Film Noir Friday: The Turning Point [1952]

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 TURNING POINT [1952] starring William Holden, Edmond O’Brien, Alexis Smith. According to the poster, it’s not suitable for children.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Special prosecutor John Conroy hopes to combat organized crime in his city, and appoints his cop father Matt as chief investigator. John doesn’t understand why Matt is reluctant, but cynical reporter Jerry McKibbon thinks he knows: he’s seen Matt with mob lieutenant Harrigan. Jerry’s friendship for John is tested by the question of what to do about Matt, and by his attraction to John’s girl Amanda. Meanwhile, the threatened racketeers adopt increasingly violent means of defense.

Film Noir Friday: Between Midnight and Dawn [1950]

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 BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, starring Mark Stevens, Edmond O’Brian and Gale Storm.

TCM says:

Rocky Barnes and Daniel Purvis, two policemen working the night shift, have been partners since they served in the war together. Although Rocky believes that even criminals have some good inside, Daniel is more cynical. Daniel is particularly anxious to capture petty criminal Ritchie Garris, but is hampered by the fact that the victims of Garris’ strong-arm tactics refuse to testify against him. Rocky is more interested in the face that belongs to the sultry voice of the night dispatcher than he is in Garris and soon discovers that the attractive voice is that of Katherine Mallory, a policeman’s daughter and the captain’s secretary.

There are some cool shots of Los Angeles.

Film Noir Friday–On Saturday! Shield For Murder [1954]

 

SHIELD FOR MURDER

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 SHIELD FOR MURDER starring (and co-directed by) Edmond O’Brien.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Police detective Barney Nolan accosts a bookmaker, takes him into an alley and shoots him. Barney then robs the body of $25,000, removes the silencer from his gun, shouts a warning and fires two shots into the air to make it appear that he has shot a fleeing suspect. Barney is unaware the entire episode has been witnessed by a man in an adjacent building.

 

Film Noir Friday: The Killers [1946]

The Killers Swedish Movie Poster

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 KILLERS based on a story by Ernest Hemingway. Directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Albert Dekker and Sam Levene, THE KILLERS is a terrific film.   Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Two hitmen, Al and Max, drive into Brentwood, New Jersey, in search of Pete “Swede” Lund, and stake out a diner he frequents, questioning, among others, customer Nick Adams about Swede’s whereabouts. After the men leave, Nick races to Swede’s boardinghouse room to warn him and is stunned when Swede seems resigned to his fate. Shortly after Nick’s departure, Al and Max find Swede waiting in his room and shoot him to death. When it is discovered Swede had a small life insurance policy with Atlantic Casual, insurance investigator James Riordan begins investigating his murder.

http://youtu.be/jJm3ixVQKnw

Film Noir Friday: The Web [1947]

Film Noir Poster - Web, The_01

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 WEB starring Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines, William Bendiz and Vincent Price.

Enjoy the film!

TCM Says:

At a big city train station, Martha Kroner greets her father Leopold after his release from prison, where he served a five-year term for counterfeiting bonds. Kroner is disappointed that his former associate, wealthy businessman Andrew Colby, has not come to welcome him home. Unknown to Kroner, Colby’s henchman, Charles Murdock, watches him from the shadows.

 

http://youtu.be/ni8U6gD2fh8?list=PLEF00711AD0520D86

Film Noir Friday: The Hitchhiker [1953]

hitch-hiker-poster2My posts this week have been about a personal experience. Years ago my brother’s best friend and I picked up a hitchhiker — he was a guy we knew but hadn’t seen in a while. When we picked him up we didn’t know that just days later he would be arrested in connection with two murders.

I’ll be wrapping up the series The Devil in Orange County over the next day or so.

Meanwhile, it is Film Noir Friday, and tonight’s feature is THE HITCHHIKER, starring Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman and directed by Ida Lupino. The tagline for the film was great: “There’s death in his upraised thumb!”

From Wikipedia:

Critic John Krewson lauded the work of Ida Lupino, and wrote, “As a screenwriter and director, Lupino had an eye for the emotional truth hidden within the taboo or mundane, making a series of B-styled pictures which featured sympathetic, honest portrayals of such controversial subjects as unmarried mothers, bigamy, and rape…in The Hitch-Hiker, arguably Lupino’s best film and the only true noir directed by a woman, two utterly average middle-class American men are held at gunpoint and slowly psychologically broken by a serial killer. In addition to her critical but compassionate sensibility, Lupino had a great filmmaker’s eye, using the starkly beautiful street scenes in Not Wanted and the gorgeous, ever-present loneliness of empty highways in The Hitch-Hiker to set her characters apart.

ENJOY THE FILM!