By David in TN
Friday, June 12, 2020 at 7:02:00 P.M. EDT
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET is Irving Lerner’s Murder by Contract (1958), with Vince Edwards, Herschel Bernardi, Philip Pine, and Caprice Toriel.
Film Noir Guide: “The film that is said to have influenced director Martin Scorsese the most, Murder by Contract is the story of a polite, misogynistic hit man (Edwards), who got involved in the murder business to finance the house of his dreams.
“He’s hired to kill a witness (Toriel) due to testify against his boss, and spends most of the film making his two contacts (Bernardi and Pine) nervous about his laid-back attitude (he’d rather see the sights and go fishing than plan the hit).
“When Edwards finds out that the mark is a woman, he balks, not because he’s sentimental or chivalrous but because he feels he should be paid extra for killing a dame. Tempers flare after Edwards botches the job twice, causing everyone to have second thoughts.
“This is an interesting little film that emphasizes character development over plot, allowing us to learn more about the hit man than we really want to know.
Edwards, who’s really good here, later played TV’s hunky doctor, Ben Casey. Bernardi later starred in Annie, and Pine co-starred in The Blue Knight.”
David in TN: So-so, in my opinion; others may like it. A better one is on Monday Night at 10 p.m. ET, Farewell My Lovely (1975). Robert Mitchum plays Philip Marlowe with Charlotte Rampling doing a Lauren Bacall knockoff as the femme fatale pursued by a hulking ex-con.
Saturday, June 13, 2020
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2 comments:
Just want to say thanks to David for posting these reviews every week.Question:How long will white dominated movies be allowed to be shown,before I assume,they're all removed--because they portray whites mostly as protagonists.Of course there were white villains,but liberals will be focused on Westerns(white man bad,Indian/Mexican,good),film noirs(no blacks except for butlers),science fiction(white man shown as geniuses--blacks,not so much)--all genres are targets--as are all statues of whites in history too.
Today in London,"extreme right wing protesters" tried to keep the Churchill statue from being destroyed.The description was NNN's and they stressed the fact that BLM was barely observed--THIS was a supremacist rally.
Looked like 500-1000 in attendance--and NNN condemned it.
MSM would have a George Floyd coronary if we ever got 50,000 whites out to protect our monuments.Let's imitate what London whites did--save our history--defend our future.
--GRA
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at 12:15 am ET and 10 am ET is Underworld U.S.A. (1961). Samuel Fuller directed and produced. Cliff Robertson stars as a young man who sees his father brutally beaten as a boy and spends years planning to get revenge against the mobsters who killed him.
Robertson becomes nearly as bad as those he pursues, which is a common theme of "revenge" movies.
Film Noir Guide didn't review Underworld U.S.A. as the 1961 date makes it a so-called "Neo-Noir."
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