Day 18: Favorite Noir MacGuffin - The Maltese Falcon - The ur-MacGuffin. A jeweled statue that’s worthless (to the film) but exposes every character’s soul. #NoirvemberChallenge

Day 17: Favorite Noir Duo - It gets no better than Greenstreet and Lorre! (The Maltese Falcon; Mask of Dimitrios; Three Strangers; The Verdict) #NoirvemberChallenge

COME AND SEE still feels impossible for 1985. It is visually stunning, brutally disorienting, and relentless in showing how political violence devours everything in its path. The recurring plane becomes a warning shot before the next atrocity. A devastating masterpiece. boxd.it/bK93q7

Meanwhile, back in the Cape Fear…

The Great Kidnapping presents a disturbingly contemporary portrait of how democracies respond when fear outpaces faith in their own institutions. Like a grimmer, more bureaucratic cousin to Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW, it turns a kidnapping into an X-ray of a society under strain. boxd.it/bJQIBn

Pair Kurosawa’s High and Low with the 1973 Italian poliziotteschi The Great Kidnapping. Two kidnapping stories, two national crises: Japan’s moral chess match vs Italy’s spiraling chaos. One is meticulous and moral; the other is furious and bleak. Killer double bill. #NoirAlley #TCMParty

Day 16. Lesser-known film noir everyone should see: PLUNDER ROAD (1957) A lean, rain-soaked heist noir about a gold robbery gone wrong. The gold is hidden in a unique way for the getaway, leading to a quietly tense getaway and a perfect noir ending. A true under-the-radar gem. #NoirvemberChallenge

Slap the Monster on Page One suggests that media manipulation, political opportunism, and public cynicism aren’t uniquely modern problems. They’re historical habits. And if Bellocchio’s polluted water imagery tells us anything, it’s that ignoring the stench only makes it stronger. boxd.it/bJbZ81

Love this touch in The Setup (1949) when Robert Ryan looks up during a 10-count to see an advertisement for a vitality tonic on the wall. The burden of middle age is real, man. #TCMParty #Noirvember #filmnoir

Meanwhile, back in the Cape Fear…

Between this and Blue Moon, Linklater is absolutely crushing it this year. Two films that show a master in full command of tone, style, and pure movie love. boxd.it/bIwTol

15 - Film noir character you’d trust the least with your secrets: Marney in OUT OF THE PAST. She can smell burning’ hamburger and romance inside 100 feet and will tell anyone who asks (and likely even those who don’t). #NoirvemberChallenge

#LastFourWatched #LetterboxdFriday

14 - The Mt Rushmore of Film Noir - Bogart, Stanwyck, Mitchum, and John Alton #NoirvemberChallenge #Noirvember

12 - Favorite low-budget B film noir: Made for around $230,000, THE NARROW MARGIN (1952) is a lean, 71-minute thriller that turns a cramped train car into a pressure cooker of suspicion and danger. It’s fast, cheap, and mean, just the way good noir ought to be. #NoirvemberChallenge #Noirvember

Decked the halls for #Noirvember

If they can light the Christmas tree in downtown Racine, then it’s time to flip the switch!

12: Sexiest Film Noir - Pale Flower is sexy because it turns danger itself into seduction. Shinoda’s makes every frame pulse with quiet allure and restraint. Two people circle the void, aroused not by each other, but by the possibility of annihilation. #NoirvemberChallenge

11 - Favorite Bar Scene in Film Noir - The Phantom Lady (1944): proof that no bartender, drummer, or man in a loud tie is safe from Ella Raines’ doggedness. Runner-up to Johnny O’Clock (1947) for the line: “I choked on a piece of Scotch.” #NoirvemberChallenge #FilmNoir #Noirvember

Similar sentiment briefly trying to listen to Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. #TCMParty

Gets me every time. #TCMParty

10 - Favorite Gloria Grahame Film Noir - In a Lonely Place is her masterpiece, but The Big Heat is my favorite. Coffee and revenge are both served hot. Glenn Ford brings the fire, but Gloria Grahame is the heat. #NoirvemberChallenge #Noirvmeber #filmnoir

Some serious winter weather to remember the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald today.

Everything old is apparently new again. When fear becomes policy, freedom is the first casualty. boxd.it/bFfv8R

“What’s your game, Goldilocks?” is the best growl in this picture. A gun shot wound described as a .45-caliber toothache is also perfection. #NoirAlley #Noirvember #TCMParty

The setup for many a good film noir. #Noirvember #NoirAlley

Day 9 - Favorite Dan Duryea film noir - Duryea is at his slickest and deadliest in CRISS CROSS (1949). The film is a perfect storm of obsession, betrayal, and moral compromise, with Duryea’s performance at the eye of it. #NoirvemberChallenge #filmnoir

A blistering meditation on how violence seeps into the fabric of memory, how camaraderie curdles into paranoia, and how mistaking cruelty for control leads to inevitable tragedy. boxd.it/bEl1St

The stuff Saturday mornings of doing nothing after two weeks on the road are made of. #TCMParty

The alley near Bush and Stockton where Miles Archer met his end. #TCMParty #filmnoir

Day 8: Favorite line in a film noir Jeff Bailey’s answer to Kathie Moffat’s question about whether there is a way to win. It’s the essence of noir, poetry of defeat, and elegy of inevitable loss all in one. Honorable mention: Prewitt in BRIGHTON ROCK (1948) #filmnoir #NoirvemberChallenge

Francesco Rosi’s Hands Over the City (1963) offers a blistering portrait of postwar corruption and urban decay. Politics, profit, and concrete intertwine as Naples is reshaped by greed. A sharp dissection of how cities get built and who gets buried in the process. boxd.it/bDvVnH

Made it back to Chicago. The game is still afoot! Lots of missed connections on my flight though.

Sundance the therapy dog is on the case at the airport today. It’s on!

Favorite film noir dream sequences - In ODD MAN OUT (1947), Carol Reed and James Mason give us haunting dream images at the intersection of German Expressionism and Catholic guilt. #NoirvemberChallenge

Working on my backup plan if I can’t fly out to Wisconsin tomorrow.

I assume this is the 7 in 6-7.