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Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed “Oppenheimer,” which revolves around J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist considered the father of the atomic bomb, is one of the most highly anticipated films of the summer. Actually of the year. Over the decades there have been several films dealing with the Manhattan Project that culminated with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki thus ending World War II on Sept. 2, 1945.

Soon after the global conflict ended MGM, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox were rushing to be the first studio to greenlight a movie dealing with the birth of the atomic bomb that ushered in the Cold War. MGM quickly put a project in motion hiring Robert Considine to write a story . The studio was circling the likes of its “A’ stars Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Van Johnson. Meanwhile over at Paramount, producer Hal Wallis was preparing a $1.5 million atomic bomb film called “Top Secret.

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“The Devil Makes Him Do It”

By Raymond Benson

The actor Ray Milland always presented himself on screen with a serious intensity. His Oscar-winning turn as an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend (1945) catapulted him into the upper ranks of Hollywood stardom in those years. He didn’t always appear in A-list pictures, though. Film noir and thrillers like The Big Clock and So Evil My Love (both 1948) featured Milland in what might be perceived as moonlighting roles, but he is nonetheless effective.

Such is the case with Alias Nick Beal, directed by frequent Milland collaborator, John Farrow. This is not a film noir, per se, but rather a thriller-cum-supernatural tale that borrows heavily from the Faust myth. And while Milland is the fire that energizes Nick Beal, it is third-billing Thomas Mitchell who is the protagonist of the story.

Mitchell is Joseph Foster,...

Alias Nick Beal

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1949 / 1.33:1 / 93 Min.

Starring Ray Milland, Audrey Totter

Cinematography by Lionel Lindon

Directed by John Farrow

The most sinister light comedian in Hollywood, Ray Milland was never more charming than when he was fixing to cut your throat. In John Farrow’s Alias Nick Beal, the actor dropped that two-faced mask to play an unambiguous villain—Nicholas Beal, a well-tailored but malevolent entity who makes his first appearance from behind a curtain of fog. As we begin to understand the tricky Mr. Beal, we realize that it isn’t fog swirling round his shoulders, it’s sulfur, billowing up from a pit of brimstone. Unfortunately Joseph Foster, an ambitious district attorney, understands it too late. When Foster decides to run for governor, Beal materializes to offer his own kind of campaign advice. Beal’s plan comes with a high price tag but he makes...

Viavision’s first deluxe Film Noir boxed set gives us four titles that emphasize star power — Glenn Ford, Ray Milland, Kirk Douglas and Lee J. Cobb. The Australian release includes three Columbia titles and the home video premiere of a rare Paramount picture. Which ones are core Noir and which are merely ‘noir adjacent?’ The special extras invest in a quartet of audio commentaries from the top experts and Film Noir Foundation creators Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode. There’s nothing that pair doesn’t know about these pictures.

Essential Film Noir Collection 1

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 18, 19, 20, 21

1947-1957 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 366 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / 149.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan; Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell; Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant; Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Kerwin Mathews.

Directed by Richard Wallace, John Farrow, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman

The Australian disc boutique...

Although only one of these 1950s B&w thrillers falls within a mile of a hard definition of film noir, all give us glamorous actresses in interesting roles. Claudette Colbert takes her turn at playing a nun, Merle Oberon tries a femme fatale role on for size and Hedy Lamarr does very well for herself as a man-hungry movie star. Kino gives all three excellent transfers, and one comes with an appropriately gossipy audio commentary.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema II

Thunder on the Hill, The Price of Fear, The Female Animal

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1951-58 / B&w / 1:37 Academy, 1:85 widescreen / 84,79,82 min. / Street Date May 12, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas, Anne Crawford, Connie Gilchrist, Gladys Cooper, Michael Pate, Phillip Friend; Merle Oberon, Lex Barker, Charles Drake, Gia Scala, Warren Stevens, Phillip Pine, Konstantin Shayne, Stafford Repp; Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell,...

The saga continues, featuring Adam Rifkin, Robert D. Krzykowski, John Sayles, Maggie Renzi, Mick Garris and Larry Wilmore with special guest star Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Key Largo (1948)

I Don’t Want to Talk About It (1993)

Camila (1984)

I, the Worst of All (1990)

The Wages of Fear (1953)

Le Corbeau (1943)

Diabolique (1955)

Red Beard (1965)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Ikiru (1952)

General Della Rovere (1959)

The Gold of Naples (1959)

Bitter Rice (1949)

Pickup On South Street (1953)

My Darling Clementine (1946)

Viva Zapata! (1952)

Panic In The Streets (1950)

Yellow Sky (1948)

Ace In The Hole (1951)

Wall Street (1987)

Women’s Prison (1955)

True Love (1989)

Mean Streets (1973)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

The Abyss (1989)

The China Syndrome (1979)

Big (1988)

Splash (1984)

The ’Burbs (1989)

Long Strange Trip (2017)

Little Women (2019)

Learning To Skateboard In A War Zone (If You’re A Girl) (2019)

The Guns of Navarone...

Boxing Wednesdays. Wrestling on Fridays. Stoker Thompson is on Paradise City’s Wednesday card, fighting after the main event. He’s been 20 years in the game and is sure he’s just one punch away from big paydays. But there’s one thing Stoker doesn’t yet know: his manager wants him to take a dive tonight.

The Set-Up comes out swinging as one of the great films about the so-called sweet science. Robert Wise directs, shaping real-time events into an acclaimed and unsparing film-noir look at the stale-air venues, bloodthirsty fans, ring savagery and delusional dreams of boxing’s palooka world. Robert Ryan embraces perhaps his fi nest screen hour as Stoker. Audrey Totter, an icon of the noir genre like Ryan, plays Stoker’s steadfast wife. In a sport that would take their last flicker of dignity, the Thompsons are reclaiming theirs.

Robert Wise directs film noir icons...

Director Steve Sekely’s hardboiled film noir leans heavily on the talents of star-producer Paul Henreid and camera ace John Alton — the three of them whip up the best gimmick-driven noir thriller of the late ‘forties. Strained coincidences and unlikely events mean nothing when this much talent is concentrated in one movie. It’s also a terrific show for star Joan Bennett, who expresses all the disappointment, despair and angst of a noir femme who knows she’s in for more misery.

The Scar (Hollow Triumph)

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, Eduard Franz, Leslie Brooks, John Qualen, Mabel Paige, Herbert Rudley, George Chandler, Robert Bice, Henry Brandon, Franklyn Farnum, Thomas Browne Henry, Norma Varden, Jack Webb.

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Fred Allen

Original Music: Sol Kaplan

Written by Daniel Fuchs from a...

I guess Howard Hughes wanted to go easy on Minnesota Nazis. William Cameron Menzies directs a Cold War thriller about an insidious germ warfare conspiracy -- it's an early paranoid suspense tale with apocalyptic consequences. But the story behind the movie's making -- and then remaking -- is even more fantastic. The Whip Hand DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1951 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date February 16, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 18.59 Starring Elliott Reid, Raymond Burr, Carla Balenda, Edgar Barrier, Otto Waldis, Michael Steele, Lurene Tuttle, Peter Brocco, Lewis Martin, Frank Darien, Olive Carey, George Chandler, Gregory Gaye. Cinematography Nicholas Musuraca Film Editor Robert Golden Original Music Music by Paul Sawtell Written by George Bricker, Frank L. Moss, Ray Hamilton Produced by Louis J. Rachmil Directed by William Cameron Menzies

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Film writers Bill Warren and Tom Weaver have reported extensively on the unusual production story...

By John M. Whalen

“A Bullet for Joey” (1955) with Edward G. Robinson, George Raft and Audrey Totter is one of those “Red scare” movies from the mid-fifties that combines elements of a crime plot with espionage and the evils of communism. It was the Cold War era and people were digging bomb shelters and practicing “duck and cover” air raid drills, while at the same time, congressional committees hauled in suspected Communist Party members, including actors, writers and directors, to testify and name names. Hollywood did its part, in turn, by black listing suspected commies and turning out anti-communism films like John Wayne’s “Big Jim McClain” “The Woman on Pier 13 (“I Married a Communist”), and “I Was a Communist for the FBI.” “A Bullet for Joey”, despite having two of Hollywood’s toughest tough guy actors in the cast, is one of the weaker examples of this sub-genre.

Photo by Donnacha Kenny"Congratulations, Tom; you're one of the lucky eight per cent!" —Stir of Echoes (1999)Joliet, Illinois is probably the American city which more people have dreamed more fervently of escaping than any other. But after spending four hours in 'Prison Town'—long synonymous far and wide with incarceration—I was sad to leave; I'll be glad one day to return. Fortunately, such matters are questions of personal choice. Many of the area's residents, including those not serving custodial sentences, have little realistic option but to remain—trapped by personal, social and/or economic circumstances that can feel as confining as any 6-by-8 cell. "Joliet, or "J-Town", is racially diverse and is known as a crime-ridden city, although the area has shown much improvement since the 1990's... The east side is generally known as the ghetto side and the west side is known as middle class, even though...

Stop! Don't touch that dial... if you like your atom-age propaganda straight up, MGM has the movie for you, an expensive 1946 docu-drama that became 'the official story' for the making of the bomb. The huge cast includes Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, and Joseph Calleia. How trustworthy is the movie? It begins by showing footage of a time capsule being buried -- that supposedly contains the film we are watching. Think about that. Mom, Apple Pie, the Flag and God are enlisted to argume that we should stop worrying and love the fact that bombs are just peachy-keen dandy. The Beginning or the End DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1947 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 112 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Brian Donlevy, Robert Walker, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler, Audrey Totter, Hume Cronyn, Hurd Hatfield, Joseph Calleia, Godfrey Tearle, Victor Francen,...

The Set-Up

Written by Art Cohn

Directed by Robert Wise

U.S.A., 1949

A boxer’s career is a strange beast. Keeping in mind that all professional athletes eventually feel the strain caused by years of exertion on their body, boxing is a different matter altogether. The objective is, literally, to beat the other fellow up before he or she strikes one too many hits on one’s noggin first. Small wonder, then, that boxers in their early to mid 30s are considered old, past their prime. One good punch however, one great right or left hook can shoot a career into the stratosphere. The problem is that for so many unfortunate fighters, they either lack the skill or the luck to land said potent strike. Of all the sports analogies that can relate to the proverbial boulevard of broken dreams, few can compare to that of the boxer, a...

Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...

'The Beginning or the End' 1947 with Robert Walker and Tom Drake. Hiroshima bombing 70th anniversary: Six movies dealing with the A-bomb terror Seventy years ago, on Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima. Ultimately, anywhere between 70,000 and 140,000 people died – in addition to dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and most other living beings in that part of the world. Three days later, America dropped a second atomic bomb, this time over Nagasaki. Human deaths in this other city totaled anywhere between 40,000-80,000. For obvious reasons, the evisceration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been a quasi-taboo in American films. After all, in the last 75 years Hollywood's World War II movies, from John Farrow's Wake Island (1942) and Mervyn LeRoy's Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (2001), almost invariably have presented a clear-cut vision...

Brad Pitt 'Glory Days' costar Nicholas Kallsen Brad Pitt 'Glory Days' costar Nicholas Kallsen dead at 48 Nicholas Kallsen, who was featured opposite Brad Pitt in the short-lived television series Glory Days, has died at age 48 in Thailand according to online reports. Their source is one of Rupert Murdoch's rags, citing a Facebook posting by one of the actor's friends. The cause of death was purportedly – no specific source was provided – a drug overdose.* Aired on Fox in July 1990, Glory Days told the story of four high-school friends whose paths take different directions after graduation. Besides Nicholas Kallsen and Brad Pitt, the show also featured Spike Alexander and Evan Mirand. Glory Days lasted a mere six episodes – two of which directed by former Happy Days actor Anson Williams – before its cancellation. Roommates Nicholas Kallsen and Brad Pitt vying for same 'Thelma & Louise' role? The Murdoch tabloid also...

Claudette Colbert movies on Turner Classic Movies: From ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’ to TCM premiere ‘Skylark’ (photo: Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’) Claudette Colbert, the studio era’s perky, independent-minded — and French-born — "all-American" girlfriend (and later all-American wife and mother), is Turner Classic Movies’ star of the day today, August 18, 2014, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series. Colbert, a surprise Best Actress Academy Award winner for Frank Capra’s 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, was one Paramount’s biggest box office draws for more than decade and Hollywood’s top-paid female star of 1938, with reported earnings of $426,944 — or about $7.21 million in 2014 dollars. (See also: TCM’s Claudette Colbert day in 2011.) Right now, TCM is showing Ernst Lubitsch’s light (but ultimately bittersweet) romantic comedy-musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), a Best Picture Academy Award nominee starring Maurice Chevalier as a French-accented Central European lieutenant in...

Shirley Temple dead at 85: Was one of the biggest domestic box office draws of the ’30s (photo: Shirley Temple in the late ’40s) Shirley Temple, one of the biggest box office draws of the 1930s in the United States, died Monday night, February 10, 2014, at her home in Woodside, near San Francisco. The cause of death wasn’t made public. Shirley Temple (born in Santa Monica on April 23, 1928) was 85. Shirley Temple became a star in 1934, following the release of Paramount’s Alexander Hall-directed comedy-tearjerker Little Miss Marker, in which Temple had the title role as a little girl who, left in the care of bookies, almost loses her childlike ways before coming around to regenerate Adolphe Menjou and his gang. That same year, Temple became a Fox contract player, and is credited with saving the studio — 20th Century Fox from 1935 on — from bankruptcy. Whether or not that’s true is a different story,...

‘Ryan’s Daughter’ actor Christopher Jones dead at 72: Quit acting following nervous breakdown after Sharon Tate murder, in later years turned down Quentin Tarantino movie offer Christopher Jones, who had a key role in David Lean’s 1970 romantic epic Ryan’s Daughter, died of complications from gallbladder cancer last Friday, January 31, 2014, at Los Alamitos Medical Center, approximately 35 km southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Christopher Jones (born William Franklin Jones on August 18, 1941, in Jackson, Tennessee) was 72. After growing up in a children’s home, joining the army at 16 and then going Awol, being handpicked by Tennessee Williams for a small role in the playwright’s The Night of the Iguana in 1961, and starring in the television series The Legend of Jesse James (1965-1966), Christopher Jones began getting film roles. His first was the title role in Allen H. Miner’s 1967 clash-of-generations drama Chubasco, in which Jones plays a misunderstood youth...

‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Alicia Rhett dead at 98; was oldest surviving credited Gwtw cast member Gone with the Wind actress Alicia Rhett, the oldest surviving credited cast member of the 1939 Oscar-winning blockbuster, died on January 3, 2014, at the Bishop Gadsden Episcopal Retirement Community in Charleston, South Carolina, where Rhett had been living since August 2002. Alicia Rhett, born on February 1, 1915, in Savannah, Georgia, was 98. (Photo: Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes in Gone with the Wind.) In Gone with the Wind, the David O. Selznick production made in conjunction with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM head Louis B. Mayer was Selznick’s father-in-law), the stage-trained Alicia Rhett played India Wilkes, the embittered sister of Ashley Wilkes, whom Scarlett O’Hara loves — though Ashley eventually marries Melanie Hamilton (Rhett had auditioned for the role), while Scarlett ends up with Rhett Butler. Based on Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller, Gone with the Wind was (mostly) directed by Victor Fleming...

Oscar-nominated ‘Imitation of Life’ actress Juanita Moore has died Juanita Moore, Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee for the 1959 blockbuster Imitation of Life, died on New Year’s Day 2014 at her home in Los Angeles. According to various online sources, Juanita Moore (born on October 19, 1922) was 91; her step-grandson, actor Kirk Kahn, said she was 99. (Photo: Juanita Moore in the late ’50s. See also: Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner photos at the 50th anniversary screening of Imitation of Life at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.) Juanita Moore movies The Los Angeles-born Juanita Moore began her show business career as a chorus girl at New York City’s Cotton Club. According to the IMDb, Moore was an extra/bit player in a trio of films of the ’40s, including Vincente Minnelli’s all-black musical Cabin in the Sky (1942) and Elia Kazan’s socially conscious melodrama Pinky (1949), in which Jeanne Crain plays a (very,...

Marta Eggerth: Operetta and film star — a sort of Jeanette MacDonald of Central European cinema — dead at 101 Marta Eggerth, an international star in film and stage operettas who frequently performed opposite husband Jan Kiepura, died on December 26, 2013, at her home in Rye, New York. The Budapest-born Eggerth had turned 101 last April 17. (Photo: Marta Eggerth ca. 1935.) Although best known for her roles in stage musicals such as the Max Reinhardt-directed 1927 Hamburg production of Die Fledermaus, and various incarnations of Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, Marta Eggerth was featured in nearly 40 films. The vast majority of those were produced in Austria and Germany in the 1930s, as the Nazis ascended to power. Marta Eggerth films Marta Eggerth films, which frequently made use of her coloratura soprano voice, include Max Neufeld’s drama Eine Nacht im Grandhotel ("A Night at the Grand Hotel," 1931); the Victor Janson-directed musicals Once There Was a Waltz...

If she had disappeared after making Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, we would still remember Joan Fontaine for her haunting, empathetic performance as the second Mrs. DeWinter, whose first name is never revealed. If his only credential was the title role in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O’Toole would have a place in film history. As it happens, he gave many other memorable performances, with eight Oscar nominations to prove it. Audrey Totter isn’t indelibly associated with any one picture, but she enjoyed latter-day adulation as one of the femmes fatales in a handful of films noir. Eddie Muller even devoted a chapter of his book Dark City Dames to her. And although he came to...

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Audrey Totter, the radio actress who became a silver screen star by playing femme fatales in 1940s film noir including Lady in the Lake has died. Totter's daughter, Mea Lane, tells the Los Angeles Times that her mother died Thursday at a Los Angeles hospital. She was 95 and had recently suffered a stroke. Totter was under contract with MGM starting in 1944. After landing a small part in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Totter went on to a series of roles as tough talking blondes. Her breakthrough came with Lady in the Lake, the 1947 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe detective tale.

Stylish film noir star known for her role in Lady in the Lake

I was kissed by Audrey Totter. At least, I share that experience with anybody who has seen Lady in the Lake (1947), when Totter plants her lips on the subjective camera, the surrogate for Robert Montgomery as Philip Marlowe. The film, directed by Montgomery, and based on the Raymond Chandler novel, was shot so that the whole story is seen literally through Marlowe's eyes.

The role of the gold-digging tigress magazine editor Adrienne Fromsett, who hires the private eye to find the missing wife of her publisher, was a breakthrough for Totter, who has died aged 95. Previously, she had been in a dozen movies, her hair colour and accent varying so much from film to film that she dubbed herself "the feminine Lon Chaney of the MGM lot".

Montgomery chose Totter for the part because of her versatility as a radio actor.

Los Angeles (AP) - Audrey Totter, the radio actress who became a silver screen star by playing femme fatales in 1940s film noir including "Lady in the Lake," has died.

Totter's daughter, Mea Lane, tells the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/JrDjQZ) her mother died Thursday at a Los Angeles hospital. She was 95 and had recently had a stroke.

Totter was under contract with MGM starting in 1944. After landing a small part in "The Postman Always Rings Twice," Totter went on to a series of roles as tough-talking blondes.

Her breakthrough came with "Lady in the Lake," the 1947 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe detective tale. She also appeared in the thriller "The Unsuspected" and the boxing drama "The Set-Up."

After retiring to raise a family, Totter later resurfaced on television.

___

Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com...

Peter O’Toole: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ actor, eight-time Oscar nominee dead at 81 (photo: Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’) Stage, film, and television actor Peter O’Toole, an eight-time Best Actor Academy Award nominee best remembered for his performance as T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s epic blockbuster Lawrence of Arabia, died on Saturday, December 14, 2013, at a London hospital following "a long illness." Peter O’Toole was 81. The Irish-born O’Toole (on August 2, 1932, in Connemara, County Galway) began his film career with three supporting roles in 1960 releases: Robert Stevenson’s Disney version of Kidnapped; John Guillermin’s The Day They Robbed the Bank of England; and Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents, starring Anthony Quinn as an Inuit man accused of murder. Two years later, O’Toole became a star following the release of Lawrence of Arabia, which grossed an astounding $44.82 million in North America back in 1962 (approx.

Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...

Audrey Totter, the blond starlet who made her mark in such 1940s film noir classics as Lady in the Lake, The Set-Up and High Wall, has died. She was 95. Totter, who had a stroke and suffered from congestive heart failure, died Thursday at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, her daughter Mea told the Los Angeles Times. A former radio actress in Chicago and New York who signed a contract with MGM for $300 a week in 1944, Totter had a career in films that was short-lived but memorable. Her breakthrough came in Lady in the Lake

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Blu-ray Release Date: Jan. 21, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Twilight Time

Edmond O’Brien and Audrey Totter get noir-ish in the 1953 crime drama Man in the Dark

The 1953 film noir crime drama Man in the Dark, Columbia’s first 3-D production—not to mention the first 3-D feature from a major studio—stars Edmond O’Brien (The Hitch-Hiker), Audrey Totter and Ted de Corsia

The movie tells the story of gangster Steve Rawley (O’Brien) who, while in jail on a robbery charge, undergoes an experimental brain operation designed to eradicate his criminal tendencies. Rawley loses his memory and is kidnapped by his old cronies who want to get their hands on the hidden loot for which he has been serving time. Through a series of wild dreams, Rawley eventually recovers his memory, right before getting involved in a climactic chase and shootout in an amusement park (complete with roller coaster).

Twilight...

Lady in the Lake

Directed by Robert Montgomery

Screenplay by Steve Fisher, novel by Raymond Chandler

U.S.A., 1947

In the history of film noir, only so many entries stands a good chance of taking the crown for ‘most original concept.’ Many efforts of the noir genre function as detective stories (although they should not be confused with police procedurals, which really are a different beast), which themselves became popular through the medium of novels. Some books are authored with use of first person narrative, which is an exciting and limitless tool enabling the writer, and by extension the reader, to discover what goes on the mind of the central character and sometimes side characters. What director and star Robert Montgomery chose to do with the 1947 film Lady in the Lake was borrow the first person narrative tool and translate it to the silver screen. Coincidentally enough, the film is...

Decoy

Directed by Jack Bernhard

Written by Nedrick Young (screenplay) and Stanley Rubin (story)

U.S.A., 1946

Film noir is film noir because of a variety of recognized qualities which concern both visuals cues as well as some specific narrative aspects, including stereotypical character traits. It stands to reason that that is how the genre, or any other genre for that matter, is recognized. However, there are some examples of films that, by the very fact that they follow the standards of the genre, somehow manage to create their own special uniqueness. It might be because said movie exemplifies those characteristics particularly well. Other examples prove to be more challenging to evaluate as to what makes them special. The reasons may be more difficult to flesh out simply because one is uncertain as to whether or not the picture is actually good. Watching Jack Berhard’s Decoy in preparation for...

Tension

Directed by John Berry

Screenplay by Allen Rivkin

U.S.A., 1949

Who is the infamous femme fatale? From what dark depths of humanity was she born and will men ever be able to truly resist her seductive moves? Such queries can spark endless discussions, among them the quality of the actresses who have portrayed them throughout the decades, especially in the early days of the noir genre. What appears to be all showmanship and flash hides the real talents of the actresses interpreting the roles. Not everyone can pull off the task with flying colours. Some actresses simply have the ‘fatale bug.’ Jane Greer was one of the most popular of her contemporaries, her role in Out of the Past being the most celebrated. Another talented, seductive thespian of the time that should not be overlooked is Audrey Totter, who made quite a career for herself with a great many roles in noir films.

Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes: Introduction to Q&A with Joan Blondell biographer Matthew Kennedy Why Joan Blondell? Actually, this book idea originally came from Joan's son, Norman Powell, who is a director and producer. I was writing a biography of the director Edmund Goulding a few years back, and Norman interviewed me for a documentary he was making on Old Hollywood. When we were through filming, he said casually "Maybe you should do a biography of my mother next." Well, I knew his mother was Joan Blondell, and I was frankly stunned at the suggestion. I have admired her ever since Here Come the Brides, a show I watched religiously when I was a kid, and here was her son inviting me to tell her life story! I finished the Goulding book about a year later, then contacted Norman again to ask if he was serious. He was,...

Chicago – Diabolical twins, obsessed journalists and jail-breaking thugs are heading their way to the Music Box Theatre. The Film Noir Foundation’s third installment of “Noir City: Chicago” features no less than sixteen restored 35mm prints of must-see cinematic rarities. Ten of these noir classics have yet to land a DVD release, thus making this festival all the more essential for local cinephiles.

The week-long festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 12, and includes criminally overlooked performances from Hollywood legends such as Humphrey Bogart, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Burt Lancaster. Acclaimed noir historians Alan K. Rode (“Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy”) and Foster Hirsch (“Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir”) will be presenting the pictures while offering their wealth of historical and filmic insight.

Among this year’s most priceless treasures is “Deadline USA,” starring Bogart as...

Years before ER or Grey's Anatomy, there was Medical Center. The drama debuted in 1969 on CBS and ran for seven seasons and 171 episodes.

The medical show revolves around two surgeons, their lives and the lives of their patients. Paul Lochner (James Daly) is the experienced Chief of Staff and Joe Gannon (Chad Everett) is a young and handsome physician and they both work at a university hospital in Los Angeles. Gannon also works as the head of the Student Health Department at the University. They're helped by a very efficient nurse Eve Wilcox, (Audrey Totter).

Season one of Medical Center has now been released on DVD. You can purchase the six disc set or you can also try to win a copy here. To enter, you need to merely post a comment below. You can enter once per day.

In Nick Schager's interview with madman/visionary Gaspar Noé, the director notes that one of his inspirations for the Pov shots in "Enter the Void" was a 1947 Raymond Chandler adaptation:

One day many years ago, maybe when I was in my late teens or early 20s, I took some mushrooms with friends, and then I went back home and they were playing "Lady in the Lake" on TV. That's when I decided that the first part of the movie should be shot in first-person perspective.

"Lady in the Lake" is a film that claimed to represent "a startling and daring new method of storytellng, a milestone in moviemaking" but is in actuality mainly a novelty (if a personal favorite of mine). The majority of it is shot from the point of view of the main character, private detective Philip Marlowe (played, when he appears on screen, by Robert Montgomery, who...

What makes Gaspar Noé's film so nightmarish is a trick that was perfected in a Philip Marlowe noir, over 60 years ago

For me, this week has been a time to limber up for the release of Gaspar Noé's synapse-frazzling movie Enter the Void, a total-immersion nightmare shot entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a small-time drug dealer in Tokyo, who meets a horrifying death, then an equally horrifying life after death.

Those who have seen it may wonder about Noé's personal influences. In his interview with the director, my colleague Steve Rose asked him about the pornographic nature of Enter the Void. Noé replied: "I was a huge consumer of porno movies when I was a teenager." Well, Enter the Void looks like the work of a director whose porn consumption may not be entirely a thing of the past. The other thing, of course, is drugs.

Franc Reyes, who helmed Empire, the highest-grossing film to come out of the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, has signed on to rewrite and direct a remake of RKO's boxing drama The Set-Up. Robert Wise directed the 1949 original with a cast that included Robert Ryan as over-the-hill boxer Stoker Thompson along with Audrey Totter and George Tobias. The story revolves around Thompson's battle to get back into the ring and winning form despite complaints from his wife, played by Totter. The redo has been in the works for some time, with a series of writers -- from Sidney Lumet and Tony Lee to Mardik Martin -- turning in drafts during the past several years. In fall 2002, Lumet also was set to direct James Gandolfini, Halle Berry and Benjamin Bratt in the pic, but that package fell apart.