In a new feature, Aliza Richardson fixes her gaze on memorable houses in film, exploring their uniqueness as architectural marvels and evocative cinematic locations.
Tag: Billy Wilder
“The living room was still stuffy from last night’s cigars. The windows were closed and the sunshine coming in through the Venetian blinds showed up the dust in the air.” The only time when Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff is shown in broad daylight in Double Indemnity (1944) is when the flashback begins, right before he meets Barbara […]
When Marilyn Monroe leaves the screen, so does our interest. Toned down from its Broadway origins thanks to the Hollywood Production Code, The Seven Year Itch still manages to be a good comedy – largely due to Marilyn. And it’s not only thanks to her apotheosis-of-sex-appeal look and that particular iconic scene – Marilyn standing […]
Anyone who thought Billy Wilder’s savagely cynical noir about a disgraced journalist’s search for a career-rejuvenating scoop was too sensational need only recall 2010’s media circus surrounding the plight of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. The sight of hundreds of rubberneckers flanked by publicity-hungry officials and hordes of reporters dowsing the crisis at ‘Camp Hope’ […]
Billy Wilder’s Oscar Winning picture, The Lost Weekend (1945) starring Ray Milland as a washed-up New York writer, is one of the more frank depictions of alcoholism on film; unusual in 1945 for its candid depiction of dissolution and for its unflinching portrayal of a self-indulgent and unsympathetic ‘hero’ driven to despair by frustrated ambition. […]
In the first of a two-part piece Emma Simmonds examines four prototype noir villainesses from classic Hollywood cinema. Next week, she looks at the far-reaching legacy of these scintillating spider women by considering French cinema’s most memorable femme fatales. The Hollywood noirs of the 40s left an indelible impression on cinema. Their depictions of powerful, […]