Category Archives: Film Noir Friday

Film Noir Friday: Christmas Holiday [1944]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crime theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. The holidays have a dark side, and to prove it tonight’s feature is CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

After receiving his commission on Christmas Eve, Lt. Charles Mason learns that Mona, his longtime girl friend, has married another man. When his plane from North Carolina to San Francisco is forced by bad weather to land in New Orleans, the heartbroken Charles meets alcoholic reporter Simon Fenimore, who takes him to a brothel run by Valerie De Merode. There Charles is introduced to hostess/singer Jackie Lamont, and agrees to take her to a midnight mass. After the church services, the two go to a diner, where Jackie tells Charles that her real name is Abigail and that she is the wife of convicted murderer Robert Manette. At the diner, and the next morning in his hotel room, Abigail tells Charles the story of her relationship with Robert.

 

Film Noir Friday: Undertow [1949]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crime theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is UNDERTOW starring Scott Brady, John Russell, Dorothy Hart, and Peggy Dow.

TCM says:

After buying a half-interest in a small lodge near Reno, Tony Reagan, a recently discharged veteran, runs into Danny Morgan, an old friend from Chicago. Danny, who operates a Reno casino owned by Chicago racketeer Big Jim Lee, offers Tony a job, but Tony declines, stating that he gave up the “business” long ago. Tony shows Danny the engagement ring he plans to give Sally Lee, Big Jim’s niece and ward, and Danny, in turn, shows off the ring he has bought for his girl. Confident and carefree, Tony then helps novice gambler Ann McKnight win at the craps table.

 

Film Noir Friday: Black Angel [1946]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crime theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is BLACK ANGEL (based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich) starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre and Broderick Crawford.

Wikipedia says:

A falsely convicted man’s wife, Catherine (June Vincent), and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin (Dan Duryea), team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin’s wife. Their investigation leads them to face-to-face confrontations with a determined policeman (Broderick Crawford) and a shifty nightclub owner (Peter Lorre), who Catherine and Martin suspect may be the real killer.

Enjoy the film!

Film Noir Friday: Crime Inc. [1945]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Today’s feature is BRUTE FORCE starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ella Raines, Ann Blyth, Anita Colby and introducing Howard Duff.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

In the mid-1930s, after two of his henchmen are shot down in a café, New York racketeer Bugs Kelly confides to reporter Jim Riley that a newly formed crime syndicate committed the murders after he refused to join. Unknown to Bugs, the syndicate’s boss, who hides his illegal activities by posing as the president of National Brokers, Inc., a phony company, has also ordered Bugs’s execution. When the order to kill Bugs is issued, however, one of Bugs’s men overhears “finger man” Tony Marlow passing the word to Barry North, a racketeer posing as an exporter, and alerts Bugs. Bugs kidnaps Tony, a nightclub owner, and forces him to arrange a rendezvous with the hoodlum who was hired to kill him.

 

Film Noir Friday — Saturday Matinee: Brute Force [1947]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Today’s feature is BRUTE FORCE starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo, Ella Raines, Ann Blyth, Anita Colby and introducing Howard Duff.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Captain Munsey, the prison captain of the Westgate Penitentiary, is despised by inmates and prison officials alike for his brutal treatment of the inmates. While Munsey’s enemies include prison doctor Walters and Warden Barnes, he is supported by some inmate stool pigeons. One of the stool pigeons, Wilson, is killed when a group of prisoners force him into the workshop steel press. As living conditions at the prison continue to deteriorate, some of the inmates, including leader Joe Collins, who landed in prison for stealing money to support his wheelchair-bound wife, Spencer, Tom Lister and Soldier, plan a breakout.

 

Film Noir Friday — Sunday Matinee: Manhandled [1949]

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Welcome to Film Noir Friday — Sunday Matinee! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is MANHANDLED starring Dorothy Lamour, Dan Duryea and Sterling Hayden.  Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Unemployed writer Alton Bennet tells psychiatrist Dr. Redman about his nightmares, in which he dreams that he murders his wealthy wife Ruth with a heavy perfume bottle. Redman’s secretary, Merl Kramer, takes notes as Bennet denies coveting his wife’s jewels, which are worth $100,000. After Bennet is refused an advance from his publishers, he becomes jealous of Ruth’s close relationship with handsome young architect Guy Bayard, who is designing their new beach house.

 

Film Noir Friday: Slightly Honorable [1939]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is SLIGHTLY HONORABLE starring Pat O’Brien, Edward Arnold, Broderick Crawford and Ruth Terry. This film was directed by Tay Garnet who, seven years later, would direct THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.  Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Attorney John Webb is fighting the corruption of a political ring led by Vincent Cushing, a newspaper publisher who has become very wealthy through graft. Webb’s only ally is his law partner, Russ Sampson. While at the state capitol to enlist the aid of Senator Scott, the two meet Alma Brehmer, Cushing’s mistress and a law client of Webb’s. Alma invites them to a party that Cushing is giving at Pete Godeana’s nightclub that night, and Webb accepts. At the club, Webb is impressed by dancer Ann Seymour’s performance in the floor show until he learns that she is only eighteen. Minutes later, he hears Ann scream and sees Godeana slapping the girl. Webb punches Godeana and takes Ann from the club.

 

Film Noir Friday: The Benson Murder Case [1930]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.  Tonight’s feature is THE BENSON MURDER CASE starring William Powell as Philo Vance.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Anthony Benson, wealthy stockbroker, to escape the threats and pleas of numerous friends he sold out in the market crash, motors to his hunting lodge near New York, accompanied by Harry Gray, a Broadway gambler and one of those he sold out. Benson is followed by three others who have threatened to kill him: Adolph Mohler, whose forged check Benson holds; Mrs. Paula Banning, a widow, in love with Mohler, whose assets have been wiped out; and Fanny Del Roy, a Broadway actress, who claims that the pearls held in lieu of Mohler’s check were stolen from her. During a visit by District Attorney Markham and amateur detective Philo Vance, Benson is murdered

 

Film Noir Friday — Holiday Edition: The Crooked Way [1949]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Because it is Memorial Day, today’s film, THE CROOKED WAY, features a tale about a WWII war hero suffering from amnesia.  The film stars John Payne, Sonny Tufts and Ellen Drew.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Eddie Rice, a veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers that he is a gangster named Eddie Riccardi and has a police record. Although he does not know it, five years earlier, Eddie was acquitted of murder after turning state’s evidence for homicide detective Lieutenant Joe Williams. His partner, Vince Alexander, took the “rap” and spent two years in prison. On a Los Angeles street, a woman recognizes Eddie and reports him to Vince, who sends his thugs to beat up Eddie.

 

Film Noir Friday — On Sunday: To The Ends of the Earth [1948]

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Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Tonight’s feature is TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH starring Dick Powell, Signe Hasso, Ludwig Donath, Vladimir Sokoloff, Edgar Barrier and Maylia. Directed by Robert Stevenson.

Yesterday’s post, HOP HEADS, was about opium addiction and tonight’s film is about a crackdown on the opium trade. I’m sensing a theme.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

In the year 1935, following a United Nations-sponsored meeting of the World Narcotics Commission, the U.S. Treasury Department, Bureau of Narcotics undertakes a crackdown on the worldwide opium trade. Assigned to the investigation is Treasury Department agent Mike Barrows, who is head of the department’s San Francisco bureau. Mike is familiar with the ruthless ways of the drug traffickers, having witnessed an unmarked Japanese freighter jettison one hundred Chinese slaves off the San Francisco coast to gain enough speed to outrun a U.S. Coast Guard patrol. A life preserver bearing the name Kira Maru , and a view of the offending captain, as seen through binoculars, are the only clues Mike has to go on as he begins his investigation in Shanghai.