Tipping My Fedora – Details, episodes & analysis

It's time to buckle up your trenchcoat and don your fedora. Join host Sergio Angelini and his guests every 10 days as they uncover the secrets behind 100 years of crime movies, radio dramas, hardboiled fiction and thousands of television episodes.

Launching on 4 October 2024 ...

For the first episode of Tipping My Fedora (TMF), Sergio is joined by crime fiction critic and historian, Barry Forshaw (www.barryforshaw.co.uk). They look at a selection of some of the home video releases on which Barry has worked, spanning 25 years of Film Noir. 

Titles discussed, include:

• This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942) starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd. Available on Blu-ray from Eureka
• Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949) featuring Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo and Dan Duryea. Available on Blu-ray from Eureka
• Private Hell 36 (Don Siegel, 1954) starring Ida Lupino (who also produced), Howard Duff and Steve Cochrane. Available on Blu-ray from Imprint
• The Scarface Mob (Phil Karlson, 1959/62) - the film that launched The Untouchables with Robert Stack. Available on Blu-ray from Arrow (US)
• Lady in a Cage (Walter Grauman, 1964) - a shocker in which rich invalid Olivia de Havilland gets stuck in an elevator and James Caan torments her. Available on Blu-ray from Imprint
• Madigan (Don Siegel, 1968) in which Richard Widmark's eponymous cop gets unglued when he meets his big boss, Henry Fonda. Available on Blu-ray from Indicator

We also discuss the politically incorrect 'Parker' novels by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake), the fascism of Dirty Harry and Coppola's Godfather trilogy and the charges of "nepo baby" casting that affected the final instalment. 

Barry is the editor of the Crime Time online journal and his books include: Crime Fiction: A Reader's Guide, Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films, and his series on Noir, including: Brit Noir, American Noir, Euro Noir, Nordic Noir and Historical Noir (click here for further details).

** Listen out for an easter egg in which we refer in passing to a film that we will be discussing in the podcast dropping on 18 November. 

Sergio chats to James Harrison, co-founder of Film Noir UK and director of its first festival, Film Noir Fest 2024. The event will take place in Weston-Super-Mare from 1 to 3 November and this year's theme is Dangerous Divas.

We preview some of the main screenings, which include:

Lee Marvin Centenary

• The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)
• Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)

Lauren Bacall Centenary

• To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks, 1944)
• The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)
• Dark Passage (Delmer Daves, 1947)
• Key Largo (John Huston, 1948)​

1950s Mexican Noir

• Aventurera (Adventuress) (1950) starring Ninón Sevilla
• Víctimas del Pecado (Victims of Sin) (Emilio Fernández, 1951) starring Ninón Sevilla
• El Bruto (The Brute) (Luis Buñuel, 1953)​ starring Katy Jurado
• Llévame en tus Brazos (Take Me in Your Arms) (1954) starring Ninón Sevilla

Dangerous Divas

• Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) starring Barbara Stanwyck
• Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945) starring Joan Bennett
• ​Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946) starring Rita Hayworth
• ​Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) starring Jane Greer
• ​Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Baker, 1952) starring Marilyn Monroe
• Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954) starring Gloria Grahame
• ​Body Heat (1981) starring Kathleen Turner
• The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994) starring Linda Fiorentino

We also touch on the new animated series, Batman: Caped Crusader, Robert Zemeckis' Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Sergio reminisces about the LaserDisc format. 

For full details about the festival and tickets, visit the homepage of Film Noir UK.  

Today we explore the late William Friedkin's 1985 dark and dazzling neo-noir, To Live and Die in LA, which stars William L. Peterson, Willem Dafoe and John Pankow, features stunning cinematography by Robby Müller and a killer soundtrack by British new wave band, Wang Chung. 

My special guest is writer and filmmaker Liam Dunn, who is also co-host of Sci-Frights, the film discussion podcast from the interzone where horror meets sci-fi.

https://rss.com/podcasts/scifrights/

He is currently the co-programmer of the community cinema project the Distorted Frame Film Club in London, which conducts regular screenings of films which celebrate the unique qualities, flaws and possibilities of the digital camera. Their next event will be a screening of the 2007 film [REC] on Tuesday 29 October at The Castle Cinema, Clapton / @thecastlecinema

Distorted Frama Film Club

distortedframefilmclub@gmail.com

For more information about Gerald Petievich, ex US Secret Service agent, co-screenwriter and author of the original novel on which the film is based, visit his homepage at: https://petievich.com/

In the UK the films is available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video: https://www.arrowfilms.com/

We celebrate Halloween with a close look at Kathryn Bigelow's classic noir-western-horror hybrid, Near Dark. 

My very special guest is Stacey Abbott, Professor of Film at Northumbria University, where she is a member of their Horror Studies Research Group. Her research focuses on horror and cult film and television, with a particular interest in vampire and zombies.

She is the author of Celluloid Vampires (2007), Undead Apocalypse (2016) and the BFI Film Classic on Near Dark (2020). She is the co-author of TV Horror (2013) and the co-editor of Global TV Horror (2021), both with Professor Lorna Jowett.

She regularly writes essays to accompany DVD and Blu-ray releases, including Second Sight’s Ginger Snaps, Possessor and Blair Witch Project, as well as Eureka’s Tank Girl and The Secret of NIMH. 

She is currently writing a book on Horror Animation.

Publication details:

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/near-dark-9781911239277/

Angel (TV Milestones) by Stacey Abbott: https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9780814333198

Celluloid Vampires by Stacey Abbott: https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292716964/

Global TV Horror edited by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett: www.uwp.co.uk/book/global-tv-horror/

TV Horror edited by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/tv-horror-9781848856189/

Undead Apocalypse by Stacey Abbott: https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/19174?login=false

Sergio is joined by author and critic Mike Ripley to look at a tale of two tigers, or rather, two versions of The Tiger in the Smoke: the original 1952 novel by Margery Allingham, featuring her sleuth Albert Campion; and its film noir adaptation from 1956 that, despite being mostly very faithful, chose to completely eliminate her recurring protagonist. 

We also look at the BBC TV series Campion (1989-1990), based on Allingham's novels and starring Peter Davison in the title role (and Mike's "controversial" contribution to that show), which is currently available to view in the UK on BBC iPlayer: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0hqd8lh/campion

In addition, Mike tells us about his Campion continuation novels, authorised by the Allingham estate, to coincide with the release of his twelfth book in the series, Mr Campion's Christmas. 

Here are the details of Mike Ripley's series of Campion continuation novels, all published by Severn House: https://severnhouse.com/

1. Mr. Campion's Farewell (after P. Youngman Carter) (2014)
2. Mr. Campion's Fox (2015)
3. Mr. Campion's Fault (2016)
4. Mr. Campion's Abdication (2017)
5. Mr. Campion's War (2018)
6. Mr. Campion's Visit (2019)
7. Mr. Campion's Seance (2020)
8. Mr. Campion's Coven (2021)
9. Mr. Campion's Wings (2021)
10. Mr. Campion's Mosaic (2022)
11. Mr. Campion's Memory (2023)
12. Mr. Campion's Christmas (2024)

Sergio is joined by film and music expert John Leman Riley to provide an overview of some of the film scores written for Film Noir in the classic 1941 to 1959 period.

The films explored in this podcast include:

• THE MALTESE FALCON (John Huston, 1941) - music by Adolph Deutsch
• THE BIG SLEEP (Howard Hawks, 1946) - music by Max Steiner
• SUNSET BOULEVARD (Billy Wilder, 1950) - music by Franz Waxman
• A PLACE IN THE SUN (George Stevens, 1951) - music by Franz Waxman
• ON DANGEROUS GROUND (Nicholas Ray, 1951) - music by Bernard Herrmann
• THE BIG COMBO (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955) - music by David Raksin
• ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW (Robert Wise, 1959) - music by John Lewis

John’s career has embraced photography, librarianship, archiving, teaching and lecturing, academic writing and editing, as well as journalism, reviewing, exhibition catalogues, CD and DVD notes and the like. Often focusing on film and film music, classical music, and Eastern European culture, he has been published by Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh University Presses, Routledge, Greenwood, BFI, Rough Guides and others.

Highlights include Dmitri Shostakovich: a Life in Film (Tauris), Discover Film Music (Naxos) for which he curated two accompanying CDs of excerpts, Sound at the Film Society, (“The Sound of the Silents in Britain”, OUP), Keeping the Icons on the Wall: Shostakovich’s Cinema and Concert Music (“Dmitrij Šostakovič tra Musica, Letteratura e Cinema”, Leo S Olschki), Soviet Cinema: Between Art and Propaganda (Cité de la Musique, Paris, and Caja Madrid), Stalin (and Lenin) at the Movies (“Contemplating Shostakovich: Life Music and Film”, Ashgate), and Live Cinema: Silent Film, Orchestral Accompaniment and the Special Event (“Archival Film Festivals”, Edinburgh UP).

He regularly writes for and is Reviews Editor of the DSCH Journal (www.dschjournal.com) and was the English Language editor for Apparatus Journal (https://www.apparatusjournal.net/index.php/apparatus).

In From the Woods to the Cosmos, on the Severin BluRay release of Viy, he discusses Russian and Soviet horror and sci-fi cinema.

Commissioned by the South Bank Centre, he wrote, produced and directed Shostakovich: My Life in Film, telling the story of the composer’s film career with an orchestra playing the scores to film clips. Shostakovich was played by Simon Russell-Beale in London and, at the Komische Oper, Berlin, by Ulrich Matthes (Goebbels in Der Untergang).

He writes at https://johnlemanriley.substack.com/

Sergio previews the UK Blu-ray release of the 1954 drama Black Tuesday, which is being released today by Eureka in their Masters of Cinema series. 

He is joined by Barry Forshaw, Craig Ian Mann and Sheldon Hall - who all provided new extras for this release - and together they explore the contributions of stars Edward G. Robinson, Peter Graves and Jean Parker, director Hugo Fregonese, writer Sydney Boehm and cinematographer Stanley Cortez.

Here are the full details of the Blu-ray extras:

• A new audio commentary with film noir expert Sergio Angelini, host of the Tipping My Fedora podcast
• From Argentina to Hollywood – a new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on director Hugo Fregonese
• No Escape – A brand new video essay by Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City
• A new video interview with Ehsan Khoshbakht, critic and co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato 
• Theatrical trailer
• A collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Black Tuesday by critic Barry Forshaw and film writer Craig Ian Mann
• Limited edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Scott Saslow

https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/black-tuesday/ 

The latest books by this episode's guests include:

Barry Forshaw: Simenon: The Man, The Books, The Films: www.oldcastlebooks.co.uk/bookpage.php?isbn=9780857304162

Sheldon Hall: Armchair Cinema: A History of feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-armchair-cinema.html

To receive a 30% discount on Sheldon Hall's new book, enter the code NEW30 at the checkout. 

Craig Ian Mann: Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Wewolf Film: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-phases-of-the-moon.html

A look back at Kenneth Branagh's box office hit, Dead Again (1991), a highly imaginative valentine to classic Film Noir co-starring Emma Thompson and Andy Garcia that daringly combines a murder mystery with the supernatural. 

Sergio is joined by writer and actor, Nick Cardillo. A lifelong fan of mystery and detective fiction, Nick is the author of several Sherlock Holmes pastiches for MX Publishing and Belanger Books. These were collected in The Feats of Sherlock Holmes (2018) and The Improbable Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (2021).

He is the author of “The Devil’s Book,” published in The Novellas of Solar Pons; the first collection of longer stories based on August Derleth’s pulp detective to be authorized by the Derleth Estate.

When he’s not writing, Nick is an actor in the Philadelphia region and has been involved in productions of such diverse playwrights as William Shakespeare, Terrence McNally, Paula Vogel, and, of course, Agatha Christie. Nick is currently at work on his first novel.

Find out more on his website, nickcardillocreative.com

To celebrate what would have been the 131st birthday of Hollywood icon Edward G. Robinson, Sergio is joined by Craig Ian Mann to provide an overview of the many gangster roles he played during his career, examining how they transitioned from Depression-era tragedies of men who took the wrong path to fame and fortune to Noir-era sociopaths of the 40s and 50s who no longer have a place in society.

Films discussed include:

• Little Caesar (1931)
• Bullets or Ballots (1936)
• The Last Gangster (1937)
• I am the Law (1938)
• Night has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
• Key Largo (1948)
• Black Tuesday (1954)

Craig is a film historian, freelance writer and home video producer who works closely with Eureka Entertainment and their Masters of Cinema series.

He is the author of Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film, published by Edinburgh University Press in 2020, and has written for the BFI, Eureka, Second Sight Films, Indicator and Arrow Video amongst others.

His latest writing appears in the Second Sight releases of The Hitcher and The Blair Witch Project and Eureka's Masters of Cinema edition of Hugo Fregonese’s Black Tuesday, previously previewed here at Fedora. Forthcoming is Mabuse Lives! - a set bringing together six of the Mabuse crime films made in Germany in the 1960s. For further details, visit: https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/mabuse-lives-limited-edition-box-set/