cult film freak: ida lupino

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Written by James M. Tate / 3/19/2023 / No comments / arthur kennedy , cornel wilde , crime , film noir or melodrama , forties , heist , humphrey bogart , ida lupino , joan leslie , john huston , raoul walsh , rural

HUMPHREY BOGART'S CAREER SKYROCKETS FROM 'HIGH SIERRA'

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhso3txDCTPodjTfwBfYX52oRwHMSiBouuyK8MO2PAaaPjlxEZEV9zPTf9njHv2WE57Y03FiI8moPSTjq0mFykPf0d1ChQy89FSDKxWcRAlY9mF6Jad0Myr5begWNrlZCHgTC-ai9EKC_ahnE-OEWtDCGt5HPFca2p-PhKQW22PCLgrBRuefO2hl5YyRQ/s1500/81no6FXP13L._SL1500_.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1207" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhso3txDCTPodjTfwBfYX52oRwHMSiBouuyK8MO2PAaaPjlxEZEV9zPTf9njHv2WE57Y03FiI8moPSTjq0mFykPf0d1ChQy89FSDKxWcRAlY9mF6Jad0Myr5begWNrlZCHgTC-ai9EKC_ahnE-OEWtDCGt5HPFca2p-PhKQW22PCLgrBRuefO2hl5YyRQ/w321-h400/81no6FXP13L._SL1500_.jpeg" width="321" /></a></div>title: HIGH SIERRA year: 1941 cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Alan Curtis, Joan Leslie, Arthur Kennedy rating: **** 
 
There's a dog that, wherever he goes, gives bad luck to whomever takes him in: this happens to be Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, who both meet each other, then the pooch, in a rural small town hideaway whilst Bogart and three other men plan a caper to rob a plush mountainous hotel. But bad luck usually dogs these kind of characters, doomed from the start while plotting their big easy score which, in this case, got Humhrey's Roy Earle cut from prison early: Although Bogart isn't altogether villainous as he, after meeting a down-home family which includes a beautiful young girl with a club foot, invests in real people, hoping for the girl's hand in marriage: but he's more suited for Lupino, a gun moll whose bittersweet performance adds to Bogart's seasoned usual, and from one scene to the next this is a thoroughly enjoyable melodrama centering on tough human beings, not your typically cliched gangsters. Unfortunately some really bad performances, like the dog's last owner, and the insertion of melodrama into what should have been a leaner, tighter, more edgy crime flick, especially if our man's flawed cohorts Arthur Kennedy and Alan Curtis along with nervous middleman Cornel Wilde had more than peripheral importance: But, either way, HIGH SIERRA, with Bogart's name after Lupino in the credits, is the last movie where that would ever happen again.

arthur kennedy, cornel wilde, crime, film noir or melodrama, forties, heist, humphrey bogart, ida lupino, joan leslie, john huston, raoul walsh, rural

HUMPHREY BOGART'S CAREER SKYROCKETS FROM 'HIGH SIERRA'

title: HIGH SIERRA year: 1941 cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Alan Curtis, Joan Leslie, Arthur Kennedy rating: **** There's ...

Written by James M. Tate / 3/16/2023 / No comments / action , adventure , belinda balaski , creature , eco-horror , exploitatio , ida lupino , marjoe gortner , pamela franklin , ralph meeker , seventies

BERT I. GORDON DIRECTS 'FOOD OF THE GODS' WITH RALPH MEEKER

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIibB5vfumfR6gRBmaMyqIIsKTS9Rl_w7zOwZjSdsRpCzlfaypeks8ibdOA7KkRiwdRRUTI8rEy1SNi3QFmTzUigtskVK3HB_X_OB1IeAlgAlTArdwgRMmnVaduU_LLZjn8i3Od1_4yrd99lin7C5ElgMo7syP75bFb67ccG8sXevSlz-HrHRoeJK3w/s1699/0.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1211" data-original-width="1699" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIibB5vfumfR6gRBmaMyqIIsKTS9Rl_w7zOwZjSdsRpCzlfaypeks8ibdOA7KkRiwdRRUTI8rEy1SNi3QFmTzUigtskVK3HB_X_OB1IeAlgAlTArdwgRMmnVaduU_LLZjn8i3Od1_4yrd99lin7C5ElgMo7syP75bFb67ccG8sXevSlz-HrHRoeJK3w/s16000/0.jpeg"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: FOOD OF THE GODS Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>When cult director Bert I. Gordon was a forgotten legend of 1950's and 1960's drive-in cinema, he had a comeback for two consecutive years — 1976 and 1977 — with a pair of science-fiction flicks, loosely based on 
stories by H.G. Wells, ending with EMPIRE OF THE ANTS and before that a more message-laden eco-horror in FOOD OF THE GODS, centering not on enlarged killer insects but voracious rats...Like EMPIRE, they're actual creatures made to look immense by trick photography, while the actors are superimposed like they're either battling, or, with cheap close-up practical effects, being devoured by the rodents, who exist because a rural farm couple discovered the titular slimy FOOD coming from the earth, making these GODS rise up and conquer...

action, adventure, belinda balaski, creature, eco-horror, exploitatio, ida lupino, marjoe gortner, pamela franklin, ralph meeker, seventies

BERT I. GORDON DIRECTS 'FOOD OF THE GODS' WITH RALPH MEEKER

Title: FOOD OF THE GODS Year: 1976 Rating: ***1/2 When cult director Bert I. Gordon was a forgotten legend of 1950's and 1960's driv...

FRITZ LANG DIRECTING DANA ANDREWS 'WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS'

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj05KOdd2289pTyLxt7moyYh-uGbFIRge14RxXraKFvfL9phUmTXRS2LjGzg8nn-pblpfnFCWK83DNVECw16__Mlh7M4oKXNTOpz7maY0jQVuXly6n-Ctja6djxAO1L12vKhD_ygoHiDU9MD9kVCbl_hlLTVgMZFKadjBi0Gpo0CYJ1uLD5V0CIgFZiUw=s1082" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1082" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj05KOdd2289pTyLxt7moyYh-uGbFIRge14RxXraKFvfL9phUmTXRS2LjGzg8nn-pblpfnFCWK83DNVECw16__Mlh7M4oKXNTOpz7maY0jQVuXly6n-Ctja6djxAO1L12vKhD_ygoHiDU9MD9kVCbl_hlLTVgMZFKadjBi0Gpo0CYJ1uLD5V0CIgFZiUw=w400-h300" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Title: WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS Year: 1956 Rating: ***1/2</td></tr></tbody></table>Imagine Orson Welles's Charles Foster Kane inheriting a news outlet instead of a goldmine to buy one, and there you have Vincent Price's not so kind Walter Kyne, who, after his powerful but honest father dies, takes over Kyne Enterprises — with a familiar "K" symbol ala CITIZEN KANE — and sets the employees against each other... 
 
The winner must name a violent serial killer killing single women, making WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS part Film Noir and occasional Horror... And it needs more of the latter from perhaps having too much of the first, character-wise: the overcrowded Kyne Corporation office ensemble includes whiskey-drinking career-newsroom chief Thomas Mitchell; sharp/flirtatious wire-service runner George Saunders; beyond flirtatious one-woman-womanizer James Craig; and star Andrews, surprisingly the least interesting character as the central newscaster... Although his scenes collaborating with token cop Howard Duff from THE NAKED CITY makes for worthy B&W crime scene Noir elements while a young, gnarly-looking John Barrymore Jr. takes the villain role albeit lacking motivation save the usual mommy issues: and even that's not really clarified...

dana andrews, ensemble, fifties, film noir or melodrama, fritz lang, howard duff, ida lupino, rhonda fleming, sally forrest, serial killer, thomas mitchell, thriller, vincent price

FRITZ LANG DIRECTING DANA ANDREWS 'WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS'

Title: WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS Year: 1956 Rating: ***1/2 Imagine Orson Welles's Charles Foster Kane inheriting a news outlet instead of a ...

RICHARD WIDMARK SCORNED IN THE FILM NOIR ROAD HOUSE

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6KX8TwWtDwykx7TffO2-fxA56TJ0gjnIDWl6y2WeTaeJv5uvqjTxUqsKFdU6hRvLLUfKHg-_xWjzgIDwswabS0ureEp9kdF3JN50GPtlmSY1J1xGLZIYgXZCA_r603f48gr7XwGuIGevLMluiCG-rcggDvrYVZMLloTSZ7iEon38RXbtZm7CDDjf_g/s1468/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-11%20at%203.52.01%20AM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1468" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE6KX8TwWtDwykx7TffO2-fxA56TJ0gjnIDWl6y2WeTaeJv5uvqjTxUqsKFdU6hRvLLUfKHg-_xWjzgIDwswabS0ureEp9kdF3JN50GPtlmSY1J1xGLZIYgXZCA_r603f48gr7XwGuIGevLMluiCG-rcggDvrYVZMLloTSZ7iEon38RXbtZm7CDDjf_g/w400-h261/Screen%20Shot%202022-12-11%20at%203.52.01%20AM.jpeg" width="400"></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">YEAR OF RELEASE: 1948</td></tr></tbody></table>No this doesn't star Patrick Swayze... ROAD HOUSE was originally a Noir title — the third of Richard Widmark's sleazy villain roles igniting with the staircase-shoving Tommy Udo in KISS OF DEATH followed by a nervous and edgy gang-boss in THE STREET WITH NO NAME... 
 
Widmark is the guy who, in these early roles, is far from pretty, or even manly, but does have either power or money, or both, and here he's just the rich part, owner of the title location where bowling is the forefront till he brings Ida Lupino to sing in the lounge: starting out, me mostly see her from the perspective of hero Cornel Wilde as Peter, the manager and bouncer who does all the work: one scene taking down a large and lusty drunk equalling two of Patrick Swayze's rowdy opponents. So Peter has the least amount of fun. That is, until Lupino begins to shun the man who hired her... And like in many a Noir, the rich guy practically hands a woman, his woman (in this case, only in his mind) into the arms of the younger, handsome stud, and seems completely puzzled when they turn out falling in love... Although at one point, when Lupino describes her scary boss to Pete, he responds: "You don't understand — Jefty just needs to have somebody around." And how!

british film noir/melodrama, cornel wilde, ida lupino, richard widmark