RARA-AVIS: Re: Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown...

From: Kevin Burton Smith ( kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com)
Date: 20 Aug 2001


Brad asked:

>Yes, but how many of them (P.I. films in the last thirty years) are any good?

Actually, about as many as any genre. And some of them are very good, indeed.

They may not be MALTESE FALCON/CHINATOWN good, but several (some mentioned by Jim, some not), including TWILIGHT, NIGHT MOVES, THE CONVERSATION, THE DROWNING POOL, WHERE'S MARLOWE?, LOVE AT LARGE, MEMENTO and THE TWO JAKES have their defenders.

They're all honest and intelligent films, that can stand proudly beside most of the so-called classics of the past. Being filmed in the thirties, forties, or fifties is no guarantee a P.I. flick is worth watching. Sure, V.I. WARSHAWSKI, for example, pretty much sucked, but was it really any worse or more annoying than THE LADY IN THE LAKE?

(And, by coincidence, CHINATOWN was on the tube last night. And yes, it is THAT good.)

-- 

Kevin Burton Smith The Thrilling Detective Web Site http://www.thrillingdetective.com
Let's go to the movies! Plus new fiction from Hugh Lessig, John Alvar, O'Neil De Noux and Graham Powell. Plus web comics: Odd Jobs and The Damnation Gambit and soon, the return of Femme Noir. -- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



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