William Friedken does a wonderfull audio commentary on this movie and explains a lot about the whole Film Noir genre Loads of stuff you probably never even realised He's a big fan of this movie no wonder he made such great movies himself learning from classics like this I think this an essential DVD to buy
shareIt's a good movie, but Friedkin's commentary barely touched on the movie itself, and when it did, Friedkin was either just summarizing anyone watching the movie could see for himself or contradicting what was in the movie; Brown shows that he's at least tempted by the bribe when he crosses out the name of the assassin who offered it to him from the telegram he sends. I didn't find Friedkin's commentary particularly insightful.
Plus, Charles McGraw died in 1980. No way was he on "Star Trek: Voyager."
"How's that for Japanese efficiency?"
I thought Friedkin's commentary was the best I ever heard, especially as he has a reputation of being arrogant and abrasive. He expressed his love for this film; It was a real treat. Often, commentaries are professorial, going into the history too deeply. I like to experience commentary as if you were watching the movie with someone who is well-informed about the picture. Friedkin fit the bill.
"Two more swords and I'll be Queen of the Monkey People." Roseanne
I agree, it's not very good. It's all he wants to talk about, but ironically Friedkin just doesn't seem to know much about film noir. He either repeats meaningless descriptions like "film noir literally means dark film" or broadens the genre to the point of meaninglessness. Edgar Allan Poe didn't "write" film noir, he wrote detective fiction, which is a precursor of film noir. Yes, Raymond Chandler's work is identified with film noir, but The Narrow Margin is not really similar to it. Tell us something interesting about this movie, not just vague descriptions of the genre at large. And as the other poster said, he often just gets things comically wrong. "These films [film noir] generally begin in the daylight and end in the deep dark of the soul." Except this one, I guess, which begins at night and ends in full morning daylight? I'll remember never to watch a movie with Friedkin too; he just randomly tells us things that are going to happen later in the film or even later in a scene. Why? Just wait til we see it, then talk about it.
I gave it a shot, but I turned it off after 20 minutes. Good movie, though.
Friedkin brings out the camera work quite well, and is clearly engaged by the film, but he talks about his own films too much, and he doesn't really seem to know the story for someone who watched the film a lot as he claims.
shareIt's a nice addition to a very good movie, especially for his fans and those who only begin to get acquainted with film noir. There's not much you can learn from it otherwise. But it's not just Friedkin's commentary, there are also comments from Fleischer himself.
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