By most measurements, Robert Wise didn’t just succeed as a director—Robert Wise crushed it. He made West Side Story, which, if you adjust for inflation, made about half a billion dollars at the American box office. Then he made The Sound of Music. 2015 will mark the 50 year anniversary of that movie and many…
So this is the next in my line of posts where I’m going to write about an underappreciated vintage noir novel, and in so doing, discuss a movie that was made from its story (sometimes it’s the other way around, but you get the idea). Robert Siodmak’s 1948 (referenced as ’49 in some places) film…
To celebrate the 70th anniversary of film noir’s landmark year, we’re looking at the six key noirs of 1944: Double Indemnity, Laura, Murder My Sweet, Phantom Lady, When Strangers Marry, and The Woman In the Window. Last week we looked at Edward Dmytryk’s Murder, My Sweet. Today we look at Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady. Sometimes…
The classic era of film noir was notable for the incredible amount of talent behind the camera. Famous directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles produced notable work in the genre, while lesser known talents like Phil Karlson, Ida Lupino, Anthony Mann, Andre De Toth, Jules Dassin, and Robert Wise (just to name a few)…
Women rarely get to be scary in movies. Late career Bette Davis notwithstanding, this was even more true in the days of classic cinema. Women in film noir, for instance, could be bad news—they could be liars, thieves, and murderers—but they rarely got to be scary. The main exception to this rule was the gloriously…
