Directed by Dennis Hopper, The Hot Spot (1990) has earned a place in the realm of Cult Classics. At times an intriguing modern Film Noir mystery, the film also delves into darker areas. Perhaps the most enduring aspects of The Hot Spot are the scenes featuring a young Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen. The rest of the cast is good, including Don Johnson and Charles Martin Smith.
Endowed not only with a memorable title, Please Murder Me (1956) also delivers a semi-unique storyline that doesn't leave much need for guessing, but is entertaining throughout. Directed by Peter Godfrey, the cast does a fine job, including Raymond Burr, Angela Lansbury and Dick Foran. The trial scenes, and the tense conflicts alone make the film an underrated effort, worthy of more attention.
Craig Carlson (Raymond Burr) is a lawyer with some difficult news to break to his old War buddy, Joe Leeds (Dick Foran)...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr
He has fallen in love with Joe's wife, Myra (Angela Lansbury), and needs to request that they divorce, so he might marry her instead...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Angela Lansbury
Joe returns home and is shot and killed by his wife, though she claims it is self defense. Craig, as both lawyer and dutiful boyfriend, defends Myra in the trial...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury
She is acquitted of all charges...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr
Further developments occur along the way, bringing Craig to the realization that Myra did indeed intentionally murder Joe. He also discovers the evidence of a third lover involved, and the motive of money for the widow. Most hurtful is the fact that Myra never really loved him, but rather, just needed his expertise in law to get her off the hook for the crime. He plots to even the score...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury
Wrapped in guilt, Craig decides that the only way to get truly even with his former flame, and to make square with his dead friend, is to force her to murder him as well, allowing for a new trial...
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury
Please Murder Me. 1956: Raymond Burr and Angela Lansbury
Despite being made twenty years after the classic Film Noir period ended and being shot in color, Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) still managed to capture all the atmosphere and feel of it's forebears and hence has become a true heavyweight in the genre. Full of grit, sexuality, corruption and mystery, it is a tense masterpiece of 1970's Cinema.
He is hired by an impostor wife to investigate Mr. Mulwray, the Water and Power Commissioner for Los Angeles, who is suspected of cheating. Gittes' snooping reveals strange findings, and when Mr. Mulwray is found dead, he grows more suspicious and inquisitive. This leads him be involved with Mulwray's real wife, Evelyn (Faye Dunaway)...
Chinatown. 1974: Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway
Part of the mystery involves the building of a dam, the needless disposal of tons of the City's water supply during a major drought...
Chinatown. 1974: Jack Nicholson
and the purchase of acres of barren farmland surrounding Los Angeles...
Chinatown. 1974: Jack Nicholson
The web grows more dangerous as Evelyn's father, Noah Cross (John Huston), a powerful man, is increasingly implicated in the events...
