Skip to Content

‘Key Largo’ features a smartly directed face-off between two Hollywood titans

Key Largo is both pulpy and thought provoking. The obvious allusions to sexual and physical abuse, the overt racism demonstrated towards Native Americans (one of the odder inclusions to the story), the misogyny, all of these are balanced out by an intelligently woven battle between two wildly different personalities. True enough, Maltese Falcon and Asphalt Jungle have a greater sense of style about them and in that sense Key Largo might be considered a ‘lesser’ film, but lesser John Huston is plenty better than most other films in any event.

Read More about ‘Key Largo’ features a smartly directed face-off between two Hollywood titans

‘Chinatown’ is neo-noir at its best

Film noir comes full circle in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown (1974). Thirty years before its release, crime dramas saw the birth of a fundamental character – the noir hero. From Dashiell Hammett to Raymond Chandler, The Maltese Falcon (1941) to The Big Sleep (1946), the noir hero inhabits a world of hopelessness and dark tragedy. The Maltese Falcon saw Humphrey Bogart’s inaugural portrayal of this amoral anti-hero and began film noir as we know it.

Read More about ‘Chinatown’ is neo-noir at its best

Will Eisner’s Moby Dick Does Graphic Violence to Melville’s Novel

Will Eisner did more than any other creator to alter the public’s perception of comics during the 1970s and 1980s. By coining, or, at the very least, popularizing, the terms “graphic novel” and “sequential art”, Eisner helped to lead the medium out of the wilderness of the subcultural trash heap and across the Red Sea …

Read More about Will Eisner’s Moby Dick Does Graphic Violence to Melville’s Novel

‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre’ shows how greed can make a great film

The Treasure of Sierra Madre Directed John Huston Written by John Huston U.S.A., 1948 Gordon Gekko, the central figure of Oliver Stone’s famous Wall Street, once uttered the phrase ‘Greed is good.’ That same individual was, understandably, also that film’s antagonist. To willfully adhere to the aforementioned philosophy is one thing, yet the reality of …

Read More about ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre’ shows how greed can make a great film

‘The Maltese Falcon’ is indeed the treasure people make it out to be

The Maltese Falcon Directed by John Huston Written by John Huston U.S.A, 1941 It has often been written and said that John Huston’s 1941 classic, The Maltese Falcon, brought it in the era of film noir, or that it is the definitive entry within the genre. The origins of the genre and where Huston’s picture …

Read More about ‘The Maltese Falcon’ is indeed the treasure people make it out to be