It's possibly helped along by the fact that the first film I ever saw him in was Double Indemnity, where he's the conscience of the piece
True that. I'd seen plenty of parodies of him (most notably in Warner Brothers cartoons), but DI was the first actual film I saw him in. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen one of his gangster roles (the only other ones I can recall are THE STRANGER, where he's a nazi-hunter, and SOYLENT GREEN).
This is in contrast to Cagney (who got to play good guys more frequently then Edward G.), where WHITE HEAT was the first film I saw him in. That'll make a lasting impression.
That bring to mind that I was just reading (in VIDEO WATCHDOG) about a German variation called Krimis, which was a series of crime films in the 60s based on Edgar Wallace novels (often extremely loosely). They're almost unknown outside of Germany, and share several characteristics with the Giallos (decadent characters, violent murders by elaborately masked people, etc.), and are mostly set (ostensibly if not recognizably) in England. Klaus Kinski got his start in those, usually playing a depraved red herring/victim.
I've seen Krimi! They're pretty cool actually, and Lux Interiors listed his five favorite in the second Catalog of Cool.
It always makes me sad how little Edward G. Robinson is remembered by the filmgoing public.
But he'll always be known by those of us who watch The Ten Commandments at Eastertime: "Where's your Moses nooooowww?"
I don't know what the first Edward G. Robinson movie I saw was, but the one that always sticks out in my mind was Tales of Manhattan.
The movie's kind of uneven and tends to be a little maudlin and manipulative, but man, he's great in it.
He's really good in The Sea Wolf - and so, so evil.
Ok, who's read too much crime lately? Me.
Cause I leapfrogged right to "Persons of interest" and was, like, "Huh. What'd he do?"
Tunnel vision much?
Buffistas!
Uncle by J.P. Martin is now back in print.
It's one of Neil Gaiman's favorite children's books.
They go for upward of 100 pounds in the UK.
Recommended.
Read more here.
The wonderland of Martin's books is reminiscent of Carroll's, but far more modern and seedy, with lumps of industrial archaeology lying about the landscape. Its central character Uncle is a vastly rich elephant who affects purple dressing-gowns and lives in an improbable edifice called Homeward -- half Gormenghast and half Disneyland. Scenic railways abound; there are museums with entire floors devoted to flamingo bird-baths or treacle bowls through the ages. Most of Homeward's inhabitants are alarmingly eccentric, and would pass unnoticed in the Goon Show. An epic pitch of fear is reached during an overnight stay in the Haunted Tower, where "The White Terror" proves to be a small ghost about a foot high, which stands disagreeably on the bedside table muttering, "I did it! I took the strawberry jam!"
But facing the hundred-towered glory of Homeward is the dark side of the farce: the filthy stronghold Badfort, ruled by Uncle's arch-enemy Beaver Hateman. The Badfort crowd spend their days lounging around dressed in unclean sacking, swilling Black Tom and Leper Gin, writing down bad thoughts in their Hating Books, and hatching terrible schemes to entrap Uncle. They revel in evil. They are the sort of wretches who would say snide things about The X-Files.
Hil asked for spy novels?
I can't recommend Alan Furst highly enough: he writes dense, smart novels set in and around WWII. Usually they involved complicated political situations and uncertain loyalties. He knows his Soviet history really well, so there's often stuff where the Communists are simultaneously fighting the Nazis (or the Franco-ists in Spain) while at the same time positioning themselves for post-war power. Possibly my favorite is Dark Voyage, which is about a Dutch shipmaster who gets strongarmed into working for British intelligence during the war.
The down side of Furst is that the women are usually kind of 2-D and weirdly othered to the men. Even when they have agency, they're pretty opaque and incomprehensible, and almost always operate as sexual objects. That said, he's still really really good.
