Noir City “With Me, It’s A Full-Time Job” Edition

The latest issue of Noir City, the magazine of the Film Noir Foundation, reached subscribers this week. And even if I did edit it myself, I’ll say this for it: it’s pretty good.

Enough false modesty. Honestly, you need to check this installment out, with all credit going to our top-drawer contributors, the wizardry of ace designer Michael Kronenberg, and the guiding hand of our publisher Eddie Muller.

I will humbly admit to getting the ball rolling on the cover story. A while back, I came up with the idea of the FNF presenting an annual Modern Noir Master Award, an honor that has been bestowed on Stephen Frears, James Ellroy, and David Mamet. When I realized that 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark UK crime film Get Carter (1971), I suggested to Eddie who our next recipient should be.

Writer/director Mike Hodges also made Pulp (1972), Croupier (1998), I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003), and other noir-adjacent films. In his 89th year, he has a new film in the works. All I had to do was put him together with our man on the Continent Ray Banks. The result is a free-wheeling, career-spanning interview that even covers Hodges’ own noir fiction.

I’ll also pat myself on the back for another contribution to this feature. We won’t be able to present the award live for obvious reasons, so I wanted to do something extra. Something special. Thus did I become fixated on the notion of having Sir Michael Caine and Clive Owen, the two actors who loom large in Hodges’ noir filmography, contribute to Noir City.

A longshot, I figured. But I am as tenacious an optimist as you will find, so I started making inquiries. Turned out, it couldn’t have been simpler. Both gentlemen were eager to say a few words on behalf of a valued collaborator and colleague, and you can read those words in this issue. I’ll admit I was chuffed it came together, as they say across the pond.

But that’s just for openers. In this issue, we also have—

Imogen Sara Smith with a definitive look at the work of filmmaker Christian Petzold, from his early German films never screened in the US to masterful features like Phoenix (2014) and Transit (2018);

An appreciation of a longtime noir favorite, the hard-luck actress Virginia Grey, from the Self-Styled Siren Farran Smith Nehme;

The career of self-described “Hungarian-born one-eyed cowboy from Texas” André de Toth, whose directorial credits include Pitfall (1948) and Crime Wave (1954);

An interview with Eve Plumb—yes, that Eve Plumb—about her second act as a painter whose work is inspired by classic noir films, and her turn as a villain in the neo-noir Blue Ruin (2013);

The screenwriting career of sportswriter Art Cohn, best known for the quintessential boxing film The Set-Up (1949);

Jason A. Ney’s insightful look at amnesia noir, and how this plot gimmick has evolved along with our understanding of memory;

I raise the question “Charlie Chaplin … noir filmmaker?” with an appraisal of his most confounding role, as the serial murderer Monsieur Verdoux (1947). My first draft of this article was heavy on Chaplin and Orson Welles, who came up with the idea for Verdoux, trash-talking each other for decades. I still think I should mount this as a one-man show.

And there’s still more. Trust me, you want this issue. All you have to do to get it is make a modest contribution to the Film Noir Foundation and our efforts to restore classic film.

Reach for The Sharpest Needle

Tuesday was the official U.S. publication day for The Sharpest Needle, the fourth Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery that I wrote with Rosemarie under our pen name of Renee Patrick. It’s set in 1939. The world is about to plunge into war, Orson Welles has recently arrived in Hollywood, and Lillian and Edith are asked by Marion Davies to get to the bottom of some poison pen letters she’s received. (Did you watch Mank? Then you’ll want to read this book. Did you not watch Mank? Then you’ll definitely want to read this book.)

I don’t want to appear immodest and big up Needle myself. Instead, I’ll tell you that Publishers Weekly called it “a tailor-made treat for film buffs” while Historical Novel Review said “the mystery has plenty of tantalizing sidetracks … carefully stitched and neatly sewn together.”

Rosemarie and I were interviewed by Library Journal.

Everything Zoomer has the book in terrific company as one of its recommended February reads.

Over at CrimeReads, I have a piece detailing a fascinating footnote unearthed in our research: the history of Welles’s unmade adaptation of the Nicholas Blake novel The Smiler with the Knife. He’s planning the film—about a fascist coup in the United States spearheaded by a flashy playboy businessman, if you can imagine such a thing—at the time The Sharpest Needle is set. Full of surprise cameos and an explanation of how the proposed project ended up shaping Citizen Kane. Go on, give it a read.

A Bloody (Mary) Kind of Year

The inaugural effort

I’m not really a holiday person. Our sole tradition is one we came up with ourselves: The Big Boozy New Year’s Breakfast. Get up and out early for a meal, and there must be cocktails. Your first act of January 1 should be to treat yourself right, establishing the tone for the year ahead.

We couldn’t ring in 2021 by going out for breakfast, obviously, but we weren’t about to abandon our only tradition. So we made adjustments. We laid in a spread for New Year’s Day. Fresh bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, the works. All that remained were the cocktails. I had to fix a Bloody Mary or two.

Which, astoundingly, I had never done before. My default brunch cocktail—damn near everybody’s, really, although don’t sleep on the possibilities of the Blood and Sand as an eye-opener—and at no point had I even attempted to make one. When I’m in the mood for a Bloody Mary, I’m out and about, and consequently I let the professionals handle it. Not so in 2021.

Chalk up another modification to our tradition. This year, my first act of January 1 was to step just a little bit outside of my comfort zone. May that also help set the tone for the next twelve months.

As for the drink itself, I consulted experts before getting down to work. (In the interests of full disclosure, I did stage a trial run in the waning days of 2020 so I wouldn’t stagger into this project unprepared.) Everyone has their own preferences for the Bloody Mary; I opted for a variation on Jim Meehan’s excellent recipe from his Meehan’s Bartender Manual. I also rolled the cocktail, rather than building it in the glass or shaking it, which dilutes the tomato juice. To roll the drink, you assemble the ingredients in the shaker, which you then turn over twenty or so times.

The verdict? Rosemarie liked hers. I liked mine. And the year is off to a good start.

The Bloody Mary
apologies to Jim Meehan

4 oz. tomato juice
1 ½ oz. vodka
¼ oz. lemon juice
¼ oz. lime juice
¼ oz. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. horseradish
¼ tsp. celery salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp. hot sauce

Combine ingredients. Roll in a shaker (see above). Strain over fresh ice into a tall chilled glass. Garnish with a celery stalk.

Noir City Noirvember Edition

Just in time for the closing days of Noirvember, the latest issue of Noir City hit inboxes as the Thanksgiving weekend approached. The magazine of the Film Noir Foundation, edited by yours truly, is the cornucopia we all could use right about now. Among this installment’s bounty—

Eddie Muller’s galvanizing letter from the publisher on the perils of cancel culture;

The return of Nora Fiore, Twitter’s inestimable Nitrate Diva, with a gem of a piece ranking noir’s best diners, beautifully laid out by ace designer Michael Kronenberg;

Michael dons his interviewer cap for a talk with comics writer of the moment Tom King;

My pal Christa Faust on noir’s ladies of a certain age;

Sharon Knolle’s timely reappraisal of crooked cops in noir—with an eye-opening sidebar by veteran law enforcement officer Peter Stipe;

Our man on the Continent Ray Banks considers the dark performances of beloved softie Richard Attenborough;

The troubled career of filmmaker Hubert Cornfield;

And more.

I’ve got some book reviews, my usual column complete with cocktail recipe, and a conversation with novelist Alaya Dawn Johnson (Trouble the Saints) prompted by her fascinating CrimeReads essay on racism in classic noir fiction.

Want a copy? Head over to the Film Noir Foundation website and make a modest contribution to the ongoing fight to preserve classic film noir. As accompaniment, you can listen to my colleagues hold forth on the Word Balloon podcast.

Noir City Coffee is for Closers Edition

The latest issue of Noir City, magazine of the Film Noir Foundation—published by TCM host Eddie Muller, designed by Michael Kronenberg, and edited by yours truly—is out now. It’s anchored by a special section dedicated to this year’s recipient of the FNF’s Modern Noir Master award, David Mamet. It includes a transcript of Eddie in conversation with the filmmaker, playwright, and novelist at an event held mere days before the coronavirus curtain dropped. We’ve also got tributes to Mamet’s noir career from Eddie, Ray Banks, Jake Hinkson, Wallace Stroby, and me. (It’s a good thing I wasn’t at the Mamet event in Santa Monica, because I would have insisted on telling him how I once recreated a scene from his film The Spanish Prisoner at the Central Park carousel. Probably better that I wrote about Prisoner instead.)

What else do you get for your donation to the FNF? How’s about Imogen Sara Smith, who helped program the fantastic Western Noir series currently lighting up the Criterion Channel, on Japanese noir, paired with a salute to Japanese noir mainstay Jô Shishido by Nick Feldman?

Plus: Elsa Lanchester; the pop noir landscapes of Walter Hill; Ethan Iverson on the noir soundtracks of the late Johnny Mandel (Harper and Point Blank); Christopher Chambers looking back at the pleasures of Tony Rome; Martyn Waites on the neglected UK noir The Small World of Sammy Lee; and, yes, even more.

One feature I’m particularly excited about: actor James Urbaniak, a familiar face (and voice if, like me, you’re a fan of The Venture Bros.) takes on our 5 Favorites feature, naming the quintet of films in his personal noir pantheon.

I interview S.A. Cosby, author of the crime novel of the summer Blacktop Wasteland, and I review a pair of non-fiction titles as well as penning my usual Cocktails & Crime column.

To receive Noir City, head to the Film Noir Foundation website, kick in a few bucks to the kitty, and sign on the line that is dotted. What are you waiting for?

Noir City Notes and Outtakes

I am weeks late in touting the glories of the latest issue of Noir City. But I’ll make it up to you with some bonus material, howzabout that?

You may recall that with this edition I became Editor-in-Chief of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine. It’s a doozy of a debut issue if I do say so myself, thanks in large part to a stem-to-stern redesign courtesy of my estimable colleague Michael Kronenberg. (My input on his sweeping visual changes basically consisted of me saying, “Damn, that looks great.”)

The content on those gorgeous pages is terrific, too, beginning with Imogen Sara Smith’s two-part cover story on the extraordinary life and films of Jose Giovanni. We also welcome two Twitter luminaries to the magazine: Farran Smith Nehme (aka the Self-Styled Siren) with a look at noir’s favorite cad Zachary Scott; and Nora Fiore—the one and only Nitrate Diva—brought us a stunning look at the overlap of film noir and advertising aimed at women in the 1940s.

There’s also a suite of articles on one of my favorite films of last year, Motherless Brooklyn (including an interview with writer/producer/director/star Edward Norton); Ray Banks on the many big-screen iterations of Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley; a fun and inventive 5 Favorites from the gifted poet Chelsey Minnis; and more.

I pitched in by interviewing Bill Duke, whose name appears on many modern noir films as both actor (American Gigolo, The Limey) and director (A Rage in Harlem and Deep Cover, which for me remains one of the best crime films of the 1990s). Hearing the deep laughter of a man who has scared the bejesus out of me for decades was a treat.

I also spoke to author Sam Wasson about his latest book The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood. (Plus I review this essential look at the definitive modern noir.) And here’s where we come to the bonus material.

Whenever I interview someone, I strive to act like a professional. Sometimes I can’t pull it off. I began my conversation by gushing over Sam Wasson’s previous book Improv Nation: How We Made a Great American Art. This history of improvisational comedy is easily one of my favorite books of recent years, a wonderful, daft experiment in capturing the uncapturable that shouldn’t succeed, yet does. So our interview about the greatest contemporary noir film kicked off with some in-depth conversation about improv—

Sam Wasson: I think it’s one of the best things a person can do, because it touches all aspects. It touches psychotherapy, spirituality, community, art, politics, in all the best ways possible. It’s the closest I come to religion.

As well as the surprising overlap between the two subjects—

Sam Wasson: It’s so funny to talk about noir in the context of improv because I really look at improv and noir as good and evil. The good and evil Americas, actually. Noir is like the bad America, and improv is like the American ideal. Talking about inherently American frames of mind, improv is the American frame of mind and the enemy of all of that, the nightmare of all of that, is the noir frame of mind. So as much as I love one, I love the other, because they go together.

No wonder we got along so well.

To receive Noir City, just contribute to the FNF. For a taste of what you’ll be getting, several stories from the previous issue are now available online, including my “Noir or Not?” essay on The Lost Weekend. And speaking of me elsewhere …

One More—Actually, Two More Things

Rosemarie and I, in our guise as Renee Patrick, appeared on the latest episode of the classic movie podcast Old Hollywood Realness. The subject of this special quarantine edition: Rear Window. Join us as we join our friends Philip and Kathleen to discuss Edith Head, Alfred Hitchcock, and what the neighbors are up to.

HILOBROW recently wrapped a series called Ten Days, a modern take on The Decameron for the Covid-19 era. I was honored to kick the series off with a look at drinking – more specifically, not going out to drink – in the time of the virus.

Outtakes: Robert Tasker and Ernest Booth

I’ve been reading CrimeReads since it launched, so I was happy to make my debut there yesterday with a piece that recounts the amazing true story behind Script for Scandal, the third Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery I co-wrote with Rosemarie under our pen name Renee Patrick. Robert Tasker and Ernest Booth were two ex-cons who became screenwriters during Hollywood’s Golden Age. A fictionalized counterpart drives the plot of Script for Scandal, but we couldn’t concoct anything as remarkable as their own lives. Head over to CrimeReads and see for yourself. In the meantime, here are a few additional photographs I turned up in my research.

1932’s Hell’s Highway, co-written by Tasker, was partially filmed in an actual prison. John Cromwell directed these scenes uncredited. (Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1932)

From the February 24, 1940 San Francisco Examiner, Booth and his wife Valverda at home in Santa Cruz marking the end of Booth’s parole and what should be the start of a successful writing career with no restrictions. It wasn’t to be.

Valverda stands by her husband as he faces a murder charge. (Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1941)

Dr. George Stricker revived by smelling salts after his late wife Florence Stricker’s safe deposit box is opened. Dr. Stricker, along with Booth, was considered a suspect in his wife’s murder. (Los Angeles Times, September 18, 1941)

The most Ellroy-esque shot of them all, with headline to match. Captain Vernon Rasmussen of the LAPD searches, ultimately in vain, for the murder weapon. (Los Angeles Times, September 21, 1941)

Keenan's Klassics: It's a Shane Black Christmas

It's the tenth anniversary of this beloved yuletide classic.

There I am at my favorite watering hole, talking with the staff, when the subject of Christmas movies is raised.

First suggestion, not made by me: the traditional double-bill of Die Hard and Die Hard II: Die Harder.

Thus giving me the tenor of the conversation. This is not the time, perhaps, to mention Remember the Night and Holiday Affair, two overlooked films (with noir connections!) that Turner Classic Movies has labored to turn into Yuletide staples. Although a mention of Blast of Silence, full of Wenceslas wetwork, might not be out of the question.

So I lobby for my own Christmas favorite, The Ref. And then observe, not for the first time, that the entire oeuvre of Shane Black – Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – is set at the most wonderful time of the year. (Editor’s note, 2013: You can now add IRON MAN 3 to that roster. Editor’s note, 2016: And THE NICE GUYS. The Christmas trees are there if you look. Editor’s note, 2019: The streak comes to an end with Black’s 2018 film THE PREDATOR, which is set at Halloween. It was fun while it lasted.)

Therefore, as you venture out for that last round of shopping, I offer, by popular demand, what has become a VKDC tradition. (“By popular demand” meaning Rosemarie asked, “Why haven’t you posted this yet?” And she did write most of it.) Here, once again, is Shane Black’s 12 Days of Christmas. Record your church group performing this and we’ll post the video here!

Twelve cars exploding
Eleven extras running
Ten tankers skidding
Nine strippers pole-ing
Eight Uzis firing
Seven henchmen scowling
Six choppers crashing

Five silver Glocks

Four ticking bombs
Three hand grenades
Two mortar shells
And a suitcase full of C-4

God bless us, everyone. Or else.

News and Noir City Notes

Lot of ground to cover here. I should probably point out that the eBook of the third Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery Script for Scandal—written by the missus and myself under our pen name Renee Patrick—is available everywhere, with the print edition for sale in the U.K. now and coming to the U.S. on January 7, 2020. Hey, the reviews are good.

Next, the latest issue of Noir City is on the loose. The big news is behind the scenes. It’s Eddie Muller’s last edition of the magazine as Editor-in-Chief. He’s staying on as Publisher—the Film Noir Foundation is his baby, after all—but handing over the E-i-C reins to yours truly. It was a relatively bloodless transfer of power, no matter what Eddie says.

The Czar and I are cooking up big plans for 2020. In the meantime, the current issue is a gem. Steve Kronenberg on the tragic life of Gene Tierney. Ray Banks on officers behaving badly in Ealing’s postwar crime films. Sharon Knolle surveys the cinema of Grahame Greene. Danilo Castro on Paul Schrader’s quartet of night workers. Jake Hinkson on booze and blackouts in noir.

I provide the chaser to Jake’s piece, bellying up to The Lost Weekend and asking the timeless question: Noir or Not? I also provide a pair of book reviews, contribute to Noir City’s coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival, and serve up maybe my favorite drink to date in my Cocktails & Crime column. (BONUS: my interview with author and podcaster Karina Longworth from last issue is on the FNF website.)

How much for this bounty, you damn well better be asking? A donation of twenty dollars or more to the Film Noir Foundation’s efforts to keep shadows flickering on screens everywhere is all it takes. What, you’re still here? Get donating!

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.

Noir City Goes Global

That thump you heard in in-boxes just before Thanksgiving was the latest issue of Noir City, house rag of the Film Noir Foundation. The focus this time around is on international noir, to wit—

Imogen Sara Smith on the long history of Mexican noir; Jake Hinkson on the heartbreaking crime dramas of Japan’s Yoshitarô Nomura (stream these wonders on FilmStruck before the service goes dark for good this week); the redoubtable Ray Banks takes on the villainous roles of Patrick McGoohan; Ehsan Khoshbakht on Iranian genre films; Nathalie Atkinson on the premier Canadian noir The Silent Partner; and more.

On the domestic front, we’ve got a killer 5 Favorites essay from comic book legend Jim Steranko; a look at the twinned noir careers of John Huston and Orson Welles by Brian J. Robb along with a review of their last collaboration The Other Side of the Wind from FNF honcho Eddie Muller himself; and, once again, more.

As for my humble efforts, I spoke to both Lawrence Block and artist John K. Snyder III about the recent adaptation of Larry’s landmark Matt Scudder mystery Eight Million Ways to Die into a graphic novel, bringing 1980s New York to raw, vivid life in a whole new way. Plus a pair of book reviews and my Cocktails & Crime column.

You know the drill, kids: donate to the Film Noir Foundation and have all this goodness delivered direct to you. Don’t miss out. Because the next issue? That’s one gonna be even better.

Noir City: Demon Dog, Modern Master

The cover story of the latest issue of the Film Noir Foundation’s magazine is a certifiable corker. Back in April, the FNF bestowed its second Modern Master Award on novelist James Ellroy in advance of a screening of the Oscar-winning masterpiece based on his novel L.A. Confidential. Included in the magazine is a transcript of his wild, jaw-dropping conversation with FNF honcho and master of ceremonies Eddie Muller. Trust me, you’re going to want to read this one.

ASIDE: don’t sleep on the latest work from the recipient of the inaugural Modern Master Award, director Stephen Frears. A Very English Scandal, written by Doctor Who’s Russell T. Davies and boasting sterling work from Ben Whishaw and a career-best Hugh Grant, is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Frears is still throwing heat at age 77. That’s the kind of person we honor at the FNF.

Elsewhere this issue, we’ve got the redoubtable Ray Banks on Britain’s first neo-noir Nowhere to Go (starring Maggie Smith!); Eddie Muller on the silent Japanese proto-noir Policeman (1933); an appraisal of forgotten Swedish master Hasse Ekman by Imogen Sara Smith; Farran Smith Nehme in conversation with Michael Curtiz biographer and Noir City stalwart Alan K. Rode; Jake Hinkson with some summer reading on the beach in noir; and much more.

Still, I know what you’re thinking. What about you, Vince? What did you do this time around?

I’ve got a feature on Baby Monkey, Private Eye, a gorgeous first reader for children written by Brian Selznick—whose previous books have been turned into films by Martin Scorsese and Todd Haynes—and David Serlin. My conversation with these two gentlemen was an absolute joy, and I hope some of the fun comes across in the article.

Plus I’ve contributed a troika of book reviews—on Thomas Doherty’s essential work of scholarship Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist; J. E. Smyth’s eye-opening Nobody’s Girl Friday: The Women Who Ran Hollywood (Edith Head warrants her own chapter, natch); and a newly annotated edition of Chandler’s The Big Sleep—plus hot-off-the-presses hot takes on films from the Seattle International Film Festival including one of the year’s best movies, Denmark’s The Guilty. This installment of my Cocktails & Crime column includes an interview with Abigail Gullo, who’s put her acclaimed bartending skills to work creating a drink named for Joan Crawford’s crowning achievement Mildred Pierce.

Don’t miss out. Donate to the Film Noir Foundation to have this bounty delivered to your digital doorstep. The Demon Dog says so.

Noir City: Episode of Blonde

The latest issue of Noir City, the house rag of the Film Noir Foundation, went out to subscribers yesterday. I say as humbly as possible that it’s our best to date, boasting a broad range of subjects and contributors. I’ll double down on my candor: if you don’t like this installment of the magazine, address your complaints to me, because my fingerprints are all over it. And I’m proud of the result.

We didn’t plan for this to be our blonde issue. That’s just how it worked out, with a troika of fair-haired silver screen goddesses for you to (re)consider. Jake Hinkson kicks things off with our cover story on the noir films of Marilyn Monroe. Ray Banks follows up with a heartbreaker on Diana Dors. Then I (sort of) get into the act, interviewing Paul McGuigan, the filmmaker behind the BAFTA-nominated drama Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool about the sad final days of noir favorite Gloria Grahame.

Excuse me while I rant a moment, but I’ve got to get this off my chest: the botched release of Film Stars is the great cinematic crime of 2017. Annette Bening is transcendent as Gloria Grahame, giving hands down my favorite performance of the year. She’s perfectly paired with Jamie Bell as her much younger paramour Peter Turner, whose memoir provides the basis for the film. I loathe when movies are judged solely through the narrow lens of Academy Awards viability. But when a studio publicly declares an Oscar to be its goal and then can’t even make a worthy turn part of the conversation, well … someone screwed up. Probably multiple someones. Still, Bening’s work remains, to be discovered by audiences in due time. Years from now, people will marvel that her quicksilver brilliance paying tribute to another great actress went largely unrecognized at the time—except, of course, in the pages of Noir City.

Also in this issue: my interview with Laura Lippman, whose latest novel Sunburn is pure noir. Plus FNF founder Eddie Muller on the undiminished power of Steve De Jarnatt’s newly relevant Miracle Mile—and a bonus 5 Favorites from De Jarnatt himself. Then there’s Nathalie Atkinson on Agatha Christie for a new millennium; one legendary cartoonist (Trina Robbins) saluting another in Tarpé Mills; a look at the noir roots of Blade Runner and its sequel; profiles of filmmakers Vincent Sherman and the husband-and-wife team of Andrew and Virginia Stone; plus reviews, news, and my Cocktails & Crime column. All of it beautifully assembled by ace designer Michael Kronenberg.

Really, this issue is the son I’ll never have. Why aren’t you reading it now? Simply donate to the Film Noir Foundation and all this can be yours.

Noir City 2018

This year’s installment of Noir City Seattle just wrapped up. I usually write detailed play-by-play of the festival, but considering that Rosemarie and I—in the guise of Renee Patrick—had a bigger than usual role in the proceedings this time around, I decided to let Renee handle recap duties as well. Read it here.

Keenan's Klassics: It's a Shane Black Christmas

It just wouldn’t be Christmas without this post from December 2009.

There I am at my favorite watering hole, talking with the staff, when the subject of Christmas movies is raised.

First suggestion, not made by me: the traditional double-bill of Die Hard and Die Hard II: Die Harder.

Thus giving me the tenor of the conversation. This is not the time, perhaps, to mention Remember the Night and Holiday Affair, two overlooked films (with noir connections!) that Turner Classic Movies has labored to turn into Yuletide staples. Although a mention of Blast of Silence, full of Wenceslas wetwork, might not be out of the question.

So I lobby for my own Christmas favorite, The Ref. And then observe, not for the first time, that the entire oeuvre of Shane Black – Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – is set at the most wonderful time of the year. (Editor's note, 2013: You can now add IRON MAN 3 to that roster. Editor’s note, 2016: And THE NICE GUYS. The Christmas trees are there if you look.)

Therefore, as you venture out for that last round of shopping, I offer, by popular demand, what has become a VKDC tradition. (“By popular demand” meaning Rosemarie asked, “Why haven’t you posted this yet?” And she did write most of it.) Here, once again, is Shane Black’s 12 Days of Christmas. Record your church group performing this and we’ll post the video here!

Twelve cars exploding
Eleven extras running
Ten tankers skidding
Nine strippers pole-ing
Eight Uzis firing
Seven henchmen scowling
Six choppers crashing

Five silver Glocks

Four ticking bombs
Three hand grenades
Two mortar shells
And a suitcase full of C-4

God bless us, everyone. Or else.

Media Blitz

Two posts in a month? Something big must be happening.

And it is. Renee Patrick returns to Turner Classic Movies. Tune in this Sunday, October 29, as Rosemarie and I once again join our friend Eddie Muller on his show Noir Alley. Gaze upon us in spellbound wonder as we talk about the extraordinary career of Edith Head both before and after one of her films, 1946’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Edith dressing not one but two red hot stone cold femmes fatale in Barbara Stanwyck and Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas making his big-screen debut, and stories galore. That’s Sunday, October 29, at 10 am EST / 7 am PST.

A note on recording the show, especially if you’re on the West Coast. Strange Love runs 116 minutes. (Lots of twists.) Right now TCM has it in a two-hour time slot, so if you record that you’ll likely get the introduction but not the (shocking!) end of the film or the outro, where we dish about Edith some more. So you might want to set that DVR for an extra 15 minutes or so, just to be safe.

But that’s not all. While we were attending Bouchercon in Toronto, we had the pleasure of appearing on one of our favorite podcasts, Writer Types hosted by Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden. It’s a jam-packed affair that includes friends like Bill Crider and our fellow Anthony Award nominees Bill Beverly, Art Taylor, and Jim Ziskin. Give a listen.

Extra, Extra! Noir City!

Back from an eventful trip to Bouchercon in Toronto, where Renee Patrick’s debut novel Design for Dying was nominated for both the Anthony and Macavity Awards. (Spoiler alert: we didn’t win.) My co-alter ego Renee posted photos.

While Rosemarie and I were abroad, the latest issue of Noir City, house rag of the Film Noir Foundation, dropped. Many in our stellar stable of contributors pull double duty for your edification—

Imogen Sara Smith cover stories Jean-Pierre Melville’s centenary and appraises a long-thought-lost silent Polish noir;

Jake Hinkson sizes up Georges Simenon as the ultimate noir scribe and offers a timely reconsideration of the rise of homegrown American fascism in All the King’s Men;

Sean Axmaker makes the case for both Peter Gunn as “the great small-screen incarnation of film noir” and the yuletide mayhem of The Ice Harvest as his favorite neo-noir.

What about me, you ask? Aren’t you kind to keep me in your thoughts. My column Cocktails & Crime is here, naturally, and Sean Axmaker and I tag-team the recent Seattle International Film Festival. But mainly I’m flexing my editorial muscle this time around, taking full credit for bringing you Ray Banks’ compelling overview of 1950s U.K. noir films that deal with racism, and Nathalie Atkinson’s look at Hard Case Crime’s foray into the world of comics.

Plus there’s Alan K. Rode on the Hollywood odyssey of writer Frank Fenton; Steve Kronenberg on the tragic tale of Linda Darnell; Brian Light on Vertigo, the book and the film; and much more. Honestly, it’s an embarrassment of riches, is what it is.

All that bounty, simply a donation to the Film Noir Foundation away. Get cracking!

Extra, Extra! Noir City!

First, an extra extra for you—hang on, is that right amount of extras? OK, yeah, it is. Rosemarie and I are very happy to be the guests on the new episode of Noir Talk, the podcast dedicated to the Film Noir Foundation’s efforts and hosted by Haggai Elitzur. We talk about the Noir City film festivals, how issues of the magazine are assembled, and the Foundation’s role in inspiring the work of our mystery fiction-writing alter ego Renee Patrick. Tune in here.

Speaking of Noir City the magazine, the latest issue of the FNF’s house rag is out this week, boasting a glorious new layout courtesy of ace designer Michael Kronenberg and bursting with top-notch material. A sampling of the treasures contained therein—

Sharon Knolle’s cover story on psychiatrists as heavies onscreen and off in Hollywood;

FNF honcho and TCM host Eddie Muller on Tod Browning’s crime drama Outside the Law, which just wowed audiences at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival;

A double dose of Noir City mainstay Jake Hinkson, with a look back at Bruce Springsteen’s bruising masterpiece Nebraska and a consideration of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding’s peerless domestic noir The Blank Wall and its two screen incarnations (The Reckless Moment and The Deep End);

A survey of Donald E. Westlake films by Ben Terrall, perfectly paired with novelist Danny Gardner’s appreciation of his favorite neo-noir, the Westlake-as-Richard-Stark-based The Outfit.

Plus we welcome back Noir City Sentinel scribe Eric Beetner with his new column The Dark Page. This look at noir fiction kicks off with an interview with the one and only Bill Crider. We also add whip-smart film writer Nathalie Atkinson to our roster of critics. And like all good meals there’s a sweet treat at the end in the form of a new book review from our ol’ pal Ray Banks.

Yes, I’m in it, too, with my usual Cocktails & Crime column. I also get in on the Westlake lovefest by recounting a favorite production story in our On The Set feature, spotlighting Point Blank.

How, you may ask, do I acquire such treasures for my own edification? Simply make a contribution to the Film Noir Foundation and all this, and more, can be yours!