With working titles such as Woman Confidential, Pleasure Girl, and The Blonde in 402, each should give you a decent idea about what 1959's Vice Raid is all about. A B-movie with some bite, director Edward L. Cahn brings scandal, racketeering, and corruption to the forefront of this late era film noir crime feature. Meet Sgt. Whitey Brandon (Richard Coogan), an officer that is akin to a dog on a bone. Desperate to get to the root of a massive prostitution ring run by best dressed mobster Vince Malone (Brad Dexter), he and partner Ben Dunton (Joseph Sullivan) seem to constantly get ohsoclose, yet so very far from getting a true lead.
One global region that has really gained traction and popularity in the film and television industry recently is Scandinavia. With the huge success of Stieg Larsson’s novels that became the highly popular Millenium film trilogy (Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), we have seen these northern European countries develop complex and entertaining stories that usually fall within the noirish crime genre. Television such as Forbrydelsen (The American TV show The Killing is based on this), Wallander, The Bridge, and Borgen (Stephen King’s favourite show of 2012) have not only found their niche in North America, but have also influenced the television and film industry in North America and Britain as well. One such movie that fits within this genre is Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters (the highest grossing Norwegian film of all-time).
We are now officially into the dog days of summer. Fall is in the air and it is time for my final film noir of the summer. Many movies have depicted the attempt at the perfect heist, but there are few that are as influential as the 1956 Stanley Kubrick motion picture The Killing. Kubrick, who is best known for later films such as The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and 2001: A Space Odyssey, both wrote the screenplay and directed this classic gem, with assistance from Jim Thompson – who helped write the dialogue (Thompson has become an iconic pulp crime fiction novelist [The Killer Inside Me] – gaining fame after his death in 1977).
One of my favourite genres is the short-lived film noir category, which lasted through the 1940's and petered out towards the end of the 1950's. It grew from the German expressionism period of the 1920's and was compounded by the anxiety and cynicism that came out of World War II. Named by French critics who were describing the black-and-white Hollywood crime movies of the 40's, this is a unique genre that captures a much darker, cynical and more vicious world than most other films from this period.
It is unusual to find a film that is able to effectively change direction, speaking in the genre sense, without losing steam, confusing viewers, or ruining the flow of the movie. Yet, when properly done, these twists and turns can take you on a wild and entertaining ride to somewhere completely unexpected. This is what the 1986 motion picture Something Wild does effortlessly.
The 1980's and 1990's were two superb decades for amazing action films that contained easy on the eyes stunts, clever storylines, touches of comedy and great villains. Movies like the Die Hard trilogy, Lethal Weapon 1-4 , Mission Impossible, and James Bond entries like License to Kill and Goldeneye entertained in all of these categories. One of the best action movies to come out of the 90's though, is known as Léon or The Professional.