Phil Karlson

  • Phil Karlson – The Scarface Mob (1959)

    Phil Karlson1951-1960CrimeDramaUSA
    The Scarface Mob (1959)
    The Scarface Mob (1959)

    Story of how a group of incorruptible federal lawmen helped put 1920s’ Chicago gangster Al Capone in prison.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson & Richard Widmark – The Secret Ways (1961)

    Phil Karlson1961-1970Film NoirRichard WidmarkThrillerUSA

    Vienna, 1956. After Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising, soldier-of-fortune Mike Reynolds is hired to help a threatened Hungarian scientist (Prof. Jansci) escape from Budapest. He and Julia, the professor’s daughter, cross the border posing as journalists, but they encounter a problem. The staunch freedom fighter doesn’t want to go.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – The Phenix City Story (1955)

    1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirPhil KarlsonUSA

    Quote:
    I’ve always cited this movie as the best ever made in (Alabama), as well as the most authentic. Maybe that’s in part because watching it is experiencing the apotheosis of Southern sleaze—a bit like festering for hours in the seediest possible Alabama Greyhound depot in August without air conditioning…Though the movie’s politics are liberal, its moral outrage is so intense you may come out of it wanting to join a lynch mob.” – Film critic and Alabama expatriate Jonathan Rosenbaum, writing in his book Essential Cinema.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – 5 Against the House (1955)

    USA1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirPhil Karlson

    Phil Karlson (“The Phenix City Story”/”Kansas City Confidential”/”Scandal Sheet”) directs with verve this gripping caper thriller based on a Good Housekeeping serialized magazine story that was based on the novel by Jack Finney and is well-written by John Barnwell, William Bowers, Stirling Silliphant and Frank Tashlin.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – Key Witness (1960)

    1951-1960CrimeDramaPhil KarlsonUSA

    Quote:
    An average Los Angeles citizen witnesses a gang murder when he stops to use a telephone. Aware that he is the only witness against them, the gang members seek out his identity and terrorize him and his family to keep him from testifying against them. Only by psychologically playing one gang member against the others is the man able to bring the police to his rescue.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – Kansas City Confidential (1952)

    USA1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirPhil Karlson

    Synopsis:
    A down-on-his-luck ex-G.I. finds himself framed for an armored car robbery. When he’s finally released for lack of evidence, after having been beaten up and tortured by the police, he sets out to discover who set him up, and why. The trail leads him into Mexico and a web of hired killers and corrupt cops.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – 99 River Street (1953)

    1951-1960Film NoirPhil KarlsonThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Having lost his heavyweight championship match, boxer Ernie Driscoll now drives a taxi for a living and earns the scorn of his nagging wife, Pauline, who blames him for her lack of social status. Involved with jewel thief Victor Rawlins, Pauline is murdered by him when she impedes his ability to fence the jewels. Blamed for his wife’s murder, Ernie must track down Rawlins before he leaves the country.Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – Ladies of the Chorus (1949)

    1941-1950DramaMarilyn MonroeMusicalPhil KarlsonUSA

    Andrea Passafiume wrote:
    Ladies of the Chorus
    Marilyn Monroe makes an early big screen appearance in director Phil Karlson’s 1949 entertaining B musical Ladies of the Chorus. In her first starring role, Monroe plays Peggy Martin, a young chorus girl in a burlesque show who works alongside her mother, Mae (Adele Jergens). When Peggy is pursued by wealthy society man Randy Carroll (Rand Brooks), Mae worries that class differences will doom the relationship and tries to protect her daughter from heartbreak.Read More »

Back to top button