Films That Matter
What’s the Name of the Game
There are so many things that go into making us who we are as individuals – from our parents and our past experiences, to our job and where we live, with even something as simple as our name becoming a big part of forming our identity as a human being... but, if those things are taken away from us, how might someone prove who they are when there is no evidence of what is being claimed. Infusing post-war themes within a kidnapping/murder mystery melodrama with film noir motifs, My Name is Julia Ross (1945), directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy) and based upon the novel “The Woman in Red” by Anthony Gilbert (the pen name of Lucy Beatrice), entraps us in the strange predicament of the titular character... though no one is calling her by that name. Following Julia Ross (Nina Foch) in post World War II London, England, she is in a rather difficult predicament – as she falls behind on her rent, she can find no work no matter how hard she looks.
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Unsolved Murder Mystery
The Killer is Still Among UsMay 2, 2022A late entry into the realm of the giallo, 1986's The Killer is Still Among Us, directed by then first time film maker Camillo Teti, comes across as rather meta and self-aware... after all, how often do you see a couple go to a giallo in a giallo? Based off of the true story of a serial killer known as “the Monster of Florence”, poor young couples, looking for love in all the wrong places (and by that, I mean in secluded, wooded areas), are being picked off by an unknown assailant... sometimes using a gun, at others, a knife.
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Deadly Desire
Crazy Desires of a MurdererFebruary 23, 2022One has to wonder if all cinematic taxidermists have been painted with the same brush since the release of Psycho all those years ago in 1960. Well, that theory will be put to the test in the 1977 giallo Crazy Desires of a Murderer, directed by Filippo Walter Ratti (though titled in the credits as Peter Rush – his seventeenth and final film making credit). Welcome to the slowly crumbling manor home of the Baron De Chablais (Stuart Brisbane Colin), the dilapidated location echoing the poor health of its aged owner. . . after two heart attacks, rampant dementia has attacked the brain, leaving this supposed psychic (oddly, this pre-credits reveal will never be followed up on) in very rough shape.
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Fashionation
Last Night in SohoFebruary 4, 2022A deep dive into 60s Swinging London, or should I say ‘dream dive’, Edgar Wright follows up his 2017 hit Baby Driver with another film that gets its title from a song – Last Night in Soho (a 1967 single by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mich & Tich – I know, quite the band name). Set in the present day, Eloise ‘Ellie’ Turner (Thomasin McKenzie – Jojo Rabbit) is a fragile, mousy young woman who has immersed herself in 60s culture... constantly listening to records of the time, her dream is to bring the swinging era’s fashion back. Leaving for fashion school in Soho, she is still haunted by her mother’s suicide – something that happened when she was just a young child (in fact, she sometimes sees her mother’s spirit in the mirror).
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So It Goes… In a Giallo
So Sweet... So PerverseDecember 6, 2021A sugar stalker, milk chocolate peeping Tom, juice sucker, and cookie cadaver all mean... well, absolutely nothing, but they sure do sound like they would fit nicely in the 1969 giallo So Sweet... So Perverse, directed by Umberto Lenzi. Inspired by the movie that started the whole twist-ending trend, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955), the narrative follows Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a wealthy businessman living in Paris. Married to disenchanted Danielle (Erika Blanc), he is more interested in playing the field (from what we hear, so is his wife), rather than spend time in their expansive third floor apartment together.
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Death, Deadlines, and Dawn
Deadline at DawnNovember 25, 2021Sometimes the heat makes us go a little crazy. Likewise, alcohol can have a similar effect... pair them both together, and all bets are off. Transporting us into the dog days of summer in the City That Never Sleeps, Deadline at Dawn (1946), directed by Harold Clurman (the only feature made by the legendary stage director), is full of drunken danger. With perspiration dripping from every pore, baby-face Navy sailor Alex Winkler (Bill Williams) finds himself waking from a nasty bender at a New York City newsstand. . . if that wasn’t bad enough, he discovers a wad of cash that isn’t his and a faint memory of stealing it from loose femme Edna Bartelli (Lola Lane), a slinky blackmailer who’s definitely on the fatale side.
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You’re So Vanity
Murder at the VanitiesJune 10, 2021A musical murder mystery? Yes, you read that right. . . and that was the type of film you often saw during the Pre-Code era. If 1934's Murder at the Vanities was made just six months later, it never would have passed code and been released – fortuitous for the film makers and us. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, this on stage/backstage premise finds Jack Ellery (Jack Oakie – The Great Dictator) putting on a sumptuous musical revue, featuring his two stars, an Austrian making his American debut, Eric Lander (Carl Brisson), and up and coming Ann Ware (Kitty Carlisle). Unbeknownst to everyone, a whirlwind romance has swooped up between the two stars. . . and they plan to marry after the opening show (they make the announcement upon their arrival at the theatre).