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Pickup on South Street (1953)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
1953 | Classics, Drama, Mystery
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"I’m still trying to learn the pickpocket techniques demonstrated in this Sam Fuller classic. It was my introduction to film noir—a late-night-TV memory that wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. I am still trying to be as brave and cocky as Thelma Ritter, or as wanton as Jean Peters in the clutch—“Sometimes you look for oil, you hit a gusher.” And if I ever have as satisfying a bowl of chow fun as they do in South Street’s Chinatown . . . I’ll die happy. This is supposed to be a little McCarthy-era rant against the Reds, but it’s really about “civilians” versus the lumpenproletariat, artists on the game, loyal to a code that the squares will never understand."

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Dean (6926 KP) rated Little Birds in TV

Oct 10, 2020  
Little Birds
Little Birds
2020 | Drama
5
5.0 (1 Ratings)
TV Show Rating
Juno Temple (0 more)
Oddball drama
A rather odd, colourful drama series based on a collection of short erotic stories.
It's very flamboyant, with a mixture of weird and wonderful characters set in Tangier in the 50's. An American heiress travels to meet up with her English husband and encounters a hedonistic culture. Almost film noir like at times as well with plots covering some dark deeds as well.
Then main problem with a short 6 episode series as it feels directionless, probably not helped if it's based on several short stories. It doesn't seem to have a main plot running through it. What seems to be a major plot in one episode might be sidelined in the next. Just a bit strange overall.
  
    FRAMED 2

    FRAMED 2

    Games

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    App

    Years ago, a mysterious ship smuggled precious cargo into an exotic land.  A standalone entry in...

    Studio One

    Studio One

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    TV Show

    A pinnacle of the Golden Age of Television, "Studio One" presented a wide range of memorable dramas...

The Royalist (William Falkland #1)
The Royalist (William Falkland #1)
S.J. Deas | 2014
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Set during the period of the English Civil Wars, I have to say that I found this to be rather unusual in that it is not about (per se) the wars themselves: rather, it is set in the New Model Army camp over a winter period, between hostilities, with William Falkland (the Royalist of the title) plucked from his prison cell by none other than Oliver Cromwell himself and sent to investigate reports of suicides/disturbances in the camp.

Reading very much like a ECW version of a whodunnit, with the author - in the afterword - not at all shy to point out the influences of the hard-boiled detective hero/film noir of the 40s (think Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler) on this work.
  
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Michael Barker recommended The Killers (1964) in Movies (curated)

 
The Killers (1964)
The Killers (1964)
1964 | Crime, Drama, Mystery
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Ernest Hemingway’s superb eight-page short story is the jumping-off point and inspiration for these two essential and very different movies (Stacy Keach reads the story magnificently in one of the DVD extras). I don’t understand why more people don’t know the 1946 Siodmak film. For my money, this is not only the best noir movie of all time but is just about my favorite Hollywood drama from the 1940s. The complex narrative structure begins as a jumbled Rubik’s Cube, and, slowly but surely, each piece falls into its precise place by movie’s end (the stuff Quentin Tarantino’s dreams are made of). The moody atmosphere provided by Siodmak and his technicians is a marvel. The cinematic execution of a heist has never been better. Here marks the birth of two glorious stars: Burt Lancaster (a beautiful caged animal, all teeth) and Ava Gardner (wow). Paul Schrader’s seminal essay on film noir, as a DVD extra, is invaluable. For those of you who wonder why Siegel’s 1964 violent, stylish, quirkily entertaining B version (the first TV movie ever made) is on this list, I have two words for you: Lee Marvin. There has never been a star like him before or since. Words simply cannot do justice to the magic of this guy—the timbre of his voice, the calm, paranoid, roughneck danger in his physical moves. In a spectacular extra on this DVD, fellow actor Clu Gulager gives a very moving (and, one feels while watching it, very truthful) account of working with Marvin, Siegel, and Ronald Reagan (who hated the movie—yet another reason to see it!)."

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