Any mystery lover knows how significant Agatha Christie is to the crime-fiction genre. But she wasn’t the only woman on the scene—nor the first. Women crime writers have always been influential in the world of mysteries, and here are a few who may be less familiar to even a dedicated reader. If you were investigating the case of…
In tribute to the late Lauren Bacall, we’re looking at the four classic films she made with husband and screen partner Humphrey Bogart between 1944 and 1948: To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, and Key Largo. Last week we looked at Howard Hawks’ To Have and Have Not. Today we’ll look…
In recent years, film noir studies have exploded in popularity. For anyone just beginning their film noir obsession (or anyone who’s always ready to add to their home library) here’s a handy guide to some of the best books out there. 1. Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir; Dark City Dames: The Wicked…
Pop quiz: What do The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, The Long Goodbye, and The Empire Strikes Back have in common? Answer: They were all written or co-written by the same woman, the amazing Leigh Brackett. How does one person knock down both the ultimate private eye movie and the ultimate deconstruction of the…
I think Altman’s rendition of The Long Goodbye gets a bad rap. Fans of Raymond Chandler‘s poetic novels and Bogart’s iconic portrayal find Elliot Gould as a smart-ass, sleepy “Rip Van Marlowe” too much of a change in character. Gould’s Marlowe is a man who fell asleep in the ’40s and woke up to the…
