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Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat opens on an image of a gun on a desk. A man standing behind the desk grasps the weapon and raises it to his head, pulling the trigger. Throughout this curt sequence, we only see the desk, the gun, the man’s hand, the back of his head, and a stuffed envelope that’s intended to explain his actions, and which will promptly be confiscated and hidden by another character.

This death sets forth a scuttling of human insects across The Big Heat. And it illuminates the already pitifully obvious collusion existing between an unnamed city’s government and the closest its criminal empire has to “old” money, which are the prosperous businessmen who made their wealth a few decades prior, selling booze and killing rivals during Prohibition, laundering their blue-collar viciousness into white-collar “respectability.”

Much has been made of Lang, who was of Jewish heritage,...

Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment

by James Cameron-wilson

In January of this year something extraordinary happened. For the first time, United Artists’ Black Tuesday was shown on British television, having been originally banned for its violence. The film noir classic of 1954 stars Edward G. Robinson, one of the four giants of Hollywood’s gangster genre, alongside James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and George Raft. At the time that Edward G. starred in Black Tuesday, he was in something of a career slump, but, in spite of his modest physical stature, he still manages to bring to bear his characteristically brutal persona. Perhaps even more surprising is how good the film is, a sort of forgotten masterpiece from the Argentinean helmer Hugo Fregonese who, in his time, had directed such stars as Gary Cooper, James Mason, Joel McCrea, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor, Lee Marvin and Stewart Granger, but who is largely forgotten today,...

This Civil War thriller has so much truth to say about War, Patriotism and combatant-vs.-civilian terror that we can hardly believe it was released in 1954. It’s based on a true event from 1864, a daring undercover mission that hit the Union far away from the conventional fighting. Van Heflin is the vengeance-seeking advance agent, Anne Bancroft a war widow, Richard Boone a maimed Union veteran and Lee Marvin a loose cannon with a hair trigger. The anti-war message is stronger than anything from the Vietnam years! The 20th-Fox release is not on quality home video, and is in great need of restoration.

The Raid

Not on Home Video

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 83 min.

Starring: Van Heflin, Anne Bancroft, Richard Boone, Lee Marvin, Tommy Rettig, Peter Graves, Douglas Spencer, Paul Cavanagh, Will Wright, James Best, John Dierkes, Helen Ford, Lee Aaker, Claude Akins, John Beradino, Robert Easton,...

Behold — it’s Indiana Jones in embryonic form. Paramount’s South American adventure exploits Peruvian scenery and the ’50s exotica phenomenon that was the unique songstress Yma Sumac. The production receives hearty input from Charlton Heston, Nicole Maurey and Thomas Mitchell, but it’s mostly a relic today. Not because the Raiders films have stolen its thunder . . . because it’s plenty hokey, even for 1954.

Secret of the Incas

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 154

1954 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from [Imprint] / au 39.95

Starring: Charlton Heston, Robert Young, Nicole Maurey, Thomas Mitchell, Glenda Farrell, Michael Pate, Marion Ross, Leon Askin, William Henry, Kurt Katch, Yma Sumac, Booth Colman.

Cinematography: Lionel Lindon, Irmin Roberts

Art Director: Hal Pereira, Tambi Larsen

Film Editor: Eda Warren

Original Music: David Buttolph

Written by Ranald MacDougall & Sydney Boehm, from stories by Boehm and Boehm Maximum

Produced by Mel Epstein

Directed by Jerry Hopper

Everybody loves a good...

Black Tuesday (1954).Hugo Fregonese’s best films are fueled by desperation, a clean and potent but highly flammable form of energy. Just as fight-or-flight adrenaline sharpens our senses and reflexes, his filmmaking reaches heights of rigor and intensity when his characters are in the tightest spots—locked up, on the run, or under siege. Often facing death, they are also sentenced for life to be themselves: fate in his films is not a capricious external force but an expression of character. As a pensive Jack the Ripper says in Man in the Attic (1953), “There are no criminals. There are only people doing what they must do because they are who they are.”But who was Hugo Fregonese? Watching his films, it is hard not to speculate on the link between their compulsive themes of escape and restless wandering and his own refusal or inability to settle down. Born in Argentina...

Region B Blu-ray-capable noir fans have a formidable six-pack of noir crime pictures on tap: a WW2 espionage thriller, two caper pix and the show that launched the notion of a hit man who’s both charismatic and psychopathic. The list of leading actors is stellar as well: Glenn Ford, Kim Novak, Eli Wallach, Brian Keith, James Whitmore and Nina Foch. Do you like extras? Like to read about the movies you see? No video extra has been left behind, and Pi’s big yellow box contains a 120-page book. Plus — several newly remastered Three Stooges shorts. Don’t forget, Noir and Stooges go together like sanity and American politics!

Columbia Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

Escape in the Fog, The Undercover Man, Drive a Crooked Road, 5 Against the House, The Garment Jungle, The Lineup

Powerhouse Indicator

1945-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 8 hours, 11 min. / Street Date November 30, 2020 / available...

George Pal’s second science fiction classic has conceptual imagination and visual wonder to spare, along with a million awkward and dated details. When rogue planets threaten to obliterate the Earth, a super-Ark spaceship is built to spirit forty ‘chosen ones’ to safety. The Ark passengers have the right stuff, but you may be enraged by the rigged process to select who gets to go. Gee-whiz spectacle is the order of the day — how many End Of The World movies actually show terra firma expunged from the Solar System? Barbara Rush and John Hoyt are the acting standouts, but top honors go to Pal’s visual effect artists and designers.

When Worlds Collide

Blu-ray

Viavision / [Imprint] 6 (Australia)

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / available through [Imprint] : $34.95

Starring: Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Larry Keating, John Hoyt, Judith Ames, James Congden, Stephen Chase, Frank Cady, Hayden Rorke, Kirk Alyn, Casey Rogers, John Ridgely,...

George Pal’s second science fiction classic has conceptual imagination and visual wonder to spare, along with a million awkward and dated details. When rogue planets threaten to obliterate the Earth, a super-Ark spaceship is built to spirit forty ‘chosen ones’ to safety. The Ark passengers have the right stuff, but you may be enraged by the rigged process to select who gets to go. Gee-whiz spectacle is the order of the day — how many End Of The World movies actually show terra firma expunged from the Solar System? Barbara Rush and John Hoyt are the acting standouts, but top honors go to Pal’s visual effect artists and designers.

When Worlds Collide

Blu-ray

Viavision / Imprint (Australia)

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / available through [Imprint] : $34.95

Starring: Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Larry Keating, John Hoyt, Judith Ames, James Congden, Stephen Chase, Frank Cady, Hayden Rorke, Kirk Alyn, Casey Rogers,...

The legendary director Raoul Walsh hits The Big Trail one more time for a CinemaScope & stereophonic ‘big star’ cattle drive movie, dodging most cliches but taking a few squarely between the eyes. Star chemistry is what keeps them dogies movin’, with Clark Gable making it look all too easy. Frisky Jane Russell fares well, but not our favorite Robert Ryan: despite the high-profile billing, he pulls S.O.B. duty yet again. There’s no doubt about it, pilgrim … I see a whole lotta cows in this one.

The Tall Men

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 122 min. / Street Date September 17, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95

Starring: Clark Gable, Jane Russell, Robert Ryan, Cameron Mitchell, Juan García, Harry Shannon, Emile Meyer, Argentina Brunetti, Chuck Roberson, Will Wright.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Editing: Louis R. Loeffler

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Sydney Boehm, Frank Nugent from the novel by Clay...

Now it can be told! Or maybe, now it can’t be told? William Bradford Huie’s novel of creeping American ambition in Honolulu ends up as a tame vehicle for Jane Russell, who in one of her last big starring movies gives the Hawaiian scenery a run for its money. Raoul Walsh does well in the direction department, but the story has been cleaned up for Sunday School.

The Revolt of Mamie Stover

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1956 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date July 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed, Eddie Firestone, Jean Willes, Margia Dean, Sally Todd, Hugh Beaumont.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Costumes: Travilla

Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg

Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer

Written by Sydney Boehm, from the novel by William Bradford Huie

Produced by Buddy Adler

Directed by Raoul Walsh...

I tell you it’s rough out there on Frisco Bay, especially when you say the word ‘Frisco’ within earshot of a proud San Francisco native. This Alan Ladd racketeering tale could have been written twenty years earlier, but it has Warner Color and the early, extra-wide iteration of the new movie attraction CinemaScope.

Hell on Frisco Bay

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen Academy / 98 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru, William Demarest, Paul Stewart, Perry Lopez, Fay Wray, Nestor Paiva, Willis Bouchey, Anthony Caruso, Tina Carver, Rod(ney) Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Mae Marsh, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted

Stunts: Paul Baxley

Original Music: Max Steiner

Written by Martin Rackin, Sydney Boehm from a book by William P. McGivern

Produced by George C. Berttholon, Alan Ladd

Directed by Frank Tuttle

Alan Ladd had always been...

An Encore Edition brings back Fritz Lang's searing police corruption tale, with the great performances of Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvinaided by several pots of fresh, hot coffee. As is usual, Fritz Lang leads the way in modernizing a genre -- this one is a keeper. The Big Heat Blu-ray Encore Edition Twilight Time Limited Edition 1953 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Ship Date February 9, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Willis Bouchey, Robert Burton, Adam Williams, Howard Wendell, Dorothy Green, Carolyn Jones, Dan Seymour, Edith Evanson, John Crawford, John Doucette. Cinematography Charles Lang Film Editor Charles Nelson Original Music Henry Vars Written by Sydney Boehm from the book by William P. McGivern Produced by Robert Arthur Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Four years after Twilight Time's initial release, this Encore Edition...

Union Station

Written by Sydney Boehm

Directed by Rudolph Matté

U.S.A., 1950

When Joyce Williecomb (Nancy Olson), humble assistant to wealthy businessman Henry Muchison (Herbert Heyes), takes the train to Chicago, little does she know that the next few days will prove to be the greatest test of patience and nerves she has ever known. Shortly after the train departs for its destination, it is halted in order for two suspicious looking gentlemen to embark. Convinced something is amiss, Joyce, upon arriving in Chicago, immediately alerts the security at Union Station of the two mystery men, sending railroad police detective William Calhoun (William Holden) into action. Much to Joyce’s surprise and horror, it turns out that targets have in fact kidnapped her employer’s blind daughter, Lorna (Allene Roberts), to whom she had said goodbye mere hours ago. Now demanding a ransom, a game of cat and mouse...

(Richard Fleischer, 1955; Eureka!, 12)

Scripted by Sydney Boehm, a specialist in westerns and crime movies whose best film is perhaps Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, and directed by genre specialist Richard Fleischer, Violent Saturday is a noir thriller in Technicolor that brings together in 90 minutes a key location of the 1940s and 50s with one of those decades' favourite plots.

The setting is a corrupt, middle-American township (key examples being King's Row, Peyton Place and Some Came Running). The opposite of the cosy hometown of Andy Hardy movies and nostalgic Tin Pan Alley songs, it's seething with hypocrisy and inhabited by snobs, alcoholics, thieves, voyeurs, blackmailers, adulterers and womanising playboys. The plot is the heist movie, the story of a carefully prepared robbery, which has been around since The Great Train Robbery (1903) but became an established species of the crime genre in the postwar years in The Asphalt Jungle, Criss Cross and The Killing.

The Big Heat

Written by Sydney Boehm

Directed by Fritz Lang

USA, 1953

Opening with a bang, Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat begins with a carefully placed overhead shot of a hand claiming a small pistol resting atop a fine desk. An off-screen gun shot erupts in the soundtrack, followed by the body of a man crumpling onto the desk, lifeless. His wife (Jeanette Nolan), stunned by the event, notices an envelope on the table addressed to the district attorney, which she chooses to hide after reading its contents. It turns out the man who committed suicide was a Tom Duncan, a cop. Det. Dave Bannion (Glen Ford) is commissioned with investigating the reasons behind his former colleague’s death wish. Perplexed as to the circumstances behind the suicide, information comes to light that may suggest foul play, especially when an informant (Dorothy Green) turns up dead the next morning.

Mystery Street

Directed by John Sturges

Screenplay by Richard Brooks and Sydney Boehm

USA, 1950

If one comes across a review or snippet of commentary regarding John Sturges’ Mystery Street, one aspect about the film which people argue stands out is how it works as a police procedural which makes it, in a fashion, a precursor to so many of today’s massively popular television dramas, such the various CSI series. Truth be told, the comparisons are not far off. Closer inspection should, however, unearth much more of the film’s character-driven rewards than its mere commonalities with today’s popular wave of shows.

Reportedly the first ever film to be set in Boston (it is mentioned by a critic in the brief featurette on the DVD), the story opens with very peculiar setup, demonstrating no real need to rush into the thick of things for a good ten minutes. For...

The best of your comments on the latest films and music

'David Lynch, you really are quite wonderful and have helped to stretch the way in which I think and the way I perceive the world," Chamba said last week, beneath our interview with the film director turned techno musician. "Thank you for all your films and for Twin Peaks (which got me through my A-levels) and for your wacky interviews! And thank you Xan Brooks for a very funny article."

Lynch was not just interviewed last week, he was the guest editor of Film&Music. Hence articles about getting 21-year-olds from the Ozarks to listen to his music, and having Billy Gibbons of Zz Top discuss the workings of the block and tackle, all of which prompted ZIZI1001 to comment: "Strange fruit … but what a fruit. An embarrassment of riches today."

The Zz Top piece elicited an outburst...

Almost from the day Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered 30 years ago on June 12, 1981, fans have speculated about who the real-life model for Indiana Jones had been. While researching his forthcoming book, Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time (June 30; Dutton) journalist Mark Adams (brother of EW editor Jason Adams) investigated the background of one of the prime suspects — a dashing young Yale history professor, Hiram Bingham III, who found the ruins of Machu Picchu nearly 100 years ago. Here is an exclusive excerpt from the book:

Even before controversies sent Bingham’s...