Read the Book First: Adaptations, Queer Coding, and the Production Code in The Big Clock 

|Reid Lemker| My dad had a rule about film adaptations. He always told my sister and me to “read the book first” when we were kids. These days, I don’t always heed this advice. However, watching John Farrow’s 1948 film The Big Clock, after reading the 1946 Kenneth Fearing novel of the same… Continue reading

High Sierra: The American Crime Film in Transition

|Ryan Sanderson| Rushing Towards Death was the title W.R. Burnett originally wanted for High Sierra, the book that became the movie that made Humphrey Bogart into a movie star (and, more circuitously, John Huston into a director). That first—I would argue more evocative—title came from… Continue reading