A thriller that, for all the elements typical to its creator, presents really a variation of Samuel Fuller, a variation somewhat familiar from certain glimpses in certain moments of his other films; House of Bamboo shows Sam Fuller, gifted a large budget and a chance to shoot in Tokyo, as an observer rather than the … Continue reading House of Bamboo (1955, Samuel Fuller)
Franju’s film is not, despite first appearances, just a film about insanity; it is also a film about being twenty-five, the age of Jean-Pierre Mocky’s protagonist and that age at which one is perhaps finally forced to put aside the things of youth and enter fully into the asylum that is contemporary adult society with … Continue reading La Tête contre les Murs (1959, Georges Franju)
One day I’ll write a great essay on the theme of hypnagogic noir, a subgenre sort of my own creation and one of which I am slowly but surely beginning to trace the important defining features and themes. A few of these features and themes, ones I have already discovered, I’ll write about now in … Continue reading Murder Is My Beat (1955, Edgar G Ulmer)
