There are movies that don’t quite work as well as they might, even though on paper they have a good deal going for them. I’d place River of No Return (1954) in that category, an appeali…

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Post-war angst and the struggle to adjust to a world which has undergone rapid change has formed the basis of many a film noir, probably too many to count. Cornered (1945) could be placed in that c…

According to Aristotle, our characters are the result of our conduct. Supposing that to be true, what better way then to arrive at the measure of an unknown individual than to delve into what they …

I like westerns. I like writing about them and I like talking about them. And I like good westerns. There of course is the rub, and while it’s not the existential crisis faced by Hamlet it is…

“I’m fed up. Ever heard that phrase? No, you wouldn’t. You’re not married.” There’s that unmistakeable air of the mid-life crisis which pervades The File on Thel…

“There are some things a man can’t ride around.” And there are some lines a writer can’t help revisiting, some setups as well when one thinks about it. Six Black Horses (196…

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“He’s the only man I know that can make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. Somehow I always hate to see it happen.” Graft, greed, ambition , manipulation, betrayal… and …

Sometimes a title will intrigue, sometimes it will beguile, and sometimes it’s just self-explanatory. Armored Car Robbery (1950) by Richard Fleischer lets us know exactly what the subject  ma…

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A journey from darkness into light. That is as succinct a description of Mirage (1965) as any I can imagine. It is a slickly told tale of confusion, loss of identity and amnesia all wrapped in an a…

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My previous post was a brief perusal of two westerns from just before what can be seen as the cut off point for the classic western era. As with most if not all the genre efforts from around that t…

No, not The Last Hurrah, Ford’s peek behind the scenes at local politics, and not necessarily the last word from myself either. What I’m talking about here is the western and in particu…

Initially, I had planned to post something different today, but that can wait. Sometimes circumstances just produce odd little coincidences, we end up viewing a movie or reading a book or story tha…

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The final films of the great filmmakers can be a mixed bag with truly memorable works being very much the exception. Not unnaturally, a certain tiredness can creep in, the quest for originality may…

“…the right of the public to a marketplace of ideas, news and opinions. Not of one man’s, or one leader’s, or even one government’s.” That eulogy to the Fourth E…

In an era where entertainment gives the impression of becoming ever more bloated and unwieldy, where books seem to be sold by the page count and thus by weight like some indigestible stodge, where …

Every time I view a Raoul Walsh movie I find I’m struck by one thought: why don’t I watch more of his movies more often? It says something for a director whose work is so diverse and sp…

If there are really only seven basic plots or stories then that probably explains why remakes, which are practically as old as cinema itself, are so common. From a business perspective, something t…