36 Comments »

1. Oh God no. Your blog is a place that has enriched so many of us, and your voice has been singular. One with a strong opinion will always attract criticism (I know and have been through this) but the great success of this site speaks for itself. It’s an invaluable tool for noir fans, (and movie fans in general) and it’s proprietor’s archives are unmatched by anyone in this genre.

   So much time, effort and passion have gone into this site, and so many have delighted in its many pleasures. Yes, with strong opinions, there’s always going to be a price to pay (and I lament that terribly)and I know your health and your family must come first, but you have achieved so much here, and in that sense you should hold your head up.

   I have enjoyed every visit I’ve made here, and I refuse to consign myself to the notion that it’s over.

   Comment by Sam Juliano — April 24, 2009 @ 11:46 am

2. I’ll miss you if you go.

   Comment by Divers and Sundry — April 24, 2009 @ 12:40 pm

3. What da dealy, yo?

   I hope you change your mind, otherwise, I’ll miss your blog.

   Comment by evets — April 24, 2009 @ 4:44 pm

4. really sorry to see you go and kind of hope you change your mind

   thank for all the great posts.

   best of luck in the future.

   Comment by peter — April 24, 2009 @ 5:22 pm

5. Say it ain’t so!

   Comment by Lloydville — April 24, 2009 @ 8:59 pm

6. You have been an inspiration to many with your infectious passion and your command of the language. You are the film noir guy! You can’t be replaced, and I implore you to stay on.

   Comment by Bobby McCartney — April 24, 2009 @ 9:03 pm

7. There are a lot of great posts at this site, and the writing is exceptional. I hope Mr. d’Ambra will not leave permanently. His place here is assured.

   Comment by Joe — April 24, 2009 @ 9:24 pm

8. Thank you one and all.

   Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 24, 2009 @ 11:17 pm

9. What?! This better be a veeerrry late April Fools joke!

   This is the first site I check daily (followed second by “Noir of the Week” & “Twenty-Four Frames” & occasionally “Noirish City”) to get my dark city fix!
   Filmsnoir.net also has the best comments (cough, cough)

   I applaud and greatly appreciate your consistency while other sites have lagged or have taken a disappointing hiatus (*I’m speaking to YOU Clute & Edwards & the “Out of the Past” podcast!)

   Like Sam I fully understand that this isn’t your job and maintaining this blog is probably more time consuming than any of us in the commentacracy (!) realize.

   Yet this forum that you’ve created with noir-focused reviews, film fest schedules & interesting asides that bring attention back to actors & movies from the past, is a valuable & enjoyable resource that we are grateful to have discovered.

   I’m not yet 30, but like to collect vintage noir posters and amass my noir DVD library (yea! for DVD-R bootlegs and the people that circulate film history!) in my increasingly limited free time – - – though unfortunately I have not found many peers that share these similar interests, let alone could carry on a conversation about or share an appreciation of Edgar Ulmer or Claire Trevor or even know what PRC stands for…

   Anyway, I just wanted to add my two cents and let you know that I’ve appreciated your site.

   I think Lloydville summed it up best.

   Comment by Brett — April 24, 2009 @ 11:40 pm

10. Thanks Brett. I am sorry to have brought this on, but I am unable to give the site the continuing commitment it’s readers deserve.

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 25, 2009 @ 12:00 am

11. Tony D’Ambra’s site here has delighted and enlightened so many film noir fans for many months. Tony, by his own admission is an ‘opinionated’ and ‘blunt’ guy who isn’t afraid of saying what’s on his own mind. Yet Tony is also a sweetheart, and he would take the shirt off his back to help anyone. He has helped to build Wonders in the Dark, to sustain it’s reasonable success and to enrich its pages with his reviews and posts. I think some of the above posters have rightly acknowledged that this site has been a regular place of scholarly discourse, and have admired the prolific stewardsship of its authoritative and enterprising proprietor. Although I have always been aregular here, I have often found (through Tony) films I had never seen, and fecund analysis of a number of screen classics, many of which received definitive treatment here, films like SUNSET BOULEVARD, NIGHT AND THE CITY, THE LOST WEEKEND and most recently an obscure classic by Edward Dmytryk, CHRIST IN CONCRETE, which Tony brought to the forefront with astonishing eloquence and passion.
    Yeah, Tony’s often uncompromising, by so what? My uncle, my father’s brother, who dies recently at age 88, was a doubleganger of Tony–sometimes hot-headed, always blunt, but a man with family principles and a heart of gold. He was a car mechanic, and wasn’t anywhere near Tony’s sphere of intelligence, but he was a gem–much like Tony. Tony rightly gets flustered on other sites with disagreement and is perturbed when his principles are under fire. He is not always content to remain silent and as a blogger, that’s the way it should rightly be. We are all different, but we all bring something to the table.

    And what Tony d’Ambra has brought to the table is above and beyond the call of duty. He has a gorgeously designed site here with a formidable archive of top-drawer posts and reviews; his site is at the top of the heap in the field of film noir. He has posted film festivals and film noir elated announcements, obits and appreciations. While he got into a few film related scuffles at WitD, which i feel have been resolved, he NEVER, EVER was anything less that congenial and appreciative here at Films Noir and at his other blog, and he always thanked commenters profusely and engaged in discourse regularly.

    He has built the site into a special place, and some of the internet’s best commenters are regular guests here–people like “Dee Dee”, Brett, Edward Yablonsky, Movie Man, Alexander Coleman, Guy Budziak, Llyoydville, Divers and Sudry, and so many more who have come armed with amunition for serious discussion. There are no syncophants here, only impassioned frilm lovers wanted to be enriched by Tony’s long fine tuned expertise.

    This site is a mecca for film noir, and many people will have their lives disturbed by it’s cessation. Yes, Tony d’Ambra has a life too. He has a lovely wife and two fantastic (and successful)children, whom he adores and spends much of his time with. Tony has a 96 year old father, who lives in a nursing home who also requites much attention. So Tony figures that he doesn’t need aggrevation in his life, when this is nothing more than a hobby–a passionate hobby, but still a hobby.

    But Tony may not know how much he has meant to so many people. I KNOW what he’s meant to me and my blogsite, and his own site here is one of the joys of my own blogging tour. It’s an essential place, manned by an essential human being.

    I call on all fans of FilmsNoir.net to let Tony d’Ambra know what he’s meant to you and how (somehow) you would do anything to spare this wonderous place by the hangman’s noose. In true film noir fashion, I ask all to petition for a stay of execution for the net’s penultimate film noir rest stop.

    Comment by Sam Juliano — April 25, 2009 @ 12:53 am

12. Sam talks about you a lot in the house, and he thinks the world of you. He has had a difficult day. Whatever you decide to do, you have real friends here.

    Comment by Lucille Juliano — April 25, 2009 @ 12:57 am

13. I have also enjoyed your posts, and thought you wrote beautiful poetry too. It was be more than a crying shame to see such creativity muzzled. I appreciated some nice things you said about my own reviews. I enthusiastically endorce Sam’s call and urge you to stay on.

    Comment by Dennis Polifroni — April 25, 2009 @ 1:10 am

14. PLEASE RE-CONSIDER!

    YOU WRITE AWESOME REVIEWS!

    Comment by Russell Martin — April 25, 2009 @ 1:19 am

15. A lot of film noir fans out here – we look forward to every post you do. Please reconsider!

    Comment by Andy Seven — April 25, 2009 @ 1:22 am

16. I am a regular at Wonders in the Dark, and I know how much work you have put in there. But this site has no doubt cost you many arduous hours and tedious preparation. I know you have many fans out there, and your loss would be a true calamity.

    Comment by Broadway Bob Eagleson — April 25, 2009 @ 1:36 am

17. Please stay the course Mr. D’Ambra and re-think your decision to quit. You are such as asset for so many people. You can never be replaced either.

    Comment by Peter — April 25, 2009 @ 2:27 am

18. I had figured on going out quietly! Thanks again to all of you.

    As my dear friend Sam Juliano has intimated, I need to spend more time with my family.

    Blogging was taking over my life. Not just the need to research and write posts, but the commenting on the other sites. I was neglecting my family and became a slave to my PC. It was also becoming an unhealthy ego thing, where blogging became an addiction for self-validation. Truth be told, I was confronting writer’s block more and more, and as I read more about film noir and film genrerally I realised what a hack I really was. I am my own worst critic, and I was becoming more and more dissatisfied with what I did manage to write. So I decided to go ‘cold turkey’ and make a clean break – this is not to say I will not be tempted to go back, but I know I have the resolve to stick to my decision.

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 25, 2009 @ 7:29 am

19. I really hope you change your mind! I just found this site not too long ago and now check it daily. It’s a great place to go if you’re a big noir fan.

    Comment by Aesop Jones — April 25, 2009 @ 2:25 pm

20. If you are going to take an extended break from posting Tony, I hope your site will still remain up so I can work my way thru the dozens of reviews from these past years that I have yet to read!

    My optimistic take is that now you will have even more time to search out interesting noir and classic films – and the resulting itch to share them will be even stronger… making a Filmsnoir.net 2.0 something to look forward to!

    In the mean time I hope James Ellroy or Eddie Muller starts a film blog or something… Yikes!

    “noir sounds like men & women smoking, and ice cubes tinkling in a glass, and tires on wet pavement, and the rustling of curtains and gowns, and guns being loaded…”

    Perhaps the always erudite Sara Fishko sums it up best :

    “…these are movies after all, and we can look at them forever. The shiny nighttime streets, the curling smoke and those characters…they’re part of us. Mildred Pierce, Walter Neff, Sidney, JJ, Frank Chambers, Waldo Lydecker and all the rest. Proper companions as we make our way thru the dark, modern world…”

    http://www.wnyc.org/shows/fishko/episodes/2009/03/13

    Comment by Brett — April 25, 2009 @ 3:18 pm

21. Alas, Brett, the issues Tony brings up here are issues I confront every day myself. I am 54 and I have five kids, ages 12, 11, 9, 8, and 6 and a full time teaching job. i have an active social life with the theatre, the cinema and the opera house and concert hall. I frankly have no business blogging and writing as much as I do, but woe be to me I do push myself. Tony has reached the point that I will have to face eventually. But it’s so hard. He has really left his mark on so many people, and he has built up quitea fantastic site here, that has become a haven for film noir fans. His bluntness on other sites is acgtually more of an asset than he realizes, as he’s never been afraid to relate the other side of the coin.
    He’s wrong on only one point. He is far from a hack. He’s an exceptional writer. He does experience writer’s block, and he’s never satisfied with what he writes, but truth be said, what WE read is far different than the perception he imparts o n his own writing. His writing is better than about 80% of the film bloggers out there.

    He will be sorely missed and the times we came here will be forever cherished.

    Comment by Sam Juliano — April 25, 2009 @ 4:19 pm

22. Needless to say I’ve made a great friend for life here, and I’ll be checking in with Tony from time-to-time to see what’s going on. I also hope this invaluable site will stay up for a while, but I’m not sure what that will entail.

    Comment by Sam Juliano — April 25, 2009 @ 4:28 pm

23. Tony, we may have had arguments, but I’ve had a feeling for a little while that things weren’t going so well. I know you’d considered qutting before and perhaps were perusded back in by factors that, though understandable, shouldn’t have been a priority. Your family must always come first. You’ll always be welcome at WondersintheDark and numerous other sites, too, I’m sure. But there is far more to life than movies or indeed any form of blogging.

    Take it easy.

    Comment by Allan Fish — April 25, 2009 @ 5:25 pm

24. And Brett, deep down in my heart I do hope your ‘optimistic take’ one days materializes, but my heart at this point must go out to Tony and his family.

    Comment by Sam Juliano — April 25, 2009 @ 9:07 pm

25. Best Wishes Mr. d’Ambra in whatever you do.

    Comment by Frederick — April 25, 2009 @ 9:32 pm

26. Tony, it sounds like you have a lot on your plate so I hope you find time to relax as well as honor your many real-life commitments. I understand the desire to go cold-turkey, all-or-nothing and make a complete break, but like everyone else I hope you’ll change your mind down the road, and at least honor us with your astute and entertaining commentary from time to time, if not a return to full-time blogging (which I also hope will be coming down the road). Good luck on the other side of the screen.

    Comment by MovieMan0283 — April 25, 2009 @ 10:09 pm

27. Thanks to everyone who has commented. I really appreciate you taking the time.

    Let me close this thread by firstly thanking all FilmsNoir.Net readers for their support over the past two years, and to everyone that posted a comment. Comments are important to a blogger – just knowing someone is reading your stuff is the principal driver for keeping going.

    Thanks to Lloydville of mardecortesbaja.com, whose great film noir reviews inspired me to start, and whose support during the first few months was critical.

    Thanks to the lovely Deedee (aka Dark City Dame) of Noirish City Blog, who took up the FilmsNoir.Net banner early on and whose loyalty has never wavered.

    Thanks to Sam Juliano and Allan Fish of Wonders in the Dark, strong supporters who have enriched my appreciation of movies and been true friends.

    Thanks to Brett, who up to now has been a silent reader, for his great comments on this thread

    Thanks to Movie Man of The Dancing Image, who is one of the finest young film writers on the Web, who has engaged me in discussions that have made me really think about my views on movies and beyond.

    Thanks to Alexander Coleman of Coleman’s Corner in Cinema and Joseph ‘Jon’ Lanthier of The Power Strip, two gifted film critics for their support and example.

    Lastly, thanks to my wife and kids for putting-up with me – particularly over the past two years.

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 25, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

28. My film noir reviews, such as they were, wouldn’t have been half as good without Tony’s often piercing but always helpful critiques, which led me into new ways of thinking about the form. I learned a lot from him.

    I guess we all did.

    The red sun sets
    Cherry blossoms flutter to the ground
    We say good luck
    And hope we meet again

    Comment by Lloydville — April 26, 2009 @ 7:38 am

29. Hey, I got a plug, and in same breath as several far superior scribes! How about that.

    I’ll miss ya, Tony, and I’ll always think fondly upon the many times you’ve taken me to task for fallacious arguments on my blog — I’ve greatly valued our differences and similarities in opinion and the opportunity to civilly debate them. That having been said, giving the blogosphere up is hardly unfathomable — I’ve certainly considered it from time to time, and lately I’ve found the need to excuse myself from heated comment threads. I now know the limits of my ego, and hey — this is all supposed to enrich our relationship with film and not drive us crazy, right?

    I wish you all the best. I don’t suppose you’ll ever stop critically thinking about film and I sincerely hope you won’t stop writing about it either, even if the mad scribblings aren’t published in a public forum.

    ¡A luta continua!

    Comment by Joseph "Jon" Lanthier — April 26, 2009 @ 6:56 pm

30. Thanks Lloyd and Jon! You are both too gracious.

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 26, 2009 @ 10:00 pm

31. Tough break feller. Tough on all of us. Thems the breaks. Some days, you role the dice and yah get snake eyes, and other days yah get the dame screaming, and double-crossing, and lifting c-notes from the wallet. Dazed and confused we’ll be in the shadows. But that’s noir. All good things come to end. Too bad it had to be this one. Good luck, pal.

    Comment by Hard-Boiled Dick — April 28, 2009 @ 4:45 pm

32. Indeed “Hard Boiled.” It’s really a testament to Tony D’Ambra’s professional stewardship of the site, and his considerable talents that he affected so many people. I am in awe of this.

    Comment by Sam Juliano — April 28, 2009 @ 9:46 pm

33. Thanks guys. You said it HBD: “Dazed and confused I’ll be in the shadows… “

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — April 28, 2009 @ 10:22 pm

34. Hi! Tony,
    That is great news!…because I just removed your widget from my blog (No! I’am not a fair~weather friend…ha!ha!
    it was because the “no feed signal” appeared on the screen.
    I most definitely, will be replacing your widget back on me blog in a few minutes.

    Take Care!
    Deedee

    Comment by Dcd — May 2, 2009 @ 4:31 am

35. I am so sorry I just saw this but I’ve been buried under work. I truly hope you decide to resurrect this blog in the VERY near future. It has been a favorite of since I first discovered it and have turned SO many people onto it. I hope it will at least be left intact as the wonderful reference site it is.

    Best to you,

    Joe Jusko

    Comment by Joe Jusko — May 29, 2009 @ 11:38 pm

36. Thanks kindly Joe. I may come back to it if my personal life allows.

    In any event, the site as is will stay up for at least another 12 months, and will then be archived as a WordPress.com blog.

    Tony

    Comment by Tony D'Ambra — May 30, 2009 @ 12:10 am

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