
"Knowing" - This apocalyptic movie is for some reason a fave of mine. Don't know why I'm ruminating on the end of civilization lately but this one moves me. It contains one of Nick Cages most understated and moving performances in my mind. He doesn't go to crazy town in this one at all. Sad but moving...

Worf
 
Messages
17,217
Location
New York City
tumblr_7057a504cd0c1c564623e42cdd975057_ddf36ef8_540.gif


Madam Satan from 1930 with Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young


Madam Satan, a very early pre-code talkie, is famed director Cecil B. DeMille's nearly two-hour-long exploration of Freud's Madonna-whore complex.

DeMille starts with a standard movie narrative, but about half way through, shifts his tale to a phantasmagoric party on board a moored Zeppelin that has elements of the Jazz Age and the Titanic disaster, as well as foreshadowings of the Hindenburg crash and the psychedelic 1960s.

It's a lot to take in for a one-note movie - some husbands want a "virginal" wife to put on a pedestal at home and another woman to be their whore in bed (yawn) - and it goes on for too long, but in its crazy, exaggerated and overreaching way, Madam Satan is quite engaging.

Kay Johnson, in a career role, plays the Madonna who lives in a nice upper-class world, but who is tired of having her husband, played by Reginald Denny, step out on her. She tries to give him a good home, but while he "respects" her as a wife, he looks elsewhere for his slap and tickle.

That elsewhere is gold-digger and wannabe homewrecker "Trixie," played with a bit too-much zest by Lillian Roth. Along for the ride and often serving as the go between for Johnson and Denny is Denny's best friend, played by Roland Young.

The first half of the picture is pretty normal 1930s movie storytelling: Johnson is hurt when she learns that her husband is cheating on her again, so she confronts his paramour, Roth, who basically laughs at her in a "too bad you can't keep your man" way, which prompts Johnson to plot to get her husband back by being sexier.

That is just by-the-numbers pre-code movie stuff and, then, all heck breaks loose. Johnson has Young invite her to a "gala" costume party he's hosting on board a moored Zeppelin, a party where both her husband and Roth are on the guest list.

The Zeppelin's interior itself, decked out for the gala, looks like a floating basketball-court-size Art Deco nightclub filled with swells dressed in historical costumes or in zany "out there" get-ups that say the Jazz Age isn't over and that the psychedelic 1960s started thirty-plus years earlier than thought.

The evening is a crazy party with a "charity" auction where men bid for the six prettiest women. That sets up scantily clad Roth against lithely alluring "Madam Satan -" Johnson in a sinuous disguise as the sexually beguiling queen of the underworld.

You are left to decide how to interpret this truly off-the-wall party that cedes nothing to the bacchanalias of the late 1960s.

The Jazz Age fueled itself on liquor and opiates (drug use was 1980s-style plentiful), with sexual freedom and exploration a side benefit. Being a movie that had to abide state censorship boards, though, other than the drinking, everything is implied, but still pretty obvious.

For nearly an hour of screen time, a huge cast, it's a DeMille movie after all, parties in a drug, booze and sexual-orgy stupor as Johnson and Roth compete for Denny's affections. Visually, it's quite a spectacle.

It goes on for too long, but especially with its Titanic-like conclusion - which includes guests fantastically escaping, the now-free-of-its-tether-and-crashing dirigible, via parachutes - you know you are seeing something odd, telling and, for us today, fortunately caught on film.

The movie barely holds together at times because a boring man, and Denny's character is quite boring, is hardly worth the effort these two beautiful women expend trying to win his affections, but the extravagance and weirdness of the picture is captivating.

There is some silly-looking leftover silent-film-style acting that is cringeworthy and the movie's special effects, while incredible for their day, appear hokey now, but overall, the picture still impresses in a "what exactly did I just see" way.

Not all movies that are worth your time are great. Some are just such a wild and exaggerated representation of their era - of their moment - and so ambitious in their reach, that they are worth watching despite all their flaws.

Madam Satan is all of that, plus Kay Johnson manages, amidst the crazy, to bring some genuine feeling and sympathy to the, unfortunately, timeless role of the ignored and cheated-on wife, which is pretty much all the overwrought "Madonna-whore complex" is about.

29084fbae74b9cf0d19e26322a5101fc.jpg

tumblr_f2851008ce202b92f566193e32a917c4_e7e21272_640.gif
 
Messages
12,734
Location
Northern California
This morning on TCM’s Noir Alley, Hunt the Man Down. Three star rating that should be more of a two.
A couple of days ago on FXM, Cry of the City. Starring Victor Mature, Richard Conte, and Shelley Winters. A pretty good movie. I came in a little late, but I hope to watch the whole movie at some point.
:D
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,081
Location
London, UK
"Knowing" - This apocalyptic movie is for some reason a fave of mine. Don't know why I'm ruminating on the end of civilization lately but this one moves me. It contains one of Nick Cages most understated and moving performances in my mind. He doesn't go to crazy town in this one at all. Sad but moving...

Worf

I rather like Cage; the version of The Wicker Man he was in is an abomination, but he often turns in great performances, sometimes even in great films. Leaving Las Vegas was outstanding. He was also great in Vampire's Kiss - a really convincing performance which totally took me in, and I was audibly shocked when the penny finally drops as to what is really going on. He's great in comedy, too - I liked him a lot in Honeymoon in Vegas, which a whole year earlier centred on a very similar plot device to Indecent Proposal but actually managed to do it with characters I liked, cared what happened to, and believed their 'reality'. Rather than a couple of brats who wasted their relationship over a house they couldn't afford in the first place....
 

Worf

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,207
Location
Troy, New York, USA
I rather like Cage; the version of The Wicker Man he was in is an abomination, but he often turns in great performances, sometimes even in great films. Leaving Las Vegas was outstanding. He was also great in Vampire's Kiss - a really convincing performance which totally took me in, and I was audibly shocked when the penny finally drops as to what is really going on. He's great in comedy, too - I liked him a lot in Honeymoon in Vegas, which a whole year earlier centred on a very similar plot device to Indecent Proposal but actually managed to do it with characters I liked, cared what happened to, and believed their 'reality'. Rather than a couple of brats who wasted their relationship over a house they couldn't afford in the first place....
Don't forget "Raising Arizona"...... hilarious from start to finish....

Worf
 

FOXTROT LAMONT

One Too Many
Messages
1,722
Location
St John's Wood, London UK
View attachment 492888

Madam Satan from 1930 with Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth and Roland Young


Madam Satan, a very early pre-code talkie, is famed director Cecil B. DeMille's nearly two-hour-long exploration of Freud's Madonna-whore complex.

DeMille starts with a standard movie narrative, but about half way through, shifts his tale to a phantasmagoric party on board a moored Zeppelin that has elements of the Jazz Age and the Titanic disaster, as well as foreshadowings of the Hindenburg crash and the psychedelic 1960s.

It's a lot to take in for a one-note movie - some husbands want a "virginal" wife to put on a pedestal at home and another woman to be their whore in bed (yawn) - and it goes on for too long, but in its crazy, exaggerated and overreaching way, Madam Satan is quite engaging.

Kay Johnson, in a career role, plays the Madonna who lives in a nice upper-class world, but who is tired of having her husband, played by Reginald Denny, step out on her. She tries to give him a good home, but while he "respects" her as a wife, he looks elsewhere for his slap and tickle.

That elsewhere is gold-digger and wannabe homewrecker "Trixie," played with a bit too-much zest by Lillian Roth. Along for the ride and often serving as the go between for Johnson and Denny is Denny's best friend, played by Roland Young.

The first half of the picture is pretty normal 1930s movie storytelling: Johnson is hurt when she learns that her husband is cheating on her again, so she confronts his paramour, Roth, who basically laughs at her in a "too bad you can't keep your man" way, which prompts Johnson to plot to get her husband back by being sexier.

That is just by-the-numbers pre-code movie stuff and, then, all heck breaks loose. Johnson has Young invite her to a "gala" costume party he's hosting on board a moored Zeppelin, a party where both her husband and Roth are on the guest list.

The Zeppelin's interior itself, decked out for the gala, looks like a floating basketball-court-size Art Deco nightclub filled with swells dressed in historical costumes or in zany "out there" get-ups that say the Jazz Age isn't over and that the psychedelic 1960s started thirty-plus years earlier than thought.

The evening is a crazy party with a "charity" auction where men bid for the six prettiest women. That sets up scantily clad Roth against lithely alluring "Madam Satan -" Johnson in a sinuous disguise as the sexually beguiling queen of the underworld.

You are left to decide how to interpret this truly off-the-wall party that cedes nothing to the bacchanalias of the late 1960s.

The Jazz Age fueled itself on liquor and opiates (drug use was 1980s-style plentiful), with sexual freedom and exploration a side benefit. Being a movie that had to abide state censorship boards, though, other than the drinking, everything is implied, but still pretty obvious.

For nearly an hour of screen time, a huge cast, it's a DeMille movie after all, parties in a drug, booze and sexual-orgy stupor as Johnson and Roth compete for Denny's affections. Visually, it's quite a spectacle.

It goes on for too long, but especially with its Titanic-like conclusion - which includes guests fantastically escaping, the now-free-of-its-tether-and-crashing dirigible, via parachutes - you know you are seeing something odd, telling and, for us today, fortunately caught on film.

The movie barely holds together at times because a boring man, and Denny's character is quite boring, is hardly worth the effort these two beautiful women expend trying to win his affections, but the extravagance and weirdness of the picture is captivating.

There is some silly-looking leftover silent-film-style acting that is cringeworthy and the movie's special effects, while incredible for their day, appear hokey now, but overall, the picture still impresses in a "what exactly did I just see" way.

Not all movies that are worth your time are great. Some are just such a wild and exaggerated representation of their era - of their moment - and so ambitious in their reach, that they are worth watching despite all their flaws.

Madam Satan is all of that, plus Kay Johnson manages, amidst the crazy, to bring some genuine feeling and sympathy to the, unfortunately, timeless role of the ignored and cheated-on wife, which is pretty much all the overwrought "Madonna-whore complex" is about.

View attachment 492889
View attachment 492890

Bulgakov's Margarita grand ball scene.

Canceled a prior Bond thumbs down because I just saw a trailer for Shamrock Spitfire. Looks outstanding Battle of Britain film.
 
Messages
17,217
Location
New York City
peter-falk-murder1.jpg

Murder, Inc. from 1960 with Peter Falk, Henry Morgan, May Britt, David J. Stewart and Stuart Whitman


Loosely based on a true story, Murder, Inc. is an entertaining B movie about the Mafia's "murder for hire" syndicate operating in Brooklyn in the 1930s and the district attorney who broke it up.

Murder, Inc. is at its best showing how the syndicate was formed and worked. While Murder, Inc. is the brain child of mob boss Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, played here by David J. Stewart, its operational leader is Abe Reles, played by Peter Falk.

Lepke is a CEO type mob leader who doesn't want uncontrolled violence, so he sees Murder, Inc. as an "organized" way to maintain order - and keep his fingerprints off the murders - when someone must be "dealt with." Lepke is a frighteningly highly intelligent sociopath who runs his crime syndicate like a well-organized big business.

Reles is equally scary as he is also a highly intelligent sociopath who sees committing murder the same way a conscientious press operator sees his job: it's what he does to earn a living and he takes pride in a job well done.

Falk's interpretation of psychotic Reles is as captivating as any paid killer Hollywood has put on screen. The rape scene he's involved in, despite being less graphic than more-modern ones, is chilling for the way Falk takes his character from nonchalance to violence in a nano-second.

Shot in black and white, set back in the 1930s when mobsters wore big overcoats and drove huge black cars and filmed in very-crowded working-class Brooklyn, Murder, Inc. feels real and gritty as we see "hits" carried out with a professional aloofness as regular people look the other way.

The police are frustrated as they sort of know what is going on, but can't tie anyone to the murders and can't get anyone to talk. Lepke and Falk are smart businessmen who also know the importance of hiring smart lawyers when the police do come knocking.

Burton Turkus, the avenging DA, played here by Henry Morgan - it is Turkus' book that the movie is loosely based on - works methodically to "get someone to talk." The movie's pivotal characters, unfortunately, are a completely made-up couple, played by May Britt and Stuart Whitman.

Whitman is slowly roped into the mob's killing syndicate as a low-level accomplice, which poisons his marriage to smarter-the-he Britt. It's disappointing that Hollywood, one assumes, felt it needed this fake storyline to give the movie more punch.

The one positive of this ersatz couple, though, is that you can't keep your eyes off of 5'9" blonde Britt (soon to become Mrs. Sammy Davis Jr.) whose formidable carriage and taciturn mien reminds you that she comes from Viking warrior stock.

Even when finally arrested, Falk's Reles and Stewart's Lepke are still manipulating the system, both from the inside and the outside, as they use their knowledge of the syndicate to aggressively negotiate deals for themselves with the police, while their organization continues to knock off potential witnesses.

Falk's and Stewart's mobsters aren't the crazed shoot-'em-up mobsters of the 1930s movies, but instead are scarily intelligent sociopaths who give law enforcement trouble because the police have to match these criminals, not just with force, but with wits and strategy.

Murder, Inc. captures that pivotal nuance very well as the movie's heart and soul is its dialogue and characters not its guns and violence.

Hollywood has been making mob movies for as long as there have been talking pictures. Murder, Inc. is both a solid entry in the genre and a step in the long skein of organized crime dramas that, in only twelve short years, would lead to the avatar of mob movies, The Godfather.


N.B. For Fedora Lounge fans of @LizzieMaine's outstanding thread "The Era -- Day by Day," Murder, Inc. captures, with Hollywood flourishes and inaccuracies, the story of the 1930s Brooklyn mob murder squad that we saw brought to justice in Lizzie's daily posts of that era's newspapers.

mcfflbmtdn.jpg

May Britt
 
Last edited:

curtk

New in Town
Messages
1
Location
Michigan
Right now I'm watching The House On 56th Street (1933) with Kay Francis for a second time. Yesterday I watched Trog (1970).

What was the last movie you watched?
Whiplash (2014). Great film!! Had heard good things. I can't believe it took me this long to get around to watching it!!!
 

Forum statistics

Threads
109,287
Messages
3,077,926
Members
54,238
Latest member
LeonardasDream
Top