The Long Goodbye (1973)

American cinema in the 1970s had an interest in reviving older genres, and film noir was a great way of expressing society’s disillusionment and paranoia. Casting the hangdog, bemused charm of Elliott Gould as the classic detective character of Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973) must have seemed like a joke to fans of […]

Murder By Contract (1958)

My favourite moment in Murder By Contract (1958) was when Claude (Vince Edwards), the cool out-of-town contract killer wearing a suit and a pair of shades, is picked up by two hoods (Philip Pine and Herschel Bernadi) who will oversee his assassination of a jury witness. Claude wants to tour the sights of LA. “I’d […]

Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

Over time, Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) has become one of my favourite John Carpenter films. Much like George A. Romero’s Night Of The Living Dead, which it was influenced by, it is a triumph of low budget genre filmmaking that cracked the market and inspired countless rip offs. It is the first action picture […]

Cutter’s Way (1981)

My high school library had a copy of Dan Peary’s book Cult Movies 2 and I’ve been trying to track down and watch the 50 films covered in there ever since. One that always intrigued me was Cutter’s Way (1981) if only to reconcile the hapless dad from Home Alone looking like a young pirate […]

Body Double (1984)

While it might not be the best Brian De Palma film, Body Double (1984) is certainly the quintessential Brian De Palma film, and it’s certainly the most notorious, and it’s become my favourite of his auteur thrillers. Publicised as the heir to Alfred Hitchcock in his continual homages to the ‘Master of Suspense’ across films […]