Stealers Wheel

In the same vein as other recent one man versus the world action films like Taken, The Equalizer, John Wick, and Nobody, 2024's The Beekeeper, directed by David Ayer, captures the same formula of stylish action combating rampant corruption that should appease fans of this style of flick. Following quiet man Adam Clay (Jason Statham), the retired gent spends all of his time as an apiarist – that is, a beekeeper. Renting space in a rural barn from a former teacher and avid charity worker, Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), she is the first person to really show compassion and care for the reclusive renter.

If you’ve ever seen anything from the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, you’ll know that it is rather rare to find anyone who will take up the screen as much as good old funny man Lou... that is, unless he’s paired with comedienne Martha Raye – there’s a reason she’s known as “The Big Mouth”. In Keep `Em Flying (1941), they would share the silver screen for the first and only time... but Lou had his work cut out for him, as she plays twins. The team’s fourth starring movie released in just ten months (and the third military movie to keep spirits high during World War II), all four were manned by Arthur Lubin (their next film, Ride `Em Cowboy would be his last with the duo), a steady hand that helped keep the boys in line.

An Indie sci-fi film on the precipice of where we might be heading, Creep Box, written and directed by Patrick Biesemans (and based upon his own short from 2022), ruminates on a hybrid artificial intelligence that is both intriguing and terrifying. Following Caul (Geoffrey Cantor), a PHD in psychology and parapsychology at HDTH Corp, he is currently working on a sleek black tech box... a device that can be used to collect the memories of the dead, which are then fused with an A.I. that can utilize the past of the deceased to not only communicate with loved ones, but also gather information that could lead to solving crimes of those who have been murdered.

A Pre-Code romantic crime drama from Columbia Pictures, 1932's Virtue, directed by Edward Buzzell, got off to a bit of a bumpy start... for when star Carole Lombard (on loan from Paramount) met studio president Harry Cohn (known to be blunt, opinionated, and rather colourful with his language), he told her that her hair was too white – making her look like ‘a whore’. Lombard, no shrinking violet, promptly responded with: “if anyone would know a whore it would be you”. Though the two would soon earn each other’s respect (something that would last for the rest of their lives), this really is a perfect story that exemplifies the edgy themes and style found in these Pre-Code movies. Opening with a black screen that hides the visuals of a criminal sentence, a Judge rather kindly orders several prostitutes to vacate the city, but if they return, they shall be punished to the full extent of the law.

The very Italian giallo meets burgeoning blaxsploitation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the 1972 crime mystery Tropic of Cancer (sometimes also referred to as Death in Haiti or Peacock’s Palace), directed by Giampaolo Lomi and Edoardo Mulargia (both also co-write along with star Anthony Steffen). A couple on the rocks, Fred and Grace Wright (Gabriele Tinti and Anita Strindberg), make their way to the island paradise to seemingly rekindle their relationship... yet the husband also plans on meeting up with long unseen friend Doctor Williams (Anthony Steffen). Unbeknownst to them (or is it), the M.D. and veterinarian by day and scientist by night (this guy can do everything) has discovered a rather desirable aphrodisiacal hallucinogenic drug formula that everyone is out to get – some legitimately, others not so much.

Guillermo del Toro’s first foray into the realm of film noir, 2021's Nightmare Alley brings all of the Golden Age classic charm of the Studio System along with a classic pulpy story (based off of the novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham... as well as the 1947 movie adaptation), which is then fused with his own unique visual style. Following Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a drifter, or is it grifter (after all, this is a neo-noir), with a dark past, he aimlessly stumbles upon a traveling carnival... taking a day’s work, he soon after accepts an offer from owner Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe) to join the team – seeing it as the perfect way to disappear from his secret history.