Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
#8 in my ranking of Fritz Lang's filmography. I'm going to come to Human Desire's defense. The second cinematic adaptation of Emile Zola's La Bete Humaine (the first was by Jean Renoir, another very good film in its own right), is a noir that Fritz Lang imbued with his wonderful visual style, but he never… Continue reading Human Desire
#13 in my ranking of Fritz Lang's filmography. Based on the poster, I really expected something pulpier than a straight adaptation of a stage play. I expected larger than life characters battling things out with each other in a game of wits to destroy everything around them. I mean, look at that, in the bottom… Continue reading Clash by Night
#11 in my ranking of Fritz Lang's filmography. I'd say that this is the point where Fritz Lang was firmly planting his feet in the film noir genre. Made in the same year as Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity, it's a formational film to the genre, using shadows extensively, as Lang had been doing since his… Continue reading The Woman in the Window
#7 in my ranking of Fritz Lang's filmography. If someone had told me that this was a lost John Ford film, I'd be inclined to believe them. Made in the wake of Stagecoach's financial success, Lang films like Ford (not completely, but the influence is there), the story of male camaraderie is something that would… Continue reading Western Union
#9 in my ranking of Fritz Lang's filmography. I have a huge soft spot for movies that at least seem to attempt to take space travel seriously. Woman in the Moon is just that kind of film, except it was made in the 20s, more than thirty years before the Mercury missions or Yuri Gagarin.… Continue reading Woman in the Moon
David Vining, Author 