We’re halfway through my film noir class with instructor Elliot Lavine. This week’s trio of films gave me the chance to revisit four old friends: Joan Bennett with Jonathan Frid Meet Joan . . . I first met Joan Bennett in the drawing room of Collinwood, a stately but troubled mansion on the hills overlooking the Maine … Continue reading UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 5 – Do Lang Do Lang Do Lang
Author: Brad
MORE PODCAST FUN (Plus, the Wit and Wisdom of Ariadne Oliver)
In what I hope will be a quarterly appointment for the next 75 years, JJ “The Invisible Event” McBloke has hosted Moira “Clothes in Books” Traychic and Yours “Ah Sweet Mystery” Truly for another deep, spoiler-filled, dive into an Agatha Christie novel! This time it was Cards on the Table, the third book Christie published in … Continue reading MORE PODCAST FUN (Plus, the Wit and Wisdom of Ariadne Oliver)
UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 4 – Woe is Woolrich
Cornell Woolrich is like one of those old friends from school who you run into on the street after thirty years and you stop for coffee and he looks like he hasn’t washed thoroughly in a year and there’s something horribly wrong with his leg and he tends to mutter and he literally creeps you … Continue reading UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 4 – Woe is Woolrich
KRIMES FOR KIDS: Two Series of Unfortunate Events!
Everyone loves serials these days. You might blame this on television, what with so many of us stuck inside with Netflix, bleary-eyed from binge-watching the latest imported telenovela (sapopera if you’re watching Scandi-noir; merodorama if it’s a nice juicy anime series). But TV series deserve no credit for inventing series characters. Back in the 16th century, traveling theatre troupes performed commedia dell’arte for … Continue reading KRIMES FOR KIDS: Two Series of Unfortunate Events!
UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 3 – The Wide Swath of Warner Brothers
Mystery is my genre of choice, but my first love was the musical. Picture a kid of seven, reclining on his tummy in front of my parents’ enormous wi-fi stereo console. There I wore down the few cast albums we owned: Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in South Pacific, Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin in Bells Are … Continue reading UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 3 – The Wide Swath of Warner Brothers
BOOK REPORT #5: The Flynn Dilemma
“Let me admit, first of all, that I am a perfectly rotten hand at telling a story.” Truer words have never been stated. Dr. Michael Bannerman, the narrator of Brian Flynn’s 11th (or is it 12th) Anthony Bathurst myustery, The Edge of Terror, is a terrible narrator. He uses twelve words where one would suffice. He out … Continue reading BOOK REPORT #5: The Flynn Dilemma
UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 2 – Film Noir Lite?
Warning: SPOILERS ahead!! Not all noir films are whodunnits, but I Wake Up Screaming and Laura most definitely are. If you haven’t watched either film yet . . . well, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?!!? Put this down, and go watch these films immediately. Then we’ll talk! The two films we watched for our second Film Noir class with Elliot Lavine through Stanford University … Continue reading UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Week 2 – Film Noir Lite?
UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Notes on Film Noir – Week 1
Here’s what I think I know about film noir. It’s a style that nobody set out to invent. There was no meeting of minds that said, “Let’s invent a new genre.” Instead, directors – a great many of them expatriates from Europe, allowed the surreal visuals and dark mood of German Expressionism to affect the look … Continue reading UN VOYAGE DANS LES TENEBRES: Notes on Film Noir – Week 1
BOOK REPORT #4: Death Walks in Eastrepps
Way back in the Fun Times – early 2019, to be exact – I stumbled (almost literally) upon a new/old author (for me) named Francis Beeding in my favorite local bookstore, bought and read the book, Murdered One by One, and subsequently shared my thoughts in high epistolary style with my buddy, Bev Hankin, who … Continue reading BOOK REPORT #4: Death Walks in Eastrepps
REEL LAUGHS: Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone
“Forward: The producers of this picture feel that the attorney depicted herein should be disbarred and strongly suggest that the American Bar Association do something about it.” Recently, my friend Scott K. Ratner made the claim that the wild success of the film version of Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man (1934) did much to waylay the popularity … Continue reading REEL LAUGHS: Mrs. O’Malley and Mr. Malone
Ah Sweet Mystery! 