Gary Dennis’ New York City Movie Place

There are reasons why people became movie stars and every one of them has at least one performance to prove it. Ginger Rogers proved it alright in 1940 with her performance as the title role in Kitty Foyle. This is also a her Oscar performance and ( I believe ) her first non musical […]

It is in color (Technicolor that is), it is big, it is fast and it is funny. The prints of this picture have been restored so it looks like it was made yesterday. Originally this picture was to be just a shot by shot remake of the Douglas Fairbanks version from 1919. However at […]

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 […]

Strategically realeased on Christmas Eve in 1949, it is one of those slightly better than B pictures that RKO produced so many of ; they only did 6 big pictures a year and this was not one of them. The story is familiar, two strangers meet and though it seems that they will never […]

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 […]

This is the Jihad of all “indictment of Hollywood”, “this business of ours called show chews them up and spits them out” and “this town is mean in spite of the palm trees” pictures ever made. It angered a few people, studio heads who came to believe that director Billy Wilder had bitten hard […]

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 […]

I love this picture. It was a constant employee selection, on the screen at the store. You have double the Bette, how great is that? Nobody was better at playing evil, wicked, b - word, women that Bette Davis. Not only does she give a great performance as one of the meanest sisters ever played […]

It’s during the war, World War Two that is, and young soldier Joe Allen (Robert Walker) is on a two-day leave in New York. There he meets Alice (Judy Garland). She agrees to show him the sights and they spend the day together. In this short time they find themselves falling in love with each […]

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, […]