Is there anybody meaner than Lawrence Tierney on the screen? Sure, James Cagney was a bad-ass, shoving a grapefruit into Mae Clarke’s face in The Public Enemy or knocking Virginia Mayo off a chair in White Heat. And Bogart could be equally cold-blooded in films like The Petrified Forest and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But Tierney is like a rabid dog in comparison, sparing no one, not even himself, from violent death, and The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947) is a perfect example of his menacing screen persona.
Continue readingTag Archives: Barry Gifford
Secret Agenda
Is there really such a thing as “The Perfect Crime”? In theory the plot might seem infallible but what about the unforeseen surprise that could wreck the whole thing? It could be the benign interference of a neighbor or a stranger or even an accidental mishap involving the architect of the crime. An excellent example of what could go terribly wrong at the last minute can be found in The Hidden Room (aka Obsession, 1949) directed by Edward Dmytryk.
Continue readingCommies at the Greasy Spoon Diner
The Psychotronic Video Guide calls it “One of the oddest movies of the fifties,” Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide deems it a “trash classic,” and any movie buff who has ever seen it will probably concur that Shack Out on 101 (1955) is easily the nuttiest B-movie to emerge in the Cold War era when paranoia over communist infiltration provided Hollywood with a new type of villain. Continue reading

