A head's up: those who missed the Roxie screenings of Hossein's own films--which include his varied appearances in notable films directed by others: DES FEMMES DISPARAISSENT, CRIME ET CHATIMENT, and LE MONTE-CHARGE--it turns out that Radiance/Diabolik will be releasing a three-film set of Hossein titles in November, which will include two of his early noir efforts (LES SALAUDS VONT EN ENFER and TOI LE VENIN) and the more obscure of his two Westerns (LE GOUT DE VIOLENCE). The set is pricy...but it is definitely worth the investment. Do consider buying it so that Radiance might consider a follow-up featuring Hossein's films with Marie-France Pisier (the aforementioned MORT D'UN TUEUR, LES YEUX CERNES, and LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF). All in all, not bad at all for this time around: we'll see if it's a random thing or if the e-zine's tires will remain inflated on its next road trip.
on 10/10/2025, 9:44 pm
Jake Hinkson returns with a meandering lead feature on "Southern Gothic" in film noir, expanding the definition of "noir" in an attempt to give the thesis sufficient heft. Jake channels William Faulkner as he swirls the oft-repeated line "The past is never dead: it's not even past" as the connective tissue necessary to link his subgenre to noir. Jake's biggest stretch, however, is in his tenuous and ultimately unsupported analogy between literature and film: "What nineteeth-century Gothic literature waa to Southern gothic, expressionism was to film noir."
For Jake's analogy to hold, he'd need to acknowledge that "the noir world" was built into literature of romanticism from its very inception, as demonstrated by Mario Praz in The Romantic Agony. And he'd also need to ratify the notion that a more expansive, encompassing strain of noir developed in "non-Gothic" novels, particularly in France (in the hands of Hugo, Balzac and Zola).
In keeping with the editorial direction of the e-zine under Imogen Smith, Jake's essay straddles eras and cuts across a wide expanse of time (from the 1930s to the 2010s), which ultimately makes the presentation more diffuse than it could have been.
Hollywood noir is represented (in a manner of speaking) with essays separated into the Golden Age dream factory's dual-track production strategies. "A" films are represented in a look at Peter Lorre's Hollywood career, but Lynsey Ford reminds us that Lorre's early days were spent in a long procession of "B's." And we are reminded that he wound up in "B's" again after his unceremonious departure from Warner Brothers. Rachel Walther digs into an offbeat variation of the "producer as auteur" theme (a favorite of the e-zine since its inception...) with a look at Sam Katzman's crime thrillers at Clover Productions, Columbia's de facto "B" unit in the 1950s. It's a deliberately selective look at Katzman's overall output, but it's another solid effort from the e-zine's most reliable writer over the past three years.
Danilo Castro stretches noir into crime thriller car chase scenes with a portrait of stunt coordinator/actor Bill Hickman; it's an enjoyable but ultimately lightweight look at the history of a film set-piece that all-too-often supplants character development in neo-noir. Castro digs into Hickman's life and comes up with some solid backstory that provides some needed heft in the article's second half.
Castro and Paul Parcellin hit the jackpot, however, with their inspired look at elevator operators in noir--exactly the type of entertaining feature that the e-zine used to have in profusion. Arranged chronologically, the capsule descriptions are crisp and nicely varied, reaching all the way into the neo-noir era, even managing to incorporate TV episodes.
The "departments" that "publisher Eddie" remains so enamored of are also stronger than usual, with editor-in-chief Smith appraising ASH IS PUREST WHITE, an early entry in an ongoing progression of intriguing neo-noirs from China, followed by an excellent look at the rarely-screened Mexican dark western, LOS HERMANOS DEL HIERRO--a fine piece of advocacy from Cristian Gutierrez. It's a piece that could easily have been a feature, but is shoehorned into a slot ("noir or not") that isn't really applicable to the author's approach. And Ben Terrall dodges a similar incongruence in his otherwise solid "book v. film" entry about DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, where the differences between film and book are like a fine mist sprayed into a darkened room (i.e., virtually invisible).
Most notable in this issue (especially to yours truly) is the first appearance of the lost world of French noir as represented by one of THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT festivals' most notable discoveries: director-actor-writer Robert Hossein. Since 2014, the FHANFI shows at the Roxie featured Hossein in more than a dozen films, including all of the Hossein-directed noirs either discussed or mentioned by author Oren Shai. (Shai, who has also been a director in recent years, does not even mention the many noirs that Hossein appears in solely as an actor--perhaps due to an auteurist slant...but then again, many of these actor-only films are just as rare). As far as it goes, however, it's a fine introduction to Hossein the director, even if it omits any discussion of what is probably his best noir, LA MORT D'UN TUEUR, which mixes gangsterism, incestuous attraction a la SCARFACE, and deftly-handled temporal disjunction in a deliriously paced film that straddles Hossein's appropriation of "spaghetti western" tonalities.
Note also that LE MONTE-CHARGE, Marcel Bluwal's marvelous "Christmas noir" that we screened twice in special December screenings--2014 and 2021--is available in Radiance's WORLD NOIR VOLUME 4. Despite its incongruous English title of PARIS PICK-UP, LE MONTE-CHARGE really is the ultimate Christmas noir and "publisher Eddie" would be well-served to screen it at his annual Noir City Xmas event.
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