Crime Films

 

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Main crime film sections currently available:    Gangster sagas     Detective films     Film noir     Neo-noir     Cop action films      Parodies      TV series    Film reviews

 

This section of crimeculture.com focuses on the most discussed forms of crime film - gangster films, detective films, classic film noir, neo-noir, cop action films, etc.; it also takes in parodies, TV series, and video games. 

Crime Films ~ Main Sections

Film reviews

Roger Westcombe's Big House Film Reviews are an expanding section of Crimeculture.  More than 40 reviews of films noirs, both canonical and neo-noir, are now available on our site, and additional reviews will appear regularly.

See also:  The Creation, Marketing and Contexts of Hollywood Crime Films (review article)  LEE HORSLEY

The site also contains numerous articles on crime films.  Recent additions include, for example, pieces on: Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, Pulp Fiction and The Usual Suspects

This section at the moment offers a brief introduction to the gangster films of the 1930s; it includes discussion of the mythologised gangster in relation to American capitalism and of the links between gangster films and film noir.  The main examples considered are Little Caesar and Scarface.  We are keen to find contributors interested in providing more wide-ranging discussions of the genre.

Philippa Gates surveys a large range of films, from the Hollywood detective series of the 1930s and the Basil Rathbone Holmes films to films of the 90s, like Seven and Silence of the Lambs.  Other films discussed here include the detective-centred films noirs of the 40s and 50s, police procedurals like Dragnet, vigilante cop films of the 60s and 70s, and the action-cop films of the 80s - discussed more fully in a separate section.

An overview of the development of film noir and literary noir in postwar America, with some discussion of the iconic figures of the genre and considers key elements in the definition of noir.  As with ganster films, we would be grateful for contributors interested in providing more wide-ranging discussions of the genre.

Supplementary articles: 

What is This Thing Called Film Noir, Anyway?  ROGER WESTCOMBE

Domesticity That Never Sleeps: the Emergence of the Suburban Thriller   ROGER WESTCOMBE

The Road to Double Indemnity, ROGER WESTCOMBE

This section traces the development of neo-noir from the 1960s on; it considers such things as the charge that neo-noir is a form of postmodern nostalgia and the ways in which neo-noir films represent a 'culture of consumption'. 

 

Cop action films

Charting the shift from the vengeful vigilante cop of the 1970s to the action-hero cop and retributive 'musculinity' of the 1980s, this section, by Philippa Gates, takes in the Dirty Harry, Rambo, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard films, and concludes with a discussion of changing images of masculinity in the 1990s. 

 

Supplementary article:  Being a Buddy: The Black Detective on the Big Screen    PHILIPPA GATES, Wilfrid Laurier University

Heist films, police procedurals, cop buddy films, etc.

Sections on these and other types of crime film are currently under construction.

This section incorporates many varieties of parody and pastiche, ranging from animated films and cartoons to postmodern parody/pastiche in the films of, for example, the Coen brothers, Tarantino and David Mamet.

Vicky Munro's introduction to TV representations of crime traces the rise of American cop shows and considers some of the issues that have come to the fore with the growth of 'reality TV' crime shows.

 

Video games

This section is at present under construction.

 

The Big House Film Reviews currently available are: 

À Bout de Souffle

Ace in the Hole

Act of Violence

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

The Big Combo

Boomerang

Border Incident

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Chinatown

Cisco Pike

Crossfire

The Dark Mirror

Deliverance

The Enforcer

Foreign Correspondent

Gun Crazy

He Walked By Night

I Confess

The Killers

Kiss Me Deadly

Kiss of Death

Kiss or Kill

(1931)

(1951)

Manchurian Candidate

The Man Who Cheated Himself

Mean Streets

Miller's Crossing

Moonrise

Murder by Contract

Night Moves

Night of the Hunter

On the Waterfront

Pretty Poison

Railroaded

Raw Deal

Reckless Moment

Scarface

Scarlet Street

Scorsese - Student Shorts

The Set-Up

Slightly Scarlet

T-Men

They Live By Night

This Gun For Sale

Touch of Evil

Undercover Man

Where Danger Lives

Where the Sidewalk Ends

White Heat

 

 

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