Joel Bocko of  The Sun’s Not Yellow yearly roundup of posts from his Blogroll has given me the idea to highlight some of my posts from the past year.  My next post will look at what I have planned for 2010.

My commitment to blogging has waxed and waned this year, and I have not been as prolific as 2008, but I did pursue my writing of short fiction pieces inspired by my interest in film noir, and these are collected here: Noir Fiction.

Other 2009  posts on movies I found particularly interesting:

The Lost Weekend (1945): “I can’t take quiet desperation”

Christ in Concrete (1949): Simply a masterpiece

Caged (1950): “the plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face”

I Wake Up Screaming (1941): Bizarre Transference

Le quai des brumes (Port of Shadows – France 1938): Poetic Realism

Ruthless machinations in the executive suite.  An older executive with a social conscience is ‘pushed’ to make way for a younger talented manager from a regional office. Murder by another name.  Rod Serling’s 1954 tele-play hit the big screen in 1956 with powerhouse performances from Van Heflin, Ed Begley, and Everett Sloane.

Patterns (of Power) United Artists (1956) Dir: Fielder Cook | DP: Boris Kaufman

In the opening sequence of Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), on Mike Hammer’s  car radio after picking up the panting Christina, the radio announcer introduces then plays the Nat King Cole recording, Rather Have the Blues:

The night is mighty chilly, and conversation seems pretty silly
I feel so mean and wrought, I’d rather have the blues than what I’ve got.
The room is dark and gloomy, you don’t know what you’re doing to me
The way it has got me caught, I’d rather have the blues than what I’ve got.

All night, I walk the city, watching the people go by.
I try to sing a little ditty, but all that comes out is a sigh.
The street looks very frightening, the rain begins and then comes lightning.
It seems love’s gone to pot, I’d rather have the blues than what I’ve got…

FilmsNoir.Net will be in recess for a couple of weeks.  Meantime here is a list of camp b-noirs to watch while I am away:

The Chase (1946) Insane hoods pursue shell-shocked vet. Totally surreal obscure noir melodrama (?) like no other movie you have ever seen.

I Love Trouble (1948) Hot-jive noir. Laughs and smooth-as-nylons repartee, while guys get slapped hard, drugged, and slugged from behind.

I Married a Communist (1949) Commies as hoods. Never flags. Erotic fission and violent noir pyrotechnics make for enthralling & wild ride.

Shock (1946) Perverse b-noir. Murder witness goes catatonic. Her shrink is the killer. A dark Lynn Bari smolders. Enticingly preposterous!

Strange Illusion (1945) Bizarre Hamlet remake. Edgar Ulmer turns PRC b into camp expressionist noir of foul villains with a knockout finale.

The Unsuspected (1947) Camp noir! Curtiz directs, Woody Bredell lenses, Waxman scores, Claude Rains over-acts, and Audrey Totter is a hoot!

Woman on the Run (1950) Intelligent b-thriller set on the streets, tenements, dives, and wharves of Frisco, with a roller-coaster climax.