Noir Journal 14: Film Noir Special

Announcing two upcoming film noir releases: 

1. The new edition of FILM NOIR: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA (Overlook Press, May 15, 2010)

2. The six-DVD pack  FILM NOIR: Collector's Edition, featuring seven film noir classics, also due out May 15, distributed by Questar Entertainment.

FILM NOIR: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA 

Overlook Press is publishing a NEW, REVISED, EXPANDED edition of Film Noir: The Encyclopedia, edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfini.

  *Answer to the question in the picture: You can find all 550 of them in the new edition of the classic reference.

Between the pages of this epic reference, enter a world of darkness, ambiguity, and moral corruption. Encounter trench-coated detectives, gun-toting gangsters, femme fatales, and the timeless actors who portray them.

Written and edited by renowned industry expert, Alain Silver, Film Noir: The Encyclopedia is for the academic, casual fan, and film lover. With over 500 entries, and pictures throughout, you will find all you ever wanted to know about film noir. New to this edition are critical essays on the movement, as well as a chapter about the emerging genre of Neo-Noir.

 Film Noir: The Encyclopedia is the acknowledged bible of the film noir movement, unsurpassed in its erudition, range, and authority since its first publication in 1979. For the first time, this classic of film reference receives a complete updating and revision. Withe entries now for more than 500 films, evocative stills, and other photos, as well as in-depth analysis, this all-new edition is surely the last word on film noir.

Alain Silver,  James Ursini, and Elizabeth Ward have co-written and co-edited a score of books, including The Noir Style and Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Robert Porfirio has written in publications including Continuum and Sight and Sound.

Praise for the first edition

 " . . . a critically informed discussion of each work in the context of genre and cinema history. "  --The Los Angeles Times

" It's what you always want in a film reference book but rarely find: comprehensive, intelligently organized, voluminously illustrated, and possessed of its own distinctive voice. "  --Lawrence Kasden, director of Body Heat"

 Considered the bible of the film noir movement, Film Noir: The Encyclopedia is required reading for students, fanatics, long-time followers, and new fans of film noir. (Stills from The Big Sleep and Deception)

To pre-order Film Noir: The Encyclopedia from Overlook Press click here.

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FILM NOIR: Collector's Edition (Questar Entertainment) 

"Tough to beat....."-USA Today

Welcome to the gritty and seductive world of Film Noir, where small towns hide deadly secrets, misguided saps are tempted to break the law, and dangerous femme fatales have more curves than a highway out of town. The Film Noir Collector's Edition is a big score for fans of hard-boiled crime movies, American style.

This terrific box set includes seven vintage, high-voltage American crime film classics that defined one of Hollywood’s most popular and collectible genres. Movies don’t come any cooler…or hotter! With its knockout slipcase, star power, superior picture quality, and treasure trove of extra features, it would be a crime not to stock up!

 Killer Classics! 

  Disc 1:  D.O.A.  (1950) - “I want to report a murder…mine.” Edmond O’Brien stars as an accountant whose number is up when he is poisoned, and spends his  last desperate hours trying to find out who “killed” him - and why!

Disc 2:  Detour (1945) - “What did you do with the body?” A hitchhiker gets into the wrong car and picks up the wrong woman.

 “No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.”-Roger Ebert

 Disc 3:  The Stranger (1946) Orson Welles stars in this tense thriller as a small-town professor who will stop at nothing to conceal his Nazi past, with Edward G. Robinson as the Nazi hunter out to expose him. 

Disc 4:  Scarlet Street (1945) - Edward G. Robinson stars as a henpecked  husband who falls under the spell of a scheming femme fatale. Barbara Stanwyck gives one of her greatest performances in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), a dark tale of small town secrets, obsession, and murder!

Disc 5:  Killer Bait (aka Too Late for Tears) (1949) - Lizabeth Scott stars as a woman who will do anything to keep $60,000 that falls into her lap. Suddenly (1954) stars Frank Sinatra in his most controversial role as a psycho who holds a family hostage while plotting to assassinate the president.

 

Disc 6:  Extra Features

• Thirty-eight Film Noir trailers

• Film Noir poster gallery

• Femme Fatale-The Noir Dame

• What is Film Noir?

To order Film Noir: The Collector's Edition, click here.

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To come:

• Review of Michael Harvey's The Third Rail  (soon to be released--April 20, 2010--by Knopf ) 
• Blair Oliver and Peter Soliunas's novel  The Long Slide, plus commentary on their mentor, iconic noir author James Crumley.
• Fascism, war, and the development of noir, featuring the novel The Losing Role, by Steve Anderson.
• Review of a newly-discovered Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer novel (to be released early May, 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

 And here's a plug for an excellent book that I call "The perfect cure for mystery writer's block," The Ingredients of a Good Thriller, by Chris Wood. 

That's it for now,

ML

noir_journal@yahoo.com

 

Comments

[Chris Wood]

550 femme fatales! That's the weekend sorted.

As to the box set, if it's out in the UK I'll be looking that up. I haven't seen a quality B&W noir in too long.

Great post!

[Susie Levin]

Hi Mike,

I'm looking forward to your posts on The Long Slide and The Third Rail.

Thanks,
Susie

[Susie Levin]

Hi Mike-

D.O.A. is one of my very favorite movies.

Susie

[Mike L.]

Susie,
Thanks again for being such a consistent reader and commenter. (Maybe some day you'll write a guest post.) So far, I've watched Suddenly from the Questar boxed collection. Excellent film--starring Frank Sinatra in a great performance. WIll write about it soon in NJ, probably when I do the review of the new edition of FILM NOIR: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA.
Yes, I did see DOA--long ago and thought it was amazing. I've always liked Edmund O'Brien (the original 1984 , The Wild Bunch).
Thanks again,
ML