Movies Better Than Sex

Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford, Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954).  It is based on Émile Zola's 1890 novel La Bête humaine.  A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in a sordid affair with a co-worker's wife and murder... Key Largo , 1948 The Asphalt Jungle, 1950  In the Lonely Place, 1950  Gene Tierney - Leading Lady Witness for the Prosecution, 1957  The Big Sleep , 1946 Where the Sidewalk Ends, 1950  The Big Heat, 1953 To Have and Have Not, 1944 Double Indemnity , 1944  The Night of the Hunter, 1955   The Man with the Golden Arm, 1955 Eraserhead, 1977  Humphrey Bogart the tough guy  Fallen Angel , 1945  The Killing , 1956  T he Thin Man, 1934  Sunset Boulevard , 1950  Noir Films , Laura , 1944   

Murder, My Sweet  is a 1944 American film noir, directed by Edward Dmytry, notable as the screen debut of author Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled, world-weary detective Philip Marlowe.  It was based on Chandler’s 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely.  Starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley.  Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) is hired by the oafish Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) to track down his formergirlfriend. He's also hired to accompany an effeminate playboy buy back some jewels. When the exchange results in the playboy's murder, Marlowe can't leave the case alone and soon discovers it's related to Malloy's. Ahe gets drawn deeper into a complex web of intrigue by a mysterious blonde (Claire Trevor), the detective finds his own life in increasing jeopardy. .  The film is laden with classic film noir features—moody black-and-white cinematography, shadows galore, two-timing women, and plenty of plot twists—and it retains the first-person narrative, s...

The French Connection, William Friedkin, 1971,  US  Starring Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco, Marcel Bozzuffi, Frederic de Pasquale. 104 min, Film Neo Noir  The screenplay, written by Ernest Tidyman, is based on Robin Moore's 1969 book of the same name.  New York Detective "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner (Roy Scheider) chase a French heroin smuggler.  An urban crime thriller which won undeserved acclaim for its efficient but unremarkable elevat- ed-railway chase and its clumsy, showy emphasis on grainy, sordid realism. The performances are strong, although Hackman has done far better than this portrayal of a hard-nosed cop obsessively tracking down a narcotics ring in New York, using methods disapproved of by his superiors. The real problems, however, are that Friedkin's nervy, noisy, undisciplined pseudo-realism sits uneasily with his suspense motivated shock editing; and that compared to (say) Siegel's Dirty H...

Killer's Kiss, Stanley Kubrick, 1955, US Starring Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret, Julius Adelman. 67 min, b/w, film noir  Written, edited, shot, produced and directed by Kubrick for a mere $75,000, his second feature is a moody but rather over-arty B thriller whose prime pleasures lie in the high contrast black-and-white camerawork (Kubrick had been a top photographer for Look). The story is nothing original - a down-at-heel boxer (Smith) falls for a night-club dancer (Kane) after saving her from being raped by her boss (Silvera), who consequently determines to put an end to their romance-but Kubrick makes the most of flashback and dream sequences, and a surreal climactic fight in a warehouse full of mannequins. The dialogue was post-synched, making for a certain stiltedness in the performances, but at least the brief running-time ensures that the film's more pretentious moments tend to flash past, rather than linger as in Kubrick's later w...

Anatomy of a Murder, Otto Preminger, 1959, US  Starring James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Arthur O'Connell, George C Scott. 160 min. b/w One of Preminger's most compelling and perfectly realised films (with a terrific Duke Ellington score). A long, detailed account of the efforts of a small town lawyer (Stewart) to defend an army sergeant (Gazzara) accused of murdering the bartender who, it is claimed, raped his wife (Remick), it's remarkable for the cool, crystal clear direction, concentrating on the mechanical processes and professional performances guiding the trial, and for the superb acting. Chilling, ironic and sceptical, it is far less confident in the law than most courtroom dramas, which makes one suspect that it was this probing cynicism rather than the 'daring' use of words that caused controversy at the time of release.  The screenplay by Wendell Mayes was based on the 1958 novel of the same name written by Michigan Supreme C...

Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock, 1946, US Starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Leopoldine Konstantin, Reinhold Schunzel, Moroni Olsen. 102 min. b/w. One of Hitchcock's finest films of the '40s, using its espionage plot about Nazis hiding out in South America as a mere MacGuffin, in order to focus on a perverse, cruel love affair between US agent Grant as Devlin  and alcoholic Bergman as Alicia, whom he blackmails into providing sexual favours for the German Rains as a means of getting information. Suspense there is, but what really distinguishes the film is the way its smooth, polished surface illuminates a sickening tangle of self-sacrifice, exploitation, suspicion, and emotional dependence. Grant as Devlin, in fact, is the least sympathetic character in the dark, ever-shifting relationships on view, while Rains, oppressed by a cigar-chewing, possessive mother and deceived by all around him, is treated with great generosity. Less war thrill...

The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles. Many critics consider The Third Man to be the best British post-World War II film noir and even if Reed remains the picture's greatest asset, he is not the first name that comes to mind when remembering this film. Many believe, and it is probably true, that Welles indirectly influenced Reed. This film is famous for its black-and-white cinematography, its technique and the atmosphere of paranoia. It is also noteworthy that while the audience knows that Welles is the protagonist, they watch Joseph Cotten, as a bumbling American pulp novelist named Holly Martins, bounce around Vienna for more than an hour, under the impression that his old friend Harry Lime is dead.  Welles, who, despite being in the film for only 40 minutes, creates one of the most memorable characters in the history of film noir... The story features an evil, c...