Tag Archives: The Killers (1946)

The Big Nowhere: The best film noir you have never heard of

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Martha 1As regular Pulp Curry readers will be aware, one of my great cinema loves in film noir. Everyone can name their favourite films noirs, usually the big name, famous ones, like Double Indemnity (1944), the 1946 version of The Killers or Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). But one of the things I love about the canon of cinema known as film noir is how broad and deep it is. So many fantastic films noirs were made that are relatively unknown to many people.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking it would be great to do a series of posts on the best unknown noirs and what they tell us about what film noir. I was going to do this for Pulp Curry, but a meeting during the recent Melbourne International Film Festival with Conor Bateman, who runs the great Sydney-based film site, 4:3, made me think they might be a better location for the posts.

So over the next few months, I’m am going to be doing a series of columns on 4:3, each one focusing on a different film noir that I think is particularly good and unknown, and posting links to them on this site.

The criteria are simple. That the film be little known, good, American and released during 1945 – 1960. … Read more

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Posted in Film Noir

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The Don Siegel Rule

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 8 Comments

SeigelI had to give it a name, so I called it the Don Siegel Rule.

I was watching Charley Varrick recently, the 1973 heist film directed by Siegel, starring Walter Matthau as an ex-crop duster and stunt pilot turned bank who, along with his long suffering girlfriend, Nadine, and unreliable partner, robs a small bank in New Mexico. Unbeknownst to Varrick, the bank in question is actually a front for the mob. In response, the mob sends a hit man (played by Joe Don Baker) after him.

It’s a terrific little heist film. Tough in all the right places, just enough action and suspense to keep you interested, without the kind of over the top action gimmicks similar films exhibit these days. Matthau is terrific as the hangdog loner, Varrick.

Anyway, it got me thinking. There may be bad Siegel films out there, but I haven’t seen them.

Siegel was the king of the intelligent B movie (a title he shares with directors such as Walter Hill). His films have enormous energy and pace, but they also have an economy. Watching Siegel’s films, time and again he’s been able to get above obvious budget and script limitations to tell a gripping story.

The journeyman director cut his teeth making Westerns and noirs in the late forties and early fifties, and then pretty much excelled at whatever genre he tried.… Read more

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Posted in Angie Dickinson, Crime film, Don Siegel, Heist films, Lee Marvin, Michael Caine

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