PITFALL – The American Dream…Well, maybe not.

"Pitfall," with Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott (noir icon) and Jane Wyatt (mom on “Father Knows Best”) will be on Turner Classic Movies Monday 9/2/13 at 1:15 Pacific Time. Raymond Burr also shows up as the heavy, no pun intended.

 

"Pitfall" is a pretty good noir film, though I find the ending undermines much of what has come before. Other people see irony there, and there is. That said, I still think it just takes too much of a turn. I'm not being more clear because I don't want to give away spoilers. But all in all, it's a decent noir and worth watching.

SPELLBOUND: ALFRED HITCHCOCK MEETS SALVADOR DALI

 

Film Alert: Spellbound, Turner Classics, Thursday 8/15/13, 8:15am Pacific. Not a noir, but a pretty good suspense film. Dream sequence by Salvador Dali. Hitchcock directed. W/ Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.

A NOIR KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON

 

A couple "rare" Mickey Rooney noirs show up on Turner Classics on Tuesday, August 13, 2013.  "The Strip" and "Quicksand".

Rooney was trying to change his boy-next-door-image.  Does a pretty good job of that.

The movies are decent, low budget B noirs.  “Quicksand” has the added advantage of Peter Lorre and Jimmy Dodd, the chief Mousketeer.  

"The Strip" also features the Louis Armstrong classic song, "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." 

Good L.A. locations in both.

 

Technorati Tags: film noir,hardboiled,movies,Paul D. Marks,White Heat novel,Mickey Rooney

LOS ANGELES TIME FESTIVAL OF BOOKS -- USC

Join me and several other fine mystery-thriller authors at the Murder We Wrote booth at the LA Times Festival of Books at USC.  Saturday and Sunday, April 20-21.  I will be there Saturday afternoon.

Terry Ambrose

Joan Blacher

Teresa Burrell

Gayle Carline

Anne Carter

Susan Griscom / Regan Walsh

Jenny Hilborne

Paul D. Marks

Jim Stevens

"WHITE HEAT" CHOSEN AS ONE OF THE BEST FICTION BOOKS OF 2012

Rosa St. Claire at Examiner.com just named my novel White Heat one of the best fiction books of 2012, along with Megan Abbott's Dare Me, Blind Night by Michael W. Sherer, Merry Christmas, Alex Cross by James Patterson, The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling and a handful of others. I'm honored to be included with these great writers.  http://www.examiner.com/review/best-fiction-books-of-2012-and-new-titles-for-2013

51-50 -- NEW NOIR SHORT STORY AVAILABLE NOW

Available on Amazon now: 51-50 -- click the title

Cleaver is a cop who just can't take it anymore. He knows he's going to step over the line, it's just a question of when. It's the smirk that blows him away in this stripped down psycho noir short story.

An excerpt:

It was the smirk that blew me away. A half grin in the eyes and mouth, mocking, laughing. Maybe at me - maybe at the badge. They were leaning against a grimy cinder block wall under a sooty sky. Thumbs hooked into pockets of baggy lowrider pants, fingers, long and lean, twisting into coded signals. Eyes hollow. Eyes I don't even want to meet in the darkest dream. Hollow men. Hollow boys. Nothing behind those eyes. Nothing. They don't care. Don't give a damn.

It was that smirk that blew them away.

~~~

Cops aren't supposed to have feelings. We do a good job of hiding them. Burying them. But we're just like everybody else. We hide them in bravado or work. We hide them in a bottle or in "inexplicable" rages. But they're there, like the molten lava in a volcano just waiting to burst through to the surface.

*****************

Reviews of "51-50":

"Hat's off Mr. Marks - noir is your playground and you do it better than any other current writer."

--Kat Yares, Amazon Vine^TM-Voice Reviewer

"Writer Paul D. Marks can get inside a character's head and walk around better than anybody. His latest short story, 51-50, does just that…"

--G.B. Pool, author of "The Johnny Casino Casebook 1 - Past Imperfect"

Available on Amazon now: 51-50 -- click the title