Those Wonderful People Out There In The Dark

David Jansen
  • 5.0 (9)
  • FILM REVIEWS
  • UPDATED SEMIMONTHLY

Why, in a world crowded with opinions on films, do we need another podcast? I want to go through films that transcend, for me, what you're seeing on the screen and make you feel. Or make you think. Or both. That bring you alive, whether in a movie seat, on a couch, or propped up holding your phone. Every two weeks (or so) I'll be dropping a podcast of my thoughts on those movies, directors and actors which hit me hard emotionally.

  1. The Killers

    12/16/2025

    The Killers

    Send us a text Our Noirvember pod on The Big Sleep had me ooohhhing and aaahhhing about the talent that brought the film to life in front of and behind the camera. As we enter the classic period of noir in America, we’re going to look at a film that has some of the most impactful and prolific noir actors ever assembled, with just as talented a production team as in Sleep. For your holiday enjoyment by the crackling fire, we bring you the noir based on a very short Ernest Hemingway story, 1946’s The Killers from Universal. Historically, we’ve liked to propose that, if you want to introduce a friend to film noir in a short sitting, you’d put them in a comfortable chair, roll Double Indemnity from 1944, allow them to stretch afterwards, perhaps all “go out to the lobby,” then give them a shot of Bob Mitchum playing Bob Mitchum in 1947’s Out Of The Past. But if you wanted to show them a noir that has maximum acting talent at every level, so much so that it seems almost wasteful, you’d have to delight them with a triple feature and run The Killers.  Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    45 min
  2. The Big Sleep

    11/18/2025

    The Big Sleep

    Send us a text Exit Scary Season, hello Noirvember and back to film noir in earnest! We’re leaving behind the subgenre of crazy kids on the run and into more established noir territory --- the private detective story. And do we have a great one for our entrance! Among the first pre-wave of classic film noir released in the US after WWII, it’s 1946’s The Big Sleep. Packed with talent in front of and behind the camera, packed with confusion by one of the hallmark authors of the hard – boiled writing style, packed with intrigue beyond the simple telling of a story --- it’s a signal event of the genre. It’s packed.  It started, as do many of the early noir films, with a master of the pulp magazine story, the estimable Raymond Chandler. Chandler had an extremely round-about path to artistic success. He was a son of the Midwest, born in Chicago and raised in Nebraska, but due to family connections, well educated at Dulwich College in London. He became a British citizen and entered the civil service, which he found stifling. He moved on to newspaper work, had a stop in Canadian military service during WWI, then returned to the US, beginning an executive career in the Southern California oil industry. The Depression put paid to his work there, as well as contributed to his growing alcoholism. Short on funds, Chandler took a flyer and picked up on the paid – by – the – word pulp fiction magazines of the day, his first story in 1933 winning him instant success. He never looked back. He became more ambitious, his slow writing more fitted to novels than paid – by – the – word, publishing his first, The Big Sleep, in 1939.  Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    49 min
  3. Son Of Frankenstein

    10/21/2025

    Son Of Frankenstein

    Send us a text As the last four years, it’s time for our annual salute to Scary Season on the pod --- a little film nosh to whet your appetite for the fun of Halloween ahead. Last season we went down one of the paths of the classic Universal Pictures lineup of horror films, with the foundational Dracula. This season, we’re headed down another path of classics from the golden days of Universal, but the third in the series of this particular horror group. Not the film Frankenstein, not Bride Of Frankenstein, but the third and a nice addition (and the last that made sense) in the trail of the monster created by scientist Henry Frankenstein, the story of his human progeny. It’s Son Of Frankenstein! You knew that was coming next!    Why start with the third in the series? The first two, directed by James Whale, were great and foundational in their own right. But we do dislike Colin Clive chewing the scenery as Henry Frankenstein in the first two films, as well as a thin set of supporting actors. If we’re going to have an actor chewing the scenery, how about Basil Rathbone? Or Bela Lugosi? Also, many scenes in Son are immediately recognizable, as Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder mined so much of the story and characterizations for their inimitable film Young Frankenstein. Sure, the blind man played by legendary Gene Hackman in Young rose from a story line in Bride --- credit where credit is due. But most of the rest is Son. It’s just fun to watch and mark… Okay, that’s settled… Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    1h 1m
  4. Gun Crazy

    09/16/2025

    Gun Crazy

    Send us a text We’re plowing ahead five years from last month’s pod subject but staying in the low – rent, “B” picture roots of film noir, with just a bit more polish, a little more class (because of a slightly larger budget). While last month’s Detour sticks with you, it’s because of its rough edges and the kick-in-the-gut noirness of the fated fall of the protagonist (as well as the hyper – meanness of the femme fatale --- Ann Savage indeed!). This month, we look at a film that has an incredible behind-the-camera crew, a great cast with many nice surprises, but also some tendrils that tie it to Detour --- it’s 1950’s Gun Crazy. The film also ushers in (or joins, depending on your view) the sub – genre of “youngstas on the run” noir, as also exemplified by Nicholas Ray’s 1948 work They Live By Night, 1949’s Knock On Any Door, Tomorrow Is Another Day in 1951, and continuing the sub-genre into neonoir with Badlands and the remake of They Live By Night, Robert Altman’s Thieves Like Us. We’re privileged to see sharp writing, wonderful direction, a fabulous ten – minute bit of direct cinema, fine acting, but an inevitable, aching drive down the tracks to a waiting and remorseless fate. Detour came out of Poverty Row Hollywood --- Gun Crazy was hard on its run – down heels. PRC barely fronted the money for Detour, and the King Brothers, Frank and Maurice, were only slightly more generous in working up Gun Crazy’s budget (courtesy of the aptly named King Brothers Productions --- which we’ll shorten to KBP). This was another Hollywood “B” picture with no delusions of grandeur --- it was going to play on the bottom of the bill or in the sticks. But for the money, KBP floated a film that was packed with talent --- talent admittedly somewhat over a monetary barrel, but talent, nonetheless. What did KBP get for their $400K and thirty days of shooting?  Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    36 min
  5. Detour

    08/19/2025

    Detour

    Send us a text No producer or director of the 40s and 50s set out to make a film noir. They were simply trying to put together a film that would entertain and turn a profit, dammit! During the 40s and early 50s, TV was a non-entity or a new, expensive element in entertainment --- there was no competition for the 25 cents someone spent every week going to the movies. Consequently, the output of Hollywood was prodigious and many films noir, if not viewed through a modern lens, were simply “B” pictures, inexpensive work that was part of a double bill. The genre film noir encompasses many forms of 40s and 50s stories on its shadowed and fatalistic way… Melodramas. Crimers. Caper films. Heist movies. Police procedurals. Bad girl stories. Gangster films. Detective tales. Many of these films were inexpensive and thus, not worthy of notice or subtle categorization. They were “B”s. But some of the original and most impactful of the film noir genre were low-cost films imbued with the imagination, technical aptitude, and drive of their creators to transcend the double bill. They’re a credit to the people who worked to put forward the best story possible, regardless of the constraints of budget. Unsung heroes.  So, we’re going to warm up the new season with a few of the under-funded “B” pictures that stood noir up on its legs and paved the way for more sumptuous, but no more impactful productions. We’re going to start with an orphan of Poverty Row filmmaking, from the fabulous Producers Releasing Corporation, fresh from the war, 1945’s Detour, directed by Edgar Ulmer and with a twosome at the top of the cast who made your hair curl with fatalism and dread. Noir enough for you? The tale begins in 1939 during the heyday of pulp magazines and their oeuvre, with a novel by Martin Goldsmith, titled Detour: An Extraordinary Tale. Indeed…  Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    38 min
  6. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

    06/17/2025

    Invasion Of The Body Snatchers

    Send us a text The A-bomb had contributed to this soft reign of terror. It had also fired a period of excitement and fertility in the neglected field of science fiction. Before WWII, sci-fi in film was widespread, with examples such as Lang’s hallmark Metropolis, Things To Come, the silent 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, The Lost World, and serials populated by Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. The war had shifted the focus, to combat and military films, propaganda, home-front boosterism, and escapism. The war also brought awareness of the application of science to conflict. Atomic power had brought an entirely new set of horrific sci-fi characters --- as embodied by Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau in the film Ed Wood: “Today it’s all giant bugs. Giant spiders, giant grasshoppers...” Increasingly, sci-fi enemies came from the outside, from other worlds loosening tremendous power upon the Earth, or beings from our world mutated and terribly changed by atomic power. Or sometimes, both. Aliens of all types were lurking every week at the Bijou in the 1950s. The Day The Earth Stood Still. The Thing From Another World, The War Of The Worlds. Some of these films were silly, and as characterized by Lugosi/Landau --- giant bugs. Some became classics, despite their pedigree, as in the film Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. The 1956 offering had an unlikely path to greatness, but it’s stood the test of time because of the themes that run through its bones. Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    38 min
  7. 1900

    05/20/2025

    1900

    Send us a text Last month, we waltzed through mid – 19th Century Italy. Today, we jump forward a half – century --- royalty continues its decline, the middle – class and powerful industrial leaders are ascendant in Europe. It’s a new century and the dawn of a new, perhaps golden era. But is it? Where still a force, European royalty is having its last hurrah in controlling lands far beyond their borders through vicious policies of imperialism. A minor Prince in Germany (who calls himself the German language derivation of Caesar) is going to overstep his bounds and plunge Europe and some of the rest of the world into a butcher’s shop of a conflict, known airily as WWI. As a result, the world further shunts royalty into the wastebin of history. But the desire for power, for rule over lands beyond your own borders? That remains. The eyes that lust after it, the hands that seek to grasp it, change from supposedly holy royal hands to an unholy alliance between politicians and industrial and financial might. And the world again sends its military off to slaughter one another.  We saw the seeds of the downfall of royalty during the unification of Italy in Luchino Visconti’s film, The Leopard. This month, we follow two men from very different backgrounds who emerge from a unified Italy. They face the fallout of WWI and the rise of cooperation between autocracy and industrial might that forms fascism. Another decorated Italian director, Bernardo Bertolucci, mounted an ambitious film to follow their path and that of Italy as a five – hour epic, 1900. The film, which debuted in 1976, not only portrayed another turning point for Italy and the world but was a significant change for Bertolucci as he moved away from a scandalous and dark part of his career. But this is just a light story travelling over decades --- nothing to teach the US and the world in 2025… Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    35 min
  8. The Leopard

    04/22/2025

    The Leopard

    Send us a text Visconti has been seen in this season as the director of the searing, accusatory film of the interdependence of the industrial class with the Nazis in Germany, The Damned. But where did this European industrial class arise, when Europe was still saddled with an immense set of royalty that began with kings and queens and spread its fingers into every aspect of the lives in their respective nations or nation-states until almost 1920? How was the transfer of power and wealth from the royals to a burgeoning middle- and then upper-class of technocrats, industrialists and traders brought about? How did this unweighting of the royals and shift in power to common but now wealthy families buckle civil society under the strain? In the 1963 film, The Leopard, Visconti examines the shift in the sand in the quiet, almost dispassionate gaze of a Sicilian nobleman, who sees his royal station being slowly eroded by the forces of politics, but also by the forces of economics, as wealth passes from hands supposedly blessed by a lineage from God into the more clever, adept hands of a new line.  Website and blog: www.thosewonderfulpeople.com IG: @thosewonderfulpeople Twitter: @FilmsInTheDark

    40 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Why, in a world crowded with opinions on films, do we need another podcast? I want to go through films that transcend, for me, what you're seeing on the screen and make you feel. Or make you think. Or both. That bring you alive, whether in a movie seat, on a couch, or propped up holding your phone. Every two weeks (or so) I'll be dropping a podcast of my thoughts on those movies, directors and actors which hit me hard emotionally.

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