Columbia is releasing Film Noir Vol. 1 Nov. 3, 2009. Included:
5 Against the House
Murder by Contract
The Lineup
The Sniper
The Big Heat.
Vol. 2 is now being released July 6, 2010:
Pushover
Nightfall
The Brothers Rico
City of Fear
Human Desire.
Box sets only, SRP $59.99 each.
I found 5 Against the House to be wildly entertaining.
Siegel's The Lineup is pretty fantastic.
Murder by Contract seemed more pedestrian, but still fine.
I could sell you Vol. 1 for cheap.
The hit men in The Lineup were allegedly the prototypes for the Samuel L. Jackson/John Travolta duo in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
The release date for Vol. II has been delayed.
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Really? Because the title sure invokes The Usual Suspects.
You know I kinda liked the Wrigley Field bit.
The Lineup was a TV police series. In 1958 Columbia made it into this theatrical feature (mostly with a different cast), which allowed them to be more graphic and violent than they could be on television. (A number of other 50s TV shows and plays were turned into movies during that decade, including the era's most famous cop show, Dragnet.)
The title may vaguely invoke The Usual Suspects but it has no connection with or similarity to that film, and originated in a different medium. The film's only relevance here is that the hitmen purportedly served as Tarantino's inspiration for Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction, but even here the likeness is modest.
Some people have claimed a link between 5 Against the House and Ocean's 11, and there are certainly strong similarities, but I never heard that it directly served as a model for the more famous film five years later, though this is certainly possible.
I'm watching this set now. So far "5 Against the House" is the weakest of the bunch, although I have yet to watch "Murder by Contract."
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