Vintage Pulp | Sep 12 2023 |

Think your boss is bad? Then you've never dealt with a mob boss.
Falling into the category of pleasant surprises, The Mob, for which you see an evocative promo poster above, stars Broderick Crawford as a cop sent to infiltrate an organized crime syndicate. You've seen the idea before. He works his way up the ladder and brings the bad guys down, but this iteration comes with brisk pacing, a set of unpredictable twists, and a supporting cast that includes Ernest Borgine, Richard Kiley, and Lynn Baggett. If you keep your eyes open you might even spot Charles Bronson.
Crawford had already won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for 1949's All the King's Men, so he unsurprisingly does a bang-up job in this film, instilling his deep cover cop with believable toughness and a gruff but relatable humanity. Crawford would later appear in such excellent films as Scandal Sheet, New York Confidential, Born Yesterday, and Human Desire, but The Mob may be his underrated classic.
The only flaw with this film, in our opinion, is a goofball denouement. We suppose, after ninety minutes of almost nonstop high tension, the filmmakers wanted audiences to leave smiling, and we're sure they did, because the scene, while dumb, is pretty funny. But in any case, we recommend giving The Mob a whirl. You'll enjoy it. It opened nationally in the U.S. in late September, but had its actual debut at special premiere today in Dayton, Ohio (why, we don't know) in 1951.
















Hollywoodland | Sep 9 2023 |

Movie stars were always willing to give each other a hand.
Once again we've been struck, so to speak, by the sheer number of cinema promo images featuring actors and actresses pretending to slap each other. The just keep turning up. The above shot is more about the neck than the face, but it still counts, as Gloria Swanson slaps William Holden in 1950's Sunset Boulevard. Below we have a bunch more, and you can see our previous collection at this link. Since we already discussed this phenomenon we won't get into it again, except briefly as follows: pretend slaps, film is not reality, and everyone should try to remember the difference. Many slaps below for your interest and wonder.

























Sunset BoulevardThe Long HaulRogue CopHere Come the Co-EdsThe Legend of Tom DooleyDiary of High School BrideThe Helen Morgan StoryLa ragazza e il generaleThe Girl and the GeneralSugar HillLes pétroleusesThe Legend of Frenchie KingTensionCarnival StoryCalcuttaSchwejk's FlegeljahreSchweik's Years of IndiscretionThe Third DayJoy HouseCaughtHuman DesireGunsmokeGone with the WindDial 1119Gloria SwansonWilliam HoldenDiana DorsPatrick AllenBud AbbottLou CostelloJo MorrowJack HoganChris RobinsonAnita SandsVirna LisiUmberto OrsiniMarki BeyBetty Anne ReesClaudia CardinaleBrigitte BardotRichard BasehartAudrey TotterAnne BaxterSteve CochranAlan LaddGail RussellHannelore AuerPeter AlexanderElizabeth AshleyRoddy McDowallAndré OumanskyLola AlbrightFrank FergusonBarbara Bel GeddesClaudia McNeilDiana SandsBroderick CrawfordGloria GrahameBette DavisAmanda BlakeVivien LeighLeslie HowardVirginia FieldMarshall ThompsonClint EastwoodShirley MacLainecinematelevision
Femmes Fatales | Jul 7 2019 |

Gloria Grahame's three-step plan for dealing with a problem—aim, fire, assess.
These photos of U.S. actress Gloria Grahame come from one of our favorite old movies, the film noir The Big Heat, in which she starred with Glenn Ford. How many good films was Grahame in? Plenty, including The Bad and the Beautiful, Crossfire, the amazing In a Lonely Place, Human Desire, The Glass Wall, and Odds Against Tomorrow. Outside the drama/noir genres, she was also in It's a Wonderful Life, which is one of the most watched U.S. films of all time, and Oklahoma!. In The Big Heat she plays the prototypical film noir bad girl who wants to be good but has a hard time getting there. We won't say more. Just check it out. The photo is from 1953.
Vintage Pulp | Aug 5 2016 |

Someone in the sleeping compartment isn't going to wake up.
Film noir teaches us that anyone can get in too deep, even a railroad engineer. In Human Desire, Fritz Lang's retelling of Emile Zola's 1890 novel La Bête humaine, Glenn Ford finds himself trapped between lust for Gloria Grahame and reluctance to kill to have her. He's already helped her cover up another killing and gotten in the middle of blackmail plot, but every man has his limits. This is flawed but canonical noir, with a cocky Ford, a quirky Grahame, a brutish Broderick Crawford, and Kathleen Case playing the loyal gal pal, who for our money is much more alluring than Grahame. Ford figures that out too, eventually. Too bad his realization is sandwiched between two murders on his train. Human Desire premiered today in 1954.