The Chicago Way

Lenny Bruce once remarked, “Chicago is so corrupt it’s thrilling…” After this week’s events, there is a perverse sense of certitude that for the Windy City and the Illinois statehouse, the thrill is never gone. In perusing the latest scandal to emanate...

Ruminations on Episodic Television

Doris Roberts, of Everybody Loves Raymond fame was extolling veteran actor Warren Stevens for a long overdue award at this year’s Cinecon banquet and dropped in this one-liner concerning the Paleolithic era of early television in which Stevens and other pioneers...
Best of the Worst

Best of the Worst

The classic era of film noir boasts a unparalleled hit parade of felonious backstabbers, ice cold torpedoes and all-around sociopathic S.O.B’s.It was as if the casting call for heavies in film noir focused on the hardest of hard cases, the yeggs that were just totally...

Facts about the Universal Studios Fire

In the wake of the fire that swept through Universal Studios last Sunday, there are a lot of rumors, emails and the like concerning the damage to vintage film prints. Instead of playing Chicken Little, here is some information from my partner-in-noir, Eddie Muller...

A Bum Rap

Conventional critical wisdom long ago pegged Victor Mature as 100% Hollywood beefcake; a rare Tyrolean-Swiss steak from Louisville, Kentucky who was a graduate of the Cigar Store Indian Drama School. Replete with a toothy, Tyrannosaurus-like smile and sporting a wavy...

Beefing about Blood

Wildly praised, Oscar nominated film is a major disappointment   I don’t know why I partially bought into the press release journalism that passes muster as legit movie criticism nowadays. There Will Be Blood has been lauded to the critical heavens as an all-time...