Movies
A Monroe vehicle, exemplified by the random song she (has to) sing halfway through. It's a pretty simple crime flick, but because the film isn't too serious it's somewhat watchable. It's not good by any of my definitions, but I've seen much worse noir films, so at least I wasn't as bored as I feared I would be. The film is in color, which helps to make it stand out from most other noirs, but it's the jolly performances that make the biggest difference. It keeps the film light, even during the more tense second half. This is probably making it sound better than it was, but at least it's something.Read all
Noir with a dash of noir. It's not the easiest genre to dig into if the appeal is lacking. It's one of the strictest and most formulaic niches there are, and it's quite restricted in time. I try to limit my intake so that I don't completely overdose, but when these films look and feel so much alike, persevering becomes quite the challenge. Widmark and Mature are decent, and the drama works relatively well, but other than that I didn't really care for the film. The black-and-white cinematography was rather dull, the gravity of the film doesn't gel with its extreme adherence to genre clichés, and 100 minutes is quite long for a core genre flick. Not the worst in its genre, but that's not saying much.Read all