Even bad books have their charms.
Last night I read such a book
the title of which I shall not
mention
nor will I name the book's
author
who thinks that at the end of
Dark Passage
Bogart wears a white dinner
jacket as in
Casablanca
and that Loretta Young's father
in The Stranger
is the president of the college where Orson Welles teaches
when in fact the dad is a Supreme Court justice
and Mr. Welles as the Nazi without a German accent
teaches at a prep school
and as for Detour the author doesn't get the point
that it's a study in the unreliable narrator
while Double Indemnity, in the writer's opinion,
is only so-so because both Stanwyck and MacMurray
lack sex appeal, ha, and, too, the author likens Dana Andrews
to a baseball player who got to the majors only because
Ted Williams and co are fighting the second World War
I could go on but why should I
when I enjoyed reading the book even despite the irritating
use of “creep” and “milquetoast” just because
I love noir and so does the author so all sins
are forgiven losses are restored and sorrows end.
from the archive; first posted March 2, 2020
Top left: Dana Andrews; top right Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity; center left Edward G. Robinson in The Stranger; center right Tom Neal and Ann Savage in Detour; bottom left Gloria Grahame; bottom right Elisha Cook, Jr., and Marie Windsor in The Killing.