levendis: (Movies: the big brass ring)
GUYS. Let's make a list of movie adaptations that are as good as or better than their source.

I WILL BEGIN.
Better than: Bladerunner, Kiss Me Deadly, The Godfather pts 1 & 2
As good as: Night and the City (The plot may be mangled, but Dassin translates Kersh's poetic griminess perfectly. Also Richard Widmark's face.)

(I still want a movie of Prelude to a Certain Midnight sooo baaad but idk the likelihood of a movie with a deeply flawed, old-school-bamf, middle-aged single woman as protagonist.)

I'd list 2001 but I haven't read the story it's based on. Hmm.


C'mon help me out here. Every time someone cries online about how Hollywood should stop adapting novels, the sound of my teeth grinding is audible from the moon.
levendis: (Movies: I'm gonna start kicking back)
Dept. Of Dusting Off Old Journal Features:


FILM NOIR OF THE NOW
Woman on the Run, dir. Norman Foster, scr. Alan Campbell/Norman Foster, 1950. Starring Ann Sheridan.



I got a deal for you. You find your husband, with my help. Give me an exclusive for 24 hours and I'll get my paper to pay you for it.

Trying to buy me, so soon?

First I'll try to buy you, then I'll try to win you.

Isn't that the reverse of the usual procedure?

I'm a perverse fellow. On second thought, Mrs. J, I find you very attractive. I may try and win you right off.

No thanks, I'd rather be bought.

Very mercenary.


RECAP: A struggling painter with a heart condition witnesses a murder, and flees the scene when he realizes that testifying in a trial would get him killed. His hardboiled wife, with the help of a cynical reporter, tries to track him down to give him his reverse-MacGuffin heart pills, while dodging a detective hell-bent on getting his witness.

THIS SHIT IS AWESOME: Ann Sheridan! Witty banter! A guided tour of San Francisco! And, the clincher, a brilliant ending set-piece involving a rollercoaster and one of those terrifying animatronic laughing sailors.

FOR FANS OF: The Lady From Shanghai, The File on Thelma Jordon, fierce ladies, San Francisco

Bonus: it's public domain, holla.

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February 2020

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