Noirvember Watch: Gun Crazy (1950)

Watched:  11/11/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Joseph H. Lewis

Hey, that's two Joseph H. Lewis directed movies in a row!  Not bad.

Some movies you watch and you kind of fall in love with them.  And, certainly, one of those movies for me is Gun Crazy (1950).  In fact, one of my most prized possessions is a poster signed by the terrific Peggy Cummins obtained for me by the extraordinary JeniferSF.

Don't mistake that image above for a movie from the French neo-noir movement, that's what they were trying to recapture.

Gun Crazy is the rare movie about two people who are twitchy on their own, but together, it's white phosphorous and oxygen.  John Dall plays Bart, a guy who has known and been obsessed with guns since he was a kid.  After going to reform school and a stint in the army, he returns home.  At the carnival with his childhood pals, all now adults, he meets Annie Laurie Starr, a sharpshooter. 

Noirvember Watch: The Big Combo (1955)

Watched:  11/09/2026

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Joseph H. Lewis

One of the most used and indelible images of the noir era was the picture above from the finale of The Big Combo (1955).  It was probably because of this image, seen in a book or online, that I decided to watch this movie for the first time 26 or more years ago, beginning my own dive into the genre.

At the time, I didn't know Richard Conte or Cornell Wilde.  Lee Van Cleef was the only actor I recognized.  And I don't know that I was prepared for the banal cruelty of what Conte's Mr. Brown would bring to the screen, or the coded sexuality of the film.

But The Big Combo will ruin you for a lot of other movies if you think all of noir will look this good - and I rank The Big Combo as an all-timer for its noir visual appeal.   Lensed by John Alton, one of the best of the era, it's a beautifully crafted chiaroscuro, cutting shapes in the shadows and a last gasp against what was coming as studios lightened movies up for later replay on the TV's of the era.  But it's not just the look, it's shot selection and angles.  Maybe it cost a bit more as set-ups would have been a bit tougher, but it pays off in spades.

The story is a mix of melodrama and tough crime.  Wilde plays a cop pursuing mob boss "Mister Brown" (Conte).  Wilde has started tracking Brown's girl, Susan (Jean Wallace), and over time begun to develop feelings for this girl who is vaguely aware of his existence.  Even Wilde's boss knows it.  

He wants to get Susan out, but she's in deep - caught in a web of physical, psychological and sexual control (the movie has one of the most discussed shots in Breen Office history as Conte drops out of frame suggesting an, ahem, intimate act).  

Brown is surrounded by a small group - just his two toughs, one of which is Van Cleef, and Brian Donlevy, his former boss in the mob.

Wilde gets a lead - that Brown killed his wife a few years back at sea, and when Diamond pulls on that thread, things really do begin to unravel.  People are shot, bodies pile up fast.  

I don't want to spoil it.  I think you should check it out for Alton's work if nothing else.

Special bonus points for Helene Stanton who plays Rita, the burlesque dancer Wilde treats like shit.  You were the better choice, Rita!  He did you wrong!  You have great teeth!  Wilde not seeing how awesome Rita is has always been my biggest gripe with this movie, even if I totally get it from a plot perspective.  

G-Watch: Godzilla (1954)

Watched:  11/01/2026

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Not sure

Director:  Ishiro Honda

Well, it's Sunday and on Thursday, we're going to see Godzilla Minus Zero.  To prepare, we're watching this movie, Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster, and then Godzilla: Minus One.  It shall be a mini-Godzilla Gauntlet.  

It's been a while since I last watched this one.  In fact, I am unclear on when I last saw it.  It may have been in the 2010's.  Give me some grace, there's a lot of Godzilla I've seen over the past few years.

Frank Watch: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

Watched:  10/24/2026

Viewing:  Third?

Format:  Disc

Director:  Terence Fisher

One of the fun things about having Peter Cushing in so many Hammer and horror movies is that you can see how Hammer had specific ideas and Cushing absolutely crushes it when he plays both the absolutely vile Victor Frankenstein versus the obsessive but good Van Helsing. 

Yes, of course, Christopher Lee shows his range as The Creature and Dracula - two *very* different roles.  But Cushing goes from one of the most well-crafted concepts for a villain in cinema in the Frankenstein movies to one of the most driven/ obsessed heroes in Van Helsing.   Good stuff.

Noir Watch: The Chicago Syndicate (1954)

Watched:  10/20/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Fred F. Sears

This was... shockingly good.  Or, at least, The Chicago Syndicate (1954) really landed for me.  Maybe I was shocked it wasn't bad, tilting into me outright enjoying the film.  

I don't rank movies by numbers or stars or whatever, but I give it... 7 Emmylous.  

just one Emmylou is quite a good thing to have

I will not be explaining this ranking system at this time.

It's perhaps because the movie has the quick pacing of nearly a modern film, or because they throw both Allison Hayes and Abbe Lane at you...  Anyway -  I dug it.  

Dracula Watch: The Horror of Dracula (1958)

Watched:  10/13/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Terence Fisher

Part of the Hammer horror explosion, The Horror of Dracula (1958) may be a horrendous adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, but it is a banger of a movie.  And as Hammer knew immediately, Peter Cushing could flip the evil intensity he'd shown as Victor Frankenstein in The Curse of Frankenstein the year prior and create a bonafide horror hero out of Van Helsing, while Christopher Lee looked at Bela Lugosi and said "hold my beer".  

This Dracula is not some smooth bastard here to make off with your virgins, this is the first in a series of movies where Dracula is a straight up menace who is not going to do a bunch of magic tricks to scare you - he's just going to murder you with his bare hands and scary eyeballs.

It has bits of the book, but feels like someone forced to tell the story of Dracula who saw the 1931 movie once while blitzed and is cobbling pieces together as they go.  I have to accept that that's fine as I do like the movie for what it is - an earnestly told story with the actors leaning into it.

Storywise, subsequent installments would build out what an absolute bastard this Dracula is, and Cushing would delight as the iron-willed Van Helsing.  The follow up doesn't even have a proper Dracula - it's a different vampire.  

Anyway, if you're looking for a bit of Dracula that isn't all cheesy melodrama, this is your choice.  No romantic subplots here, no oceans of time.  Just vampiric dickery and a Dracula who loves making a dramatic entrance.

I may just feel compelled to watch these Draculas again.

Noir Watch: Loophole (1954)

Watched:  10/12/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Harold D. Schuster

I dunno.  

I hate to speak ill of a movie with Dorothy Malone and Charles McGraw in it.  But Loophole (1954) didn't make a lot of sense.

Our set up:  Barry Sullivan plays a bank teller.  Clean as a whistle.  A war vet. 

One morning, the bank is visited by a fleet of bank examiners - 10 arrive at one time to perform a surprise exam.  But a clever fellow, Tate (Don Beddoe), slips in behind them as if he's part of the group.  He manages to blend in and while his accomplice (Mary Beth Hughes) distracts Sullivan, our crook snags almost $50K from Barry Sullivan's drawer - roughly $621,000 in today's dollars.

To make the movie happen, our hero doesn't tell anyone.  He just goes home for the weekend, like that money is going to just show up.  

I don't buy it.  If you saw that money was missing, it clearly has legal implications and will cost you your job.  You're telling your boss, or calling them at home and absolutely not leaving the bank.  You are removing any hint of suspicion.

Then, Charles McGraw is assigned the case - and he's a hard nosed detective for the bond company.  He thinks Sullivan did it, and even after it's clear Sullivan didn't do it - months later - he still thinks he did, and is trying to cost Sullivan every opportunity for work by telling employers Sullivan is a crook.  It's *clearly* slander, opening McGraw and the bond company up for a lawsuit.  I mean, I've seen real life detectives refuse to believe they're wrong no matter what evidence is there, but McGraw is a private detective, not a cop.  He's got no coverage.

Dorothy Malone plays Sullivans very, very, very supportive wife.

The last 1/4 is just as messy as Sullivan tracks down Beddoe and makes horrible choice after horrible choice.  Like I said, I just didn't think this movie made much sense.  The best part of that section of the movie is Hughes turning on Beddoe and trying to take control.  She's an absolute gem here.

As Noir Alley host Eddie Muller pointed out - the highlight here is really the two women in the movie who kind of keep it going.  I've seen Sullivan in several movies now, and he's... fine.  He's just never my favorite.  But he is a good choice here - his height working as a defense against McGraw's intensity.

I've seen worse, it's just not a movie that is so bad it's memorable or good enough to think about by the end of the week.

Totter Western Watch: The Vanishing American (1955)

Watched:  10/01/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph Kane

The Vanishing American (1955) is based on a Zane Grey novel that is supposed to be pretty good.  The novel is about a Navajo kid taken from home, raised by White folks, sent to college and the collision of his worlds.

This movie uses a tad of that as background for why it's male hero is more relatable to our female lead (Audrey Totter) but focuses on... the hot blonde and her land dispute.  Because it's 1955, people, and we don't want to make the audience feel things when we could just be having a rollicking adventure.

Youth Watch: Untamed Youth (1957)

Watched:  09/26/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First, I believe

Director:  Howard W. Koch

This movie exists to accidentally stumble through two important social issues, but was mostly there so we could watch Mamie Van Doren shake it in various states of (un)dress.

It's a movie capitalizing on the rising issues of juvenile delinquency and the exploitation of agricultural workers.  In this case, those workers are delinquent young adults (not teens) who get pinched by the local law for breaking minor infractions or all-together made up infractions.  Then they are pressed into service as indentured servants.

Bug Watch: Tarantula (1955)

Watched:  09/25/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Arnold

The only issue with this movie is John Agar.  

I mean, there's the general issue of John Agar being John Agar and I'm still mad about how he was to Shirley Temple.  But he's also a terrible actor.  He has  exactly one line delivery, whether he's inappropriately abandoning his medical practice to hit on Mara Corday or a tarantula the size of a battleship is walking toward him.

And it's a shame, because the movie has a few other actors - Leo G. Carroll who is dialing it in, and is still acting circles around him - and Mara Corday, who is doing her best to get Agar to do something other than just stare straight ahead and speak in a clipped, 1950's manly voice.

Stanwyck Watch: Jeopardy (1953)

Watched:  09/23/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Sturges

I don't know how you can't be blown away by Barbara Stanwyck.  Just an incredible talent.  I might be a fan of, say, Marie Windsor, but I know when someone got Stanwyck, she was going to deliver in a way maybe only 1 or 2 of her contemporaries could.*

It's not like our preferred mode of horror and thrillers these days isn't "nice suburban people suddenly confronted with someone who will kill them".  And Jeopardy (1953) is absolutely in that mode.  

Anyway, this isn't a deep drama.  It's a fast-moving noirish thriller with a small cast, life or death stakes, and proof that kids are just bent on self-destruction, and keeping them safe is probably more trouble than it's worth.

Stanwyck co-stars with first Barry Sullivan, who plays her husband.  They're on a roadtrip from southern California into Mexico to go fishing with their young son, do some camping in a remote spot Sullivan found long ago.  

SPOILERS

Windsor Watch: Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)

Watched:  09/06/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Charles Lamont

Confession time:  I haven't really enjoyed Bud & Lou since I was a kid.  I remember we'd check out 8mm projectors and film from the library and watch their movies and have a good laugh.  I was six.

Subsequent attempts to watch the classic comedy duo have gone less well.  

But, of the main ingrendients, I do like two other things:  classic movie monsters and Marie Windsor.  And, I figure - two out of three things in this movie?  That ain't bad.

Our plot:  Bud & Lou are semi-stranded in Egypt and get involved with a cult, an ancient mummy, a murder and shady characters looking to make some money.  

I dunno.

Windsor Pirate Watch: Hurricane Island (1951)

Watched:  08/25/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Lew Landers

So, it's entirely possible that the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was somewhat inspired by this B-movie, Hurricane Island (1951).  I'm not saying it is, directly, or there aren't substantial differences, but....

I'm also not sure watching a movie just because it has Marie Windsor in it is wrong, but..!  It was Marie Windsor day on Summer Under the Stars on TCM. This one is also a pirate movie, and, in theory, is based on one or two real historical figures.  Well, it has Ponce de Leon, which is kind of exciting.

Theoretically, this is about Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth.  But in this movie, it's about a wounded Ponce outsourcing his adventuring to a husky Captain Montalvo (John Hall) who de facto leads the expedition into the island of Florida (it's like 1513, and I don't think they know dick all about the actual Florida coastline yet).  

Monster Watch: The Black Scorpion (1957)

Watched:  07/31/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Edward Ludwig

Y'all...  You're gonna be something less than shocked when I tell you that maybe a 1957 movie about kaiju-sized scorpions rampaging through Mexico is maybe not Oscar material.  But I will say it is entertaining as hell.  

The story is basically lifting Them!, which had just been a big success.   But in this case, the volcanos that erupt throughout Mexico this time crack open the earth.*  A pair of geologists, one handsome Mexican guy (Carlos Rivas) and one lantern jawed American (Richard Denning) race to the location to scout it out.  En route they come across a police car that's been wrecked - like inexplicably shredded - food still cooking and an abandoned baby.  They also find the police officer who is dead, his eyes wide open, and leaning against a wall.

With no idea what's going on, they head to the town with the baby, and everyone is in a panic.  Cowboys are coming in from the local ranches reporting the cattle are turning up dead.  Shit is bad, yo.

Spoilers:  there are giant scorpions running around who escaped their underground layer and seem to want mammal flesh.  

Modern Western Watch: The Lusty Men (1952)

Watched:  07/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nicholas Ray

The term "lusty" has not always meant "horned up".  The dictionary definition just means "healthy" and "vigorous".  Or, "Hearty", or, even "enthusiastic, rousing".  

So, while Susan Hayward paired with Robert Mitchum may lead one to believe we're heading for "lust-ful" men, and we are, I think they just meant "these cowboys are hale and hearty".

After all, this is a movie about a young, married man (Arthur Kennedy) deciding to join the rodeo circuit in order to make money enough to buy a ranch and settle down.  As it turns out, he wants to buy the boyhood home of veteran rodeo rider Jeff McCloud (Robert Mitchum).  The new rodeo-man's wife, Susan Hayward, is reasonably concerned about this decision.  After all, rodeo riders tend to get mauled by bulls, thrown from horses to grave injury, and more...  It's not what she signed up for.  

Sci-Fi Horror Watch: The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Watched:  07/18/2026

Format:  TCM with John Carpenter and Alicia Malone

Viewing:  First

Director:  Val Guest

SimonUK kept suggesting The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) to me during the podcast era, and I can see why.  I think mostly in England, but also among sci-fi and horror-heads in the US, the Quatermass media - of which there's more than you'd think - is considered foundational or classic.  Thus, it may have inspired things like Doctor Who (which I confess I never got into) and there's no small amount of John Carpenter's early work in this movie.  

And, in fact, I watched it because Carpenter is hosting two days of movies on TCM with Alicia Malone. 

I'd also argue - Stan and Jack may have lifted the origin of the Fantastic Four from this movie in a small way.  And if you know Jack, he was constantly reworking what he saw on the street, in movies and in culture right into his comics, so it wouldn't shock me.

Noir Watch: Angel Face (1952)

Watched:  07/16/2026

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Director:  Otto Preminger

I was a bit surprised I'd already written this movie up twice before, but here's the first (fifteen years ago almost exactly!) and here's the second (about eight years ago).    

Y'all, I have been doing this *a while*.  And, yet, no one has intervened.  None of you are to be trusted with my welfare.

Still love this movie.  It's all arcs and curves heading for the very particular, noir-perfect, ending. 

I'm still a huge fan of Mitchum in everything, and this is no exception - here playing the cat who thinks he can thread the needle, having his rich girl and his marriage-material, too (and it's likely this wasn't the first "other girl" she's put up with).  He's just cool enough to make you think he's got the angles sorted, but he never really does.  

Melodrama Watch: Written on the Wind (1956)

Watched:  07/11/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Douglas Sirk

I've been pretty plain that - while I rarely think a Sirk movie is aimed at me - I think he's a good director and makes some interesting films.  He was considered the master of a certain kind of melodramatic "woman's film", and I don't generally mean the term melodrama in the derogatory sense.  They're simply dramas contained to the character's lives, focusing on the emotions they experience.  Rarely do the conflicts that drive the stories have consequence outside of the sphere of the main characters. 

But Written on the Wind (1956) is both the most melodramatic of his films I've seen in the way we mean the term these days.  It is big feelings playing out in a way that feels like an alternate pilot for TV's Dallas as much as anything.  

It is also the horniest of Sirk's movies I've seen thus far - a movie entirely about sex that cannot say the word "sex" and instead relies on cloaked language and imagery as subtle as a 95 mph fastball to the noggin.  For example:  when a certain character is in flagrante delicto at a motel room, in the foreground of the frame, an oil pump is hard at work.  

Marilyn at 100: Clash By Night (1952)

Watched:  06/21/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second or Third

Director:  Fritz Lang

I'm never going to get over having seen Barton Fink too many times in my younger years.  

Plainly put, the character of Barton Fink is based loosely on the real-life play-write Clifford Odets, who went out to Hollywood to turn his plays about *the common man* into movies.  So every time I see Odets' name on a movie, I kind of know loosely that this will be about the gritty lives of the everyman, and have very particular dialog tics.  Also, I kind of wonder how full of shit this movie really is at its core - not something I generally care about.

Odets strove to capture a sense of at least emotional realism in his plays and movies, setting them not in penthouses and mansions for the New York elite attending shows, but writing plays that took place on the streets below among the working class, seeing their daily struggle as the real poetry.  And I think there's something to that.  

That this film came out of RKO in 1952 is a bit of an eyebrow raiser.  But RKO had this script and they had Fritz Lang as a director and Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan on contract.  And that's a great start.

Marilyn at 100 Watch/ Noir Watch: Niagara (1953)

Watched:  06/16/2026

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Henry Hathaway

I had only seen Niagara (1953) once before, back in 2012.  I recalled specific images, but was aware that I couldn't recall the actual ending.  

On a rewatch, I can see why.  The movie really cruises along to the last act, and then loses much of the appeal the film has carried up to that point.

Marilyn Monroe, in her first starring, top-billed role, stars alongside Signal Watch fave Joseph Cotten and the lovely Jean Peters.  Monroe plays the wife of Cotten, who knows she's too young for him, too vivacious and who has started running around with a younger man behind Cotten's back.  Cotten thinks something is going on but can't prove it.

They're staying in some cabins overlooking Niagara Falls on the Canadian side, and have fallen into a malaise.  Jean Peters shows up with her husband, (sigh) Max Showalter, on a delayed honeymoon.  They meet Monroe, who is made up and dressed to make Jean Peters look positively plain-jane by comparison - a tremendous feat.