Movie review - "Blue Velvet" (1986) ****

 Gorgeous, gripping, very accessible - everyone should be able to follow this story, it's a who dunnit (who owns the ear). Kyle McLachlan literally spells out the solution in his phoe calls. The sense of mood is captivating.

McLachlan is a solid Lynch surrogate, Laura Dern does wonders as the blonde (there's something ticking behind her brain), Isabella Rossellini is a standout as a traumatised, sexy, grieving, glamorous, severely mentally ill woman, Dennis Hopper is amazing as the yelling and terrifying Frank, Dean Stockwell impresses as the camp drug dealer.

The film just works with its combination of Americana, mystery, weirdness, underbelly, etc.

Book review - Hardy#1 - "The Dying Trade" (1980) by Peter Corris

 First Cliff Hardy novel. The plotting is a little dodgy but the feel is spot on - the humour, toughness, violence, darkness, sex, commentary on society. Hardy gets knocked out a lot, looking after a sister of a rich man - it feels like cobbled Chandler but that's okay.

Movie review - "Kiss or Kill" (1997) ****

 I watched this after seeing some later period Bill Bennett movies - The Nugget, In a Savage Land, Uninhabited - and the difference is remarkable. This has so much energy, certainty. It gets off to a flying start: girl sees mother immolated - bam - girl grown up meets sleazy man, fight, seduction, man assaults her, collapses, drugged, they rob him, he's dead, there's a tape of a footballer and a kid. Bam, bam, bam.

Much is marvellous. Support characters like Max Cullen and Barry Otto and the team of Gilbert and Haywood. The slob black tracker (John Clarke) asking for more money. The locations. The lack of music score.

Lead roles are dynamic. Matt Day is a little "hey I'm playing this  as angry and I'm not normally cast like that hey". He's totally fine as is Frances O'Connor.

Movie review - "The Sound of Fury" (1950) ***1/2

 Cy Endfield's best known American film. The story of two crooks - Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges - who commit a crime.

Kathleen Ryan from Odd Man Out is Lovejoy's woman. Lovejoy does his craggy 40s/50s ugly leading man thing. Bridges gets to act up a storm. Richard Carlson is a rabble rousing journo who has an unconvincing change of heart after he talks to Ryan and gets lectured to by a dull European. There's lots of talks about ethics.

But the drama is well done. The seediness, the descent into crime, the sad eyed look of women, the power of the final lynching.

Movie review - "The Argyle Secrets" (1948) ***

 Based on a radio play and it is very talky, but it was shot over six days or something and there wasn't much Cy Endfield could've done. It's beautifully shot and the actors spit out the dialogue. A lot of Maltese Falcon - man dead, chasing Macguffin, there's a sinister fatty and a woman sho's shonky. William Gargan, Ralph Byrd, Barabar Billingsly... so some star power.

Movie review - “Sorry Wrong Number” (1948) ***1/2

The original radio play is a pretty much perfect 30 minutes - how do you expand it to a feature? You could have kept it with the main lady (Barbara Stanwyck) on the phone, added more twists and turns, or you go more into the motive... which is what this film does. It fleshes out the characters of her husband (Burt Lancaster), who grows to resent his wife’s money, controlling nature and ill health. There’s also her rich dad who is a great character, and her old friend (Ann Richards) who saw Something Suspicious.

It’s not a bad mystery, with William Conrad on hand to provide menace. Richards has another thankless best friend role but get some decent screen time and a suspenseful scene where she follows her husband out to a beach.

Not as good as the play but pretty good - probably Richards' best American film.

Movie review - "Bootleg" (1985) **

 Queensland oddity. Low budget film from John Prescott who made a successful short. At heart this is a short film, or a fringe play - an undergraduate-esque experimental thing about a private eye (John Flaus) coming up to Queensland to find a missing girl, getting involved in hookers (including Carmen Duncan), corrupt cops (Ray Meagher, excellent), anti nuclear demonstrators (John Gregg) and various others. It grabs at various themes and ideas, never seems to develop any of them. But it is of interest.

Movie review - "Bootleg" (1985) **

 Ah look good on them for having a go. It's not a feature, it's a smart arse short film in its heart of hearts. John Flaus is a PI looking into a missing girl up north. There's funny tunrs from Ray Meagher as a Queensland copper -  I thought his part would be bigger - and Carmen Duncan as a hooker. I could have sworn the guy at the end was Ian Skippen.

The film outstages its welcome pretty quickly but the fact it was a Brisbane shot film from the mid 80s is interesting.

Movie review - "Two O'Clock Courage" (1945) **1/2

 A B-picture but an RKO "B" so it's done with class and there's some names associated with it - a young Anthony Mann working his way up was the director, the star was Tom Conway who's a personal fave, and his female lead is Ann Rutherford from the Andy Hardy films. Jane Greer is in the support cast.

Rutherford was so likeably in the Hardy movies I'm surprised she never became a bigger name, though she did tend to overact. She's a cab driver (hello WW2 feminism) nwho picks up amnesiac Tom Conway. It stars off moody and more recogniseably Anthony Mann but becomes lighter There's a wisecreacking cop, Rutherford is an ex actress who pretends to be a reporter, Conway pretends to be a reporter. The dead person is a Broadway producer.

I loved Conway in the Val Lewton films. In a more conventional leading man part he doesn't have the lightness and humour of his brother George Sanders. He's still a solid B star - just doesn't have the twinkle. He's really most effecitve as a second lead I think.

Movie review - "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) ****

 Louis B Mayer didn't like noir but MGM did it proud. It has some gloss, sure, but there was the element of the trailer park about Lana Turner and that's well used here. She's beautiful, needy and trady - some great moments where she's honest, wanting more. John Garfield is solid, feels working class and dumb. Cecil Kellaway is tubby, bemused and dumb - surely he must expect people to kill him for his wife.

This is more faithful to the book than I'd be led to believe. It's got the other woman (Audrey Trotter), the DA, the dodgy lawyer (Hume Cronyn steals the show) the dodgy investigator, the attempt at murder that doesn't work, the one that does.

A marvel how it gets around the censor and still alludes to pre marital sex and suicide attempts. It runs almost two hours so has an epic sweep of emotion - you really go on a journey with Garfield and Turner: lust, greed, love, regret, fear, melachony, depression, acceptance.

Leon Ames' DA is annoying.

Movie review - "The Restless and the Damned" (1959) ** aka The Dispossessed

 Why did Lee Robinson make this? I think he was dazzled by working with a top French producer and Hollywood "names" like Edmond O'Brien and Richard Basehart.

Lee Robinson directed efforts could be sluggish but they had simple stories and great outdoors scenes. This was shot in Tahiti but the island doesn't look particularly pretty. There's too much indoors.

And its a boringly complicated story. Basically Andrea Parisy is married to Basehart and is hungry for money. She's not that compelling, not flatteringly shot. Basehart is bland. O'Brien is just sleazy. It's all in third gear.

Lee Robinson was so smart with his first three features but he lost it for the last two co productions. Why no part for Chips Rafferty? Why not just have a film about people trying to kill goodies in Tahiti?

Movie review - "SOS Pacific" (1959) ***

 From that late 50s period where John Davis was obsessed with the international market. I don't think anyone quite liked this - it's always referred to derisively - but it's quite a good little B thriller. Joseph Losey originally developed it and he would've done a better job but Guy Green's handling is fine.

The two British leads, Richard Attenborough and John Gregson, are the baddies, or antagonists - Attenborough is one of his snivelling cowards, here more channelling Peter Lorre (the film has a 40s Warners vibe) while Gregson's pilot you think is going to be heroic and he is for a bit but he has a crack up which is actually really interesting (though he redeems himself by offering up himself as shark food).

It probably should've been in colour. There's definitely too many characters - I kept saying "you could consolidate". Like Eva Barok is a potential love interest for Eddie Constantine (billed fifth or something but the star) but then he hooks up with Pier Angeli. What's the German do apart from give advice how to use a radio? The cop escorting Constantine could've been combined with Attenborough. Or killed. Jean Anderson is just there. Not as skilfully written as say Five Came Back. 

But there's no better ticking clock than an atomic bomb test!

Movie review - "Blind Date" (1959) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 I gather this was Joseph Losey's first hit in Britain. It ushered in a strong period for him. It's not that a great film, although there's good things in it. Hardy Kruger (as a Dutchman) is arrested for the murder of a woman (Michele Presle) he was seeing - Stanley Baker is the cops.

Losey and his two screenwriters were blacklisted so there is a pleasing lefty American dig at the class system - Baker has a posh boss who puts pressure on Baker to arrest Kruger, because the deceased is connected with a Lord (who we never spend much time with - a mistake I feel).

In flashbacks to Kruger's relationship with Presley he's possessive and moody and controlling so could easily be a killer. This is in the film's favour to a degree although you sense at heart it's misogynist and you'd be right. 

The ending feels like it was inspired by Vertigo - I could be wrong though the dates kind of work out... she's not really dead, she's alive, she killed the mistress as a plot with the husband.

It's not an expensive film - mostly Baker interrogating Kruger, and flashbacks are Kruger and Presle in a studio. (These are quite racy scenes and I think helped the film do well at the box office.) Kruger's outsider status helps. I think the film would've been better though with an English actress instead of Presle - more clearly establishment.

Movie review - "Tiger in the Smoke" (1956) **

 The first half of this film is pretty good set in a fog drenched London as people look for Havoc, a man who they think was dead who is back and killing people. He was a commando in World War Two who disappeared and was evil. This is all scary and effective, even if because it's a Rank film they keep cutting back to bland Muriel Pavlow as the guy's wife, and Donald Sinden as her fiancee, and some random priest. However there is Havoc's old gang who lurk around the fog, they are good value.

But then when Havoc is revealed, after this great build up, he's played by Tony Wright who is just a bad actor and isn't up to it. Donald Sinden, Michael Craig or Stanley Baker could've played the hell out of it - look even Anthony Steel would've been better than Wright.

Then the film gets bad and its compounded by having the last act in the day in France at this house. They should've kept it all at night all around London. And when Pavlow doesn't remember Wright it's dumb.

They could've cut Sinden's character out of the film, and had a cop become interested in Pavlow. 

So many things they should've done. Still, effective moments.

Movie review - "Pushover" (1954) **1/2

 I thought this film was about cuddly Fred MacMurray being taken in by slinky dame Kim Novak but actually it's about stud muffin cop MacMurray seducing gangster moll Novak to try and find if her boyfriend robbed a bank. That's a strong idea as is the fact Novak may be playing him. She became a star with this and while her lack of ability is clear she also has charisma and is well protected by director Robert Quine.

There's a dull subplot about MacMurray's fellow cop Phil Carey romancing Dorothy Malone - one of these should've been shonky. I like the subplot about the drunken cop who has morals and EG Marshall is superb as the head cop.

Surprisingly little of Novak on screen - she's a lot at the beginning not so much later on. Lovely black and white photography.

The film is decent. Lacks another plot. Like Double Indemnity had the daughter and her boyfriend - something like that. The gangster boyfriend maybe vanishes too early - they could've used him more. Or made Dorothy Malone bad, like I suggested.

Movie review - "The Flesh is Weak" (1957) **1/2

 For someone who looked like a cad, John Derek didn't play a lot of them - he started off as a weakling type them became a hero but he's effectively cast here as a pimp, working in London's red light district. He seduces gals and turns them to a life of crime. 

The main gal here is Italian actress Milly Vitale, who I didn't know that well. His seduction of her is well done with racy-ish scenes, for the time - she's kissing his bare chest in bed. Vitale is okay but I wish Diana Dors played the lead.

Derek is fine. He's well cast. He gets a showy scene where he verbally abuses Vitale and does fine. Derek poo-pooed his acting career but he could be seen to be trying hard and he definitely does here.

William Frankyln is a journo investigating the racket. He makes some pleas for decriminalising prostitution.

Producer Raymond Stross made this - he specialised in sexier movies.  The director was Don Chaffey. He and Stross then made A Question of Adultery.

Movie review - "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" (1956) *** (warning: spoilers)

 I saw this after the Peter Hyams remake. It's still a little too silly but is better in part because it's simpler. In the remake Jesse Metcalfe wanted to bust Michael Douglas for faking evidence by faking evidence... here Dana Andrews is doing it to show how the death penalty can cause the wrong people to be convicted (the same thing as The Life and Death of David Gale). It's a simpler motivation.

I also believed the final twist more, even though Lang disliked it. Here it feels more organic that Andrews wanted to take out a former lover - he used the opportunity.

Joan Fontaine is adrift in a hopeless role. Dana Andrews does his solid Andrews thing. There's some colourful burlesque girls in support and you can imagine Lang having a high old lechy time around them.

Definitely one of the better 1950s RKO movies. Not a masterpiece but interesting.

Movie review - "The Narrow Margin" (1952) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Excellent noir, beautifully shot and crisply written. Charles Macgraw has the role of a lifetime as the tough cop escorting gangster's wife Marie Windsor. Windsor is terrific. The main flaw of the film is she's so good you feel gypped that the last third shifts to this blander other actress - it's a neat twist that she's the actual wife and Windsor is a cop but I miss Macgraw-Windsor scenes and felt Windsor deserved more of an exit. Her death is shocking - I just wish she'd taken out at least one baddie. Very good baddies.

Movie review - "Goodnight My Love" (1972) **1/2

 One of the first 70s film noir throw backs - a Chandler-esque tale set in 1946 with Richard Boone and Michael Dunn endearing as a pair of private eyes looking for the ex of Barbara Bain.

This got writer-director Peter Hymans a lot of attention. It's got annoying soft focus photography, decent production values, strong cast (including Victor Buono, Gianni Russ). Very strong cast.

I drifted in and out of this. Maybe I wasn't focused. Maybe it was me. I wasn't that into it. I wish Dunn's part had been bigger. It's fun. Not awesome. Hyams said it was overpraised but hose reviews did lead to him having the opportunity to direct features.

Movie review - "Appointment with a Shadow" (1957) **

A film noir from Universal which gave a meaty lead role to George Nader, stepping in for Jeffrey Hunter who was going to star but fell ill.

Nader is an alcoholic journo whose wife wants him to give up drinking. She gives him a tip from her brother (Brian Keith) that a major crim is in town, with plastic surgery, and will be arrested. He turns up, sees the gangster shot dead by the cops (after drawing his gun, this isn't a corruption story), but then spots the real gangster. Problem is, because he's a boozer, no one believes him.

That's not a bad idea for a film. Alec Coppel worked on the script. It's quite gloomy. As if Ray Milland from The Lost Weekend was thrown into a thriller. But not bad. 

George Nader rises to the occasion even though Brian Keith who plays the cop would probably have been better in the lead. Joanna More does her best in the Jane Wyman part as the "c'mon you can do it" girlfriend. Virginia Field has more fun as a stripper who knows the gangster.

The alcohol stuff is interesting but this is a programmer. It lacks an extra twist or two - like say making the baddie or his stripper gal an alcoholic, or having someone force booze into Nader.

Still it was interesting. Richard Carlson, better known as an actor, directed.