Thursday, June 27, 2019

Noir City: True Crime

I should be updating this website more often—for instance, to tell you Rosemarie and I are hosting a summer film series with SIFF if you haven’t picked up the news elsewhere—but for now, here’s a late-breaking bulletin on all the news that was fit to print in the latest issue of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine Noir City, out last week.

My primary contribution this go-round is an interview with Karina Longworth, host of the acclaimed You Must Remember This podcast, which casts a gimlet eye on movie history. We had a wide-ranging conversation prompted by her new book Seduction: Sex, Lies and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood, which in the words of FNF honcho Eddie Muller “offers a fresh and provocative slant on the eccentric billionaire and some surprising new information about some of the talented people in his life.”

Also in this issue is my look at Automata, the retro-noir web series (and possible TV series) spun off from a popular web comic. Plus my book and DVD reviews, as well as my usual Cocktails & Crime column featuring a round-up of the latest noir news.

Headlining the issue is a suite of articles about Tinseltown true crime: Alan K. Rode on how gangsters took over the studio unions (a subject that, rumor has it, may factor into the new novel from author Renee Patrick) and John Wranovics on gangster Johnny Rosselli’s short-lived stint as a moviemaking mogul. Plus my friend Brian Light’s reminiscences on collecting film noir posters, Ben Terrall’s appraisal of the career of novelist and screenwriter Jonathan Latimer, and so much more.

Interested? Of course you are. Swing on by the FNF website, make your donation, and have the issue sent to you.