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.
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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 […]

One of the greatest cold war pictures. However this one almost strikes a balance, there is evil in both ideologies. Sure, commies are a bad and ruthless bunch but so can the mother of a much decorated war hero be as well. After the much despised by his troops Captain Raymond Shaw returns from […]

This is one of the greatest pictures ever made about New York. It is, however, the greatest picture ever made about the New York City subway system. Filmed almost entirely within the subway system, this picture captures not only the realism of the day to day operations of our beloved transit system, it captures […]

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 […]

On the eve of the D-Day invasion, an Army Major who knows where the action will take place is kidnapped in Lisbon. Drugged and smuggled out of Portugal to an “Army Hospital” our hero is aged, awakened and led to believe that he had been in a coma and World War Two has […]

The picture stars Fredric March (in a role originally intended for Spencer Tracy) as a not such a pushover middleaged uppermiddle class business man who’s home is invaded and family held hostage by a gang of escaped convicts. Humprey Bogart in a role originated by Paul Newman on Broadway shines in his last tough guy […]

This was a big favorite at Movie Place and was on the screen quite a bit. Nothing better than a revenge on the mob picture. Teenaged Tolly Devlin sees four gangsters beat his father to death. He saw who did it but clams up when questioned by the police. He ain’t seen […]

This is a nice little thriller with great direction from Ted Tetzlaff. Mr. Tetzlaff was a cinematographer who had over a hundred pictures, starting back in the silent era, to his credit. His last job as cinematographer was in 1946 when he gave Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious that special look. The story is by writer Cornell […]