Maxwell Smart (Don Adams) teams up with Hawaiian detective Harry Hoo (Joey Forman) to track down his old enemy, The Claw (Leonard Strong) in The Amazing Harry Hoo. Written by Gerald Gardner and Dee Caruso, this episode was first broadcast on 12 March, 1966. The episode is a little problematic in that you have a…
Tag: femme fatale
Northern Exposure (1994) – Eye of the Beholder, and Shofar, So Good
Ed (Darren E. Burrows) gets to live a bit of a dream when he works as a private investigator working on an insurance fraud case. He’s given all the gear he needs to prove that Hayden (James L. Dunn) is lying about his injury. Ed is conflicted. He’s into the gig, but a little upset…
TIFF ’23: Poolman
Chris Pine stars, directs and co-wrote Poolman, a sun-baked film noir that never quite finds its tone in spite of its best efforts, and feels like the love child of Chinatown and The Big Lewbowski. A pastiche of the eccentricities and lifestyles of LA, Pine populates his film with characters you could only find in…
Batman (1966) – True or False Face, and Holy Rat Race
False Face (Malachi Thorne) – who the hell is False Face? – shows up to menace Batman (Adam West) and Robin the Boy Wonder (Burt Ward) in True or False Face. Written by Stephen Kandel it first aired on 9 March, 1966. Constantly in masks and disguises False Face sends false messages to taunt the…
The Facts of Death (1998) – Raymond Benson
James Bond is back. Building off his previous short story, Blast From the Past, the novel, Zero Minus Ten, and his adaptation of Tomorrow Never Dies, author Raymond Benson thrusts 007 into another globetrotting adventure that takes him from London to Texas, and Cyprus in an attempt to stop a viral outbreak and a growing…
The Ninth Gate (1999) – Roman Polanski
Johnny Depp finds himself caught up in a literary supernatural film noir that serves as the next entry in the chapter of The Devil’s Work in DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movie. Using the novel The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte as its basis the film follows a book detective, Corso (Depp) who is hired…
Murder, My Sweet (1944) – Edward Dmytryk
Dick Powell doesn’t quite have the narration patter down of a hard-boiled private investigator, especially not for the one he’s playing, Philip Marlowe, still, this is a great little film-noir bringing another incarnation of Raymond Chandler’s iconic character to the silver screen. And he handles the actual dialogue with his co-stars well, it’s just the…
The Killers (1946) – Robert Siodmak
The next big title in DK Canada’s The Movie Book is the classic film, Laura. Having previously reviewed it, I dove into the What Else to Watch list for this title, and discovered this fantastic little noir film starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. Two hitmen arrive in a small town and kill a gas…
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) – Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis’ Oscar winning film noir, coached in cartoon terms, is the next recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book following my screening of Toy Story. Melding the live action and cartoon world, the film follows detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) as he takes a case he doesn’t even want to…
The Glass Key (1942) – Stuart Heisler
The journey into film noir continues with the recommendations from my Great Movies – 100 Years of Film for my screening of The Big Sleep. Alan Ladd is Ed Beaumont, the right hand man, and best friend of corrupt politician Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy). When Madvig shuts down a gangster, Nick Varna (Joseph Calleia)…
The Mind Reels 