The Frame

As an homage/pastiche of film noir I find it very interesting, especially since it’s clever enough to include noir’s literary heritage as well as its cinematic forerunners. As an example of striking visual style and interesting musical scoring, I enjoyed looking and listening to it (and I certainly look forward to seeing what Alter comes up with next). But as a self-contained narrative, it just doesn’t add up its pleasing moments and elements into a convincing whole.

A man staggers into a police office to report a murder…his own. He’s been poisoned with an antidote-less poison, and he spends the rest of the film trying to convince the police what’s happened and trying to figure out who poisoned him and why. It’s all tied up with various crime rings and such, I [...]

The head of a New York newspaper dies, leaving it in his son Vincent Price’s hands to choose someone to promote: managing editor Thomas Mitchell, lead reporter Dana Andrews, or a couple of other people. The way to get the job? Get the scoop on the serial killer taking out women around the city. There’s [...]

Loosely based on one of Ernest Hemingway’s Nick Adams short stories, the 1946 version of The Killers tells of a washed-up boxer and his involvement with a crime ring that later comes around to haunt him. It’s always interesting to see adaptations of short stories, simply because so much as to be added to make [...]

This noirish detective film has a healthy reputation as a pulp classic (adapted from the king of pulp fiction, Mickey Spillane) that may overshadow its actual quality. It’s good for what it is, but it’s not great. In fact, I’m having difficulty remembering the exact plot, other than it has to do with a mysterious [...]