Gary Dennis’ New York City Movie Place

Great accidents happen once in a while that leave us saying thank God for accidents. The Killer’s starring Burt Lancaster plucked fresh from Broadway (in his motion picture debut) and Ava Gardner is just such a film.
–
This 1946 classic from Universal Pictures was almost made with different lead actors. The role of Kitty Collins […]

A private detective is being set up to take a murder rap. he is being framed and the only one who believes him and the only one he can trust is his secretary. This is the premise for Dark Corner, a nice little noir from 20th Century Fox. What is also nice about this picture […]

This is THE text book film noir. It is the standard by which all others were made and measured up to. I know that this is a bold statement and borderline crazy but all “film noirs” leading up to this picture are funneled into this picture. The femme fatal in the extreme […]

A private detective is being set up to take a murder rap. he is being framed and the only one who believes him and the only one he can trust is his secretary. This is the premise for Dark Corner, a nice little noir from 20th Century Fox. What is also nice about this picture […]

This picture is a rarity. A sports themed film noir. It also turned out to be Humphrey Bogart’s last picture.
Mr. Bogart plays jobless sportswriter Eddie Willis. Biting the bullet and selling out by going to work for corrupt fight promoter Nick Benko (Rod Steiger), Eddie is hired to promote Benko’s current protege, an […]

Joan Crawford was always good at playing a victim. A victim of love, circumstance, mental illness, mean sisters and mean daughters. In Mildred Pierce she is great at playing the victim—a victim of love and of a mean daughter. This was her first picture at Warner Brothers after being let go by […]

This picture falls into a category that we made up at the store. It is called tawdry noir.
This picture is the epitome of tawdry noir. It is also a great movie and was a regular on the screen at Movie Place.
The story follows three kids and the paths they take. Young, orphaned and wealthy, […]

“There are eight million stories in the Naked City . . .” goes the phrase. It was used in closing narration for the television show of the same name. It is also the theme of this movie, the final one produced by Mark Hellinger. The idea is simple. Take a murder story from the headlines […]

This is THE text book film noir. It is the standard by which all others were made and measured up to. I know that this is a bold statement and borderline crazy but all “film noirs” leading up to this picture are funneled into this picture. The femme fatal in the extreme […]

During the war, World War two that is, Dick Powell shed his Busby Berkley young male lead sheen and got butch and manly. The transformation seemed to happen overnight. Playing Philip Marlow certainly helped create his new image. No more shuffling off to Buffalo.
This is an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell […]