Film noir pastiche has become a common phenomenon on stage – I have made a growing list of dozens of examples. It seems like every regional theater in the country has mounted one. Some are more straight, some are more spoofy, and this goes equally for the cinematic entries. The little black-and-white Seattle-shot indie A Formula for Mayhem (1993), co-written and co-directed by Kevin McKeon (who also stars) and Kurt Wahlner, straddles that line without ever quite falling over into full spoof, although the funny “canned wheat” scene comes close. (The movie is available for viewing at YouTube.)

The movie looks fairly convincingly “in period” – in fact, it benefits from its low budget, because the appurtenances all seem lived-in rather than movie-production fresh. The score by Gary Lionelli, who went on to considerable success and multiple Emmy awards in television music, is unusually good.

Judging the story “straight”, there are a few screenplay issues (but this is hardly uncommon). I liked the industrial espionage angle better than…but I don’t want to get spoiler-ish. The detective Ernie Boylan, played by McKeon, is refreshingly so-so as an investigator, neither magically good nor dismally bad, just a working stiff PI. That’s a nice touch, as are a few bits of misdirection where things are seeming really bad…and then not so much. Overall I quite enjoyed the film, as I have enjoyed many micro-indies that are fresher and less labored than what you get from Hollywood these days, and markedly free of pretension and fakery.