Special Guests: Peggy Rajski, Barbara De Fina Guest Co-Hosts: Jedidiah Ayres, Andrew Nette
Noirvember 2024 ends with a bang as we delve into Stephen Frears's electrifying neo-noir The Grifters (1990). Adapted from Jim Thompson’s novel by screenwriter Donald Westlakd, this razor-sharp film stars Angelica Huston as Lily Dillon, a veteran con artist manipulating the odds at the racetrack. Her uneasy reunion with estranged son Roy (John Cusack) and his cunning girlfriend Myra (Annette Bening) sparks a volatile triangle of deception and betrayal in the high-stakes world of grifting.
Mike is joined by crime fiction experts Andrew Nette and Jedidiah Ayres to untangle this web of cons and double-crosses. Plus, executive producer Barbara De Fina and producer Peggy Rajski reveal what it took to bring this stylish, unsettling tale to life.
#Noirvember2018 kicks off with the 1972 film from director Sam Peckinpah, The Getaway. Based on the novel by
Jim Thompson and adapted by Walter Hill, the film stars Steve McQueen as Doc McCoy and Ali MacGraw as Carol McCoy, two young lovers with nothing better to do than rob a bank with the duplicitous Rudy Butler (Al Lettieri) and the barely-a-character Jack Dodson (Bo Hopkins). Let’s just say that things don’t go as well as they should.
On this special episode, Mike talks with director Steven Shainberg about his career from The Big Hit (1996) to Secretary (2002), to Fur (2006) to his latest, Rupture (2016) starring
Noomi Rapace,
Michael Chiklis, and
Peter Stormare
Links:
Buy Rupture on streaming video
Listen to our episode on Secretary
Special Guests: James Foley & Robert Redlin Guest Co-Host: Robert Polito
Based on a novel by hardboiled scribe Jim Thompson, James Foley's After Dark My Sweet is a neo-noir from 1990 starring Jason Patric, Bruce Dern, and Rachel Ward. The film tells the tale of Kevin "Kid" Collins, a punchdrunk palooka who falls in with a kidnapping scheme.
We're joined by Professor Robert Polito, author of the definitive Jim Thompson biography, Savage Art.