Tag Archives: The Thin Man

Eva Malmborg, Crime Reporter

Posted on by
Reply
Harriet Andersson stars in the 1959 Swedish mystery thriller CRIME IN PARADISE, represented here by a Danish publicity promotion.

Swedish actress Harriet Andersson is best known for her many film collaborations with director Ingmar Bergman but, even after she became a celebrated star in the mid-fifties with her breakout role in Bergman’s Summer with Monica (1953) and the award-winning Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), she continued to appear in a wide variety of films and not just art-house fare. She could play anything from sexy sirens to fiercely independent, working class women to romantic heroines and one of her more entertaining efforts is her performance as Eva Malmborg, a fledgling reporter who helps solve a famous robbery/murder in the 1959 genre thriller Brott I Paradiset (English title: Crime in Paradise), directed by Lars-Eric Kjellgren.

Continue reading →

Lucille Ball, Douglas Sirk and a Serial Killer

Posted on by
Reply

That unlikely combination in the header is just part of the quirky appeal of Lured, a 1947 mystery released by United Artists which is also equal parts comedy and romance. It was a remake of the French film Pieges [1939] by Robert Siodmak and starred Erich von Stroheim, Marie Déa and Maurice Chevalier. Most biographers of Lucille Ball and director Douglas Sirk have routinely dismissed it as an insignificant film in their careers but I think part of the problem was that critics and audiences expected a genuine thriller and got something else entirely. It is an eccentric original and highly recommended for anyone who wants to see Lucille Ball in one of her most underrated and accomplished performances; she plays dance hall hostess hired by the police as an undercover female detective and “bait” for a London serial killer.   Continue reading →

Eskimo (1933) – Inuit Culture on Film

Posted on by
2

Alaskan actor Ray Mala (aka Mala, on right) stars in the 1933 MGM film ESKIMO.

Alaskan actor Ray Mala (aka Mala, on right) stars in the 1933 MGM film ESKIMO.

How many famous or highly regarded films about the Inuit culture can you name? Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) is probably at the top of the list but what else? The 1955 Oscar-nominated documentary Where Mountains Float, Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents (1960), Zacharias Kunuk’s 2001 epic, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), and Mike Magidson’s Inuk (2010) are all impressive achievements which need to be better known. But one of the most moving and evocative films is from 1933 entitled Eskimo, a word which is now an outdated and offensive reference to the Inuit and Yupik tribes who populate the Arctic Circle and northern bordering regions.   Continue reading →