David Goodis… To A Pulp, a film biography of noir writer David Goodis, premieres this Friday, March 5, in Philadelphia. For film-maker Larry Withers making the movie was a peak into the once-hidden life of his mother, Elaine Astor, who had previously been married to Goodis.  Read all about it at Mike Lipkin’s Noir Journal.

Edited clip from Force of Evil (1948) directed by Abraham Polonsky,?and screenplay by Abraham Polonsky and Ira Wolfert from Wolfert’s novel “Tucker’s People”:

Extracted and edited from an article by Richard Teitelbaum at Bloomberg.com
Secret AIG Document Shows Goldman Sachs Minted Most Toxic CDOs:

Sony has released a new twin DVD-set of 8 b-girl movies from the Columbia vaults titled Bad Girls of Film Noir.  Mostly pot-boilers, but Night Editor is a must-have cult noir.

Volume 1

Evelyne Keys
The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) directed by Earl McEnvoy

Lizabeth Scott
Two of A Kind (1951) directed by Henry Levin
Bad for Each Other (1953) directed by Irvin Rapper

Gloria Grahame
The Glass Wall (1953) directed by Maxwell Shane

Volume 2

Cleo Moore
Night Editor (1946) directed by Henry Levin
One Girl’s Confession (1953) directed by Hugo Haas
Over-Exposed (1956) directed by Lewis Seiler

Ida Lupino/Cleo Moore/JanSterling/Audrey Totter
Women’s Prison (1956) directed by Lewis Seiler

Noir City 2010

San Francisco’s NOIR CITY 8 film noir series returns to San Francisco’s Castro Theatre January 22-31 2010. The full program is here.

Movies not on DVD on the program:

• FLY BY NIGHT (1942) Dir. Robert Siodmak
• DEPORTED (1950) Dir. Robert Siodmak
• CRY DANGER (1951) Dir. Robert Parrish, newly restored
• THE MOB (1951) Dir. Robert Parish
• THE GANGSTER (1947) Dir. Gordon Wiles
• HE RAN ALL THE WAY (1951) Dir. John Berry
• ONE GIRLS’ CONFESSION (1953) Dir. Hugo Haas
• WOMEN’S PRISON (1955) Lewis Seiler
• RED LIGHT (1949) Dir. Roy Del Ruth
• WALK A CROOKED MILE (1948) Dir. Gordon Douglas
• SLATTERY’S HURRICANE (1949) Dir. Andr? de Toth
• INSIDE JOB (1946) Dir. Jean Yarbrough
• HUMAN DESIRE (1954) Dir. Fritz Lang
• ESCAPE IN THE FOG (1945) Dir. Budd Boetticher

Columbia Noir DVD Set

Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 a new noir collectors DVD set has just been released. The films in the set:

• The Big Heat
• 5 Against the House
• The Lineup
• Murder by Contract
• The Sniper

The special features include commentaries by Michael Man, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Eddie Muller, and James Ellroy.

This month’s Warner Archive new releases include these never-on-dvd-before noirs.

• BERLIN EXPRESS (1948)
• KILLER MCCOY (1947)
• I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES (1955)
• THE TALL TARGET (1951)
• PAY OR DIE (1960)
• SUSPENSE (1946)
• HIGHWAY 301 (1950)
• LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE (1951)
• THE SEARCH (1948)
• TERM OF TRIAL (1963)

Check out this recent primer from BBC4:  The Rules of Film Noir.  Odd that it makes no mention of British Noir. I was also disappointed that little attribution was given to the film-makers with most of the attention on the stars.  The talking heads also spoke in generalities.  The best sequence is where a British cinematographer takes you through a series of tracking shots from The Sweet Smell of Success with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in conversation as they walk-stop-walk on a Manhattan street. Pure artistry. But zero credit to the brilliant work of DP James Wong Howe!

Maxine Cooper, the actress who played the off-beat secretary to Ralph Meeker’s Mike Hammer in Robert Aldrich’s cult noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955), died aged 84 on April 4.

More from the LA Times.

©2009 I.N.J. Culbard. Used with Permission.

A group of nine very talented graphic artists/writers have launched an exciting new blog project titled Huzzah!! NOIR.

Each contributor in turn will be contributing a page that develops the story of a washed-up 40s boxer searching for a dame in a dark noir metropolis. Shades of Murder, My Sweet?

So far four pages are up with stunning noir graphics and a promising pulp noir story-line.