Raymond Chandler And 'The Annotated Big Sleep'

In my previous post, I offered the late, great crime novelist Raymond Chandler’s view of organized crime in America.

As I noted, I have been an admirer of Raymond Chandler since I was a teenager. I’ve read all of his crime novels, short stories, his commentary and several biographies of the writer. 

Back in 2018, I reviewed The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler for the Washington Times.

 

You can read the review via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Annotated Big Sleep: A Look Back At The Late, Great Raymond Chandler And His Classic Crime Novel, 'The Big Sleep' 

A Look Back At James Cagney's 'The Roaring Twenties'

Long before Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino portrayed American mobsters in films, the late, great James Cagney appeared as a gangster in several classic American crime films. 

James Cagney is one of my favorite actors. 

I recently rewatched James Cagney in 1939’s The Roaring Twenties. 

Directed by Raoul Walsh, Cagney and two friends, Humphrey Bogart and Jeffrey Lynn, return home after serving together in the U.S. Army in WWI. 

Cagney and Bogart go into the bootlegging business during Prohibition, and Lynn, a lawyer, works for the two gangsters. 

Cagney, a dancer and a former amateur boxer, was very good as the tough guy Irish hoodlum. I love the way he threw a realistic punch upwards at taller and bigger men. 

He had a great face, voice and swagger. Although a short man, Cagney had a powerful screen presence. 

Bogart is also very good as a truly bad guy in the film. 

James Cagney was one of Warner Brothers’ movie stars during their Gold Age of crime films, along with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. 

Cagney’s breakout gangster film was 1930’s The Public Enemy, in which he famously squashed a grapefruit into a girl’s face. 

Cagney’s last portrayal of a gangster was in Raoul Walsh’s 1949’s White Heat, where the older, heavier Cagney dies shouting, “Top of the world, Ma!” 

You can watch The Roaring Twenties via the below link:        

Bing Videos 

Cagney also starred as song & dance man George M. Cohan in 1942’s Yankee Doodle Dandy.  

You can also read a biography of Jimmy Cagney via the below link:

James Cagney [biography]:Biography Description: Performing Arts Encyclopedia, Library of Congress (loc.gov) 

A Look Back At Humphrey Bogart In The Classic Crime Film 'The Desperate Hours'

 I recently watched the classic crime film The Desperate Hours. 

The 1955 film was directed by William Wyler and was based the play and novel by Joseph Hayes. 

What a terrific film. I saw it years ago and I enjoyed once again this story of three escaped convicts who hold a family hostage. 

Humphrey Bogart was truly outstanding as the leader of the criminals and Frederick March and Arthur Kennedy were also standouts in a fine cast. 

Paul Newman originally portrayed the gang leader on Broadway, which I would have loved to have seen, but the film makers wanted a bigger star for the film version and cast Bogart. 

Humphrey Bogart was menacing and mean and made for this meaty role. His scenes with Frederick March, the father of the family held hostage, were a tour de force.  

Director Michael Cimino remade the film, calling it Desperate Hours, in 1990. I thought it was awful. Cimino wasted the talents of Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins. 

So I recommend you skip the remake and watch Bogart in The Desperate Hours. 

You can watch the film online via the below link:

The Desperate Hours 1955 - Bogart, Fredric March, Martha Scott (ok.ru) 

 

"Maltese Falcon' Flies Again On Local Big Screens

John Timpane, my editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports on John Huston's classic crime film The Maltese Falcon appearing once again on the big screen.

It's the best movie ever made about a paperweight that just sits there and does nothing.

The Maltese Falcon turns 75 this year. This 1941 Warner Bros. film was (amazingly) John Huston's first directing turn; he wrote the script, too, largely from the hard-boiled dialogue in Dashiell Hammett's 1929 smash-hit novel.

Now you can see it on the big screen - and you really should. The Maltese Falcon will fly Sunday and Wednesday on more than 650 big-screen theaters across the land.

Local venues include the UA Riverside Plaza, the University 6, the Ritz 16 in Voorhees, Movies 16 in Somerdale, the King of Prussia 16, the Neshaminy 24. For theaters, times, and ticket prices, visit here.

It's part of the year-long Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies Big Screen Classics series. They've already done Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and next month, from on high, The Ten Commandments.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://mobile.philly.com/beta?wss=/philly/entertainment&id=369266861

The Tough Guy Screen Detectives of the 1930s and 1940s Are Back

Bruce Chadwick at historynewsnetwork.org offers a look back at the movies based on Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler's private detectives.

There is trouble in the world today? Serial killers? Arsonists? The thugs of ISIS? Don’t bother with the CIA, FBI, Interpol or the NYPD. Get Sam Spade!

Spade was one of the famous tough guy detectives in literature and film, created by Dashiell Hammett back in the Great Depression era. He was tougher than tough; he ate nails for breakfast. He and the other great film noir sleuths comprised a genre of books and movies that have thrilled Americans since the 1930s.

Now the heroic private investigators are back in Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich & Cain, a film series at the Film Forum in New York, December 12 – 24. They arrived there directly from any television network you can think of, where they have solved crimes and beat up criminals for decades.

The Film Forum festival will open Friday with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. The festival will show two versions, the pre-release cut and the regular feature.

Other films, shown singly or on double bills, will be Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Obssessione, Phantom Lady, Black Angel, The Window, Deadline at Dawn, City Streets, Streets of Chance, The Maltese Falcon, The Glass Key, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, Mildred Pierce, Murder My Sweet, The Long Goodbye, The Bride Wore Black, The Thin Man and After the Thin Man.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/157819