Today's review: The Third Alibi.

I had The Third Alibi on my “to watch” list due to a combination of a catchy title and a review of it I saw on Livejournal. As is so often the case, by the time I finally managed to find a copy of it, I’d forgotten most of the details, so I was able to go in blind and be surprised. And while I overall appreciated ( Read more... )

Today's review: They Met in the Dark.

I had reasonably high hopes for this movie. Not only is They Met in the Dark a great title, but James Mason was the star, and that’s always a draw for me (despite numerous occasions where he winds up not getting much to do). As it turns out, the movie went in a direction I wasn’t expecting, and I don’t think ( Read more... )

This weekend's review: The Bigamist.

The Bigamist looked like a very interesting movie just from the title and description alone. A noir centered around someone having two spouses has a lot of potential, especially when you consider the way noirs often play out. Once I’d watched it, I’d say it’s still an interesting movie…just not quite in the ( Read more... )

This weekend's review: The Upturned Glass.

While my main reason for watching The Upturned Glass was the increasingly familiar refrain of “because James Mason is in it”, it also sounded like it would have an interesting plot, and be along the lines of a noir/thriller, two genres I like. While Mason gives a fine performance and the core plot has ( Read more... )

This weekend's review: The Big Combo.

The Big Combo is a solid noir title, punchy and hinting at some sort of violence or action. It’s not quite as eyecatching as something like Double Indemnity or The Big Heat, but if you’re a noir fan, it’s the sort of thing you want to see or maybe even actively seek out. Alas, the movie underneath the title ( Read more... )

As I said at the start of the month, there was going to be one exception to Subtitled September. As you may or may not have noticed, I've been posting a review every month for movies that have James Mason in at least a small part. I didn't want to break the trend this month, so I stuck it at the very end, with a movie titled (appropriately enough) ( Read more... )

This weekend's review: Homicide Bureau.

Homicide Bureau caught my attention because Rita Hayworth was in it. Since it also had the potential to be a noir and was less than an hour long, I figured it was worth a watch. Once I’d finished it, I concluded that I’d enjoyed myself, even if the movie isn’t that much to write home about.

( Read the rest of the review here... )

This weekend's review: Human Desire.

There were two things that made me curious about Human Desire; it was based on a story by Emile Zola (not your typical Hollywood fare) and, more importantly, it was directed by Fritz Lang. I always want to see Lang’s work, of course, but I was curious to see what he’d do with such unusual source material. The ( Read more... )

Today's review: The Long Memory.

As so often happens, I saw a review of The Long Memory on movie_greats, put the movie on my “To Watch” list, then took so long to find a copy that I’d pretty much forgotten everything when I actually sat down to watch it. While this does allow me to approach a movie blind and be surprised by the details, it also runs the risk ( Read more... )

This weekend's review: The Man Between.

The Man Between looked right up my alley, since it had three words in the summary that were guaranteed to pique my interest; “thriller” and “James Mason”. In addition, the summary compared it to The Third Man, and while that’s not a huge favorite of mine, it’s got some good cinematography and atmosphere, ( Read more... )