Category Archives: Crime film

Why 1973 was the year Sidney Lumet took on police corruption

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

My latest piece for the US site CrimeReads looks at the director Sidney Lumet and why 1973 in particular was the year that he took on the subject of police corruption in not one but two films. The first Serpico, is a deservedly well known classic. The second, The Offense, should be far better known. You can read the piece in full on the CrimeReads site here.

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, 1980s American crime films, British crime cinema, Crime fiction, Crime film, Neo Noir, Sidney Lumet, True crime

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Men’s Adventure Quarterly: Gang Girls issue

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

Regular readers will have read previous posts on this site in which I have publicised the work of Bob Deis on the roughly 160 men’s pulp magazines that blossomed on American newsstands in the 1950s and 1960s. Or what Deis refers to as men’s adventure magazines. These magazines combined brilliant, often over the top illustrations, with hard-hitting fiction and lurid ‘non-fiction’ exposes of various mid-century cultural obsessions.

For the last year or so, Deis has been working with Bill Cunningham on a quarterly publication called Men’s Adventure Quarterly. Issue 7, is now out and has the theme of ‘gang girls’. It covers some similar territory to that dealt with in the 2016 book I coedited, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950-1980.

Indeed, I contributed an introduction on the sensational world of midcentury delinquent gangs and its reflection in pulp culture. It’s a beautiful physical publication, full of original art from the magazines and wonderfully designed and laid out by Cunningham. I am also impressed by the evolution of this magazine into an increasingly serious work of pulp fan scholarship. If this looks like your thing I would really encourage you to pick up a copy via Amazon.

You can find it on Amazon Australia here, Amazon UK here, and Amazon America at this link.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Crime film, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Men's Adventure Magazines, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, True crime

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Book Review: Love Me Fierce in Danger – The Life of James Ellroy

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Love him or loathe him, it is impossible to ignore James Ellroy’s impact on crime fiction. Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, by Steven Powell, makes a good case for the historical significance of his influence, not just on the crime genre but literature more generally. The first biography of one of America’s most controversial contemporary crime writers, researched and written with his full cooperation, Love Me Fierce in Danger also contributes a wealth of material and insight into Ellroy’s private life and personal struggles. I am tempted to say that it includes far more detail than I wanted to know. But that that would be a complete lie. I wanted to know it all, as I am damn sure many of you do, too.

Love Me Fierce In Danger is a substantial work of literary scholarship. Powell, who has written two previous critical works on Ellroy, interrogates in detail what has effectively been the three writing careers of Ellroy: his published fiction and non-fiction books, his script writing work for Hollywood – which is far more substantial than I had realised – and his work as a columnist for GQ magazine in the 1990s, which in itself was quite significant.

The exploration of Ellroy’s career is supplemented by detail and insight into Ellroy the person, based on conversations with the man himself, and friends and colleagues.… Read more

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Posted in 1990s American crime films, Crime fiction, Crime film, James Ellroy, Neo Noir, Noir fiction

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My cultural highlights of 2022

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Andrew Nette| 5 Comments

The end of the year nears. That means it is time for my year cultural highlights of 2022. So, without further introduction, let’s get into it.

Film

Possibly the best new release I saw in the past 12 months was Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s The Holy Spider (2022). The story of a young female journalist (a powerhouse performance by Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) investigating a religious serial killer in a rural Iranian city, little did I know when I saw it as part of Melbourne International Film Festival in September that it’s damning commentary on the male dominated nature of Iranian society, would find such a strong real world echo in the female led protest movement shaking the country to its foundations today. While The Holy Spider is not for the faint hearted, its horror is brilliantly conveyed through show don’t tell storytelling. Seriously, a lot of directors could learn from watching this film that you don’t always have to hit the audience over the head with a narrative sledgehammer.

Two other 2022 releases make my best of film list for the year. The first is Emily the Criminal. This is a whip smart neo noir about a young woman who falls into crime, featuring Aubrey Plaza in the lead role. I call it a millennial revenge film, which I think is THE upcoming crime genre with a bullet.… Read more

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Posted in 1970s American crime films, Book Reviews, British crime cinema, Burt Lancaster, Crime fiction, Crime film, David Peace, David Whish-Wilson, French crime fiction, Georges Simenon, Horror, Joel Edgerton, Melbourne International Film Festival, Neo Noir, Spies, True crime, Yaphet Kotto

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Wake in Fright is a Christmas film

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

As we dive into the Yuletide season, this is just a quick reminder that Ted Kotcheff’s 1971 film Wake In Fright definitely qualifies as a Christmas film.

I recently took part in a discussion on Kotcheff’s amazing film for the Journey’s Into Darkness film discussion group in the US. I talked about what Wake In Fright says about Australia in 1971 and now, conceptions of masculinity, and urban Australians uneasy relationship with the outback and our bloody colonial past. We also discussed how the film functions as a crime film, and outback noir and an Australian folk horror. You can watch the talk in full on Youtube here.

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Crime fiction, Crime film, Horror, Noir fiction, Ozsploitation, Rural noir

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