David Fincher's seminal neo-noir thriller SEVEN is now thirty years old. A surprise commercial success and critical hit, this dark, powerful, densely-layered and genuinely scary and challenging thriller proved to be a hugely influential Neo-noir.
And then, there was that box ...
To celebrate, Sergio is joined by Dr Laura Mee, Principal Lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Hertfordshire. She primarily researches horror cinema and adaptation and is the author of two books: Reanimated: The Contemporary American Horror Remake (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and a book on THE SHINING in the Devil's Advocates series (Liverpool University Press, 2017). Dr Mee has written on films including AMERICAN PSYCHO, ROOM 237, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and The Conjuring series.
She is the co-founder and co-convener of the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies' Horror Studies group, a UK network of horror scholars who host regular online events on a wide range of horror topics - you can find more information at baftsshorror.weebly.com. With colleagues Shellie McMurdo and Kate Egan, she is the co-editor of the Hidden Horror Histories book series from Liverpool University Press. (https://liverpooluniversitypress.blog/2023/10/27/hidden-horror-histories-call-for-proposals/)
Dr Laura Mee research profile: https://researchprofiles.herts.ac.uk/en/persons/laura-mee
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18. Mabuse Lives! with David Kalat
Before such monstrous miscreants as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, The Joker, Hannibal Lecter and Bellatrix Lestrange besmirched page and screen, perhaps the greatest supervillain of them all was Dr Mabuse. Hell-bent on world domination, his devilish plans were chronicled in books and movies throughout most of the 20th century. And now he's back in a brand new box set bringing together his six dastardly movie appearance from the 1960s, courtesy of Eureka video in their Masters of Cinema series.
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/mabuse-lives-limited-edition-box-set/
To celebrate I am joined by David Kalat, the world's foremost authority on the mad doctor and his schemes, in a special edition of the podcast spanning some 100 years of movie mayhem.
David Kalat is a film historian and a forensic technologist. He has contributed audio commentaries to the home video editions of numerous classic movies, written extensively for Turner Classic Movies and other publications. In 1997, he founded the independent DVD label All Day Entertainment, to rescue and promote motion pictures whose artistic value, historic importance, and all-around entertainment value merit a second-chance in the commercial marketplace. David Kalat also partners with other media companies such as Eureka, Kino-Lorber, the Criterion Collection, Classic Media, and others to bring the same attention to important films from around the world. He is the author of numerous books on film history, including The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse.
https://www.alldayentertainment.com/publications
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17. Spring break
Our offices will be closed during the Easter period so we can take a small holiday and recharge the little grey cells. But we won't be gone for long and we have lots of special episodes all lined up and ready to go.
To whet your appetite, here are previews from some forthcoming episodes including ones dedicated to boxing movies, Westerns and Noir scepticism, the various versions of BLADE RUNNER (and its sequel, BLADE RUNNER 2049), the radio origins of Orson Welles' MR ARKADIN ... and much more!
Tipping My Fedora will be back on April 27th with an edition featuring Dr Laura Mee, who will be taking a deep dive into David Fincher's 1995 neo-noir classic, SEVEN.
But until then ... take it easy and don't lose your heads down those dark streets of Noir City.
And as Patrick McGoohan used to say, be seeing you!
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16. The Noir books of Jim Thompson, with Jim Noy
Sergio is joined by novelist, blogger and podcaster Jim Noy to enthuse about the work of writer Jim Thompson, the sui generis maestro of 50s and 60's Noir. We explore some of Thompson's major themes, his often psychopathic protagonists and his horrifying and frequently surreal endings - and look in detail at such classic books as The Killers Inside Me, A Hell of a Woman, The Grifters, After Dark, My Sweet and Pop. 1280 (all of which have been filmed)
Jim Thompson's crime fiction bibliography includes the following novels:
Nothing More Than Murder (1949)
The Killer Inside Me (1952)
Cropper's Cabin (1952)
Recoil (1953)
The Alcoholics (1953)
Savage Night (1953)
Bad Boy (1953)
The Criminal (1953)
The Nothing Man (1954)
The Golden Gizmo (1954)
Roughneck (1954)
A Swell-Looking Babe (1954)
A Hell of a Woman (1954)
After Dark, My Sweet (1955)
The Kill-Off (1957)
Wild Town (1957)
The Getaway (1958)
The Transgressors (1961)
The Grifters (1963)
Pop. 1280 (1964)
Jim Noy is a maths supremo and a novelist - he made his debut with The Red Death Murders, which was published during the Covid lockdown and is a highly imaginative whodunit set sometime in the past during the plague imagined by Edgar Allan Poe for his classic story, 'The Masque of Red Death.' It is available in print and e-book editions via Amazon:
www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Death-Murders-Jim-Noy/dp/B09SKY58WV
He also blogs about crime fiction at The Invisible Event:
https://theinvisibleevent.com/.
He also hosts his own podcast, In GAD We Trust: https://theinvisibleevent.com/category/in-gad-we-trust/
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15. DEATH WISH II (1982) and DEATH WISH III (1985), with Simon Brown
Welcome back for the second half of Sergio's conversation with Simon Brown about the Michael Winner / Charles Bronson Death Wish trilogy - today's focus is on the first two sequels, produced by Cannon in the 1980s.
We look at what the sequels added to, and detracted from, this popular cycle of revenge films extending the success of the first and most distinguished entry in the series.
The first part of this podcast can be found at this link: https://tippingmyfedora.podbean.com/e/14-death-wish-1974-with-simon-brown/
Simon Brown, currently lecturing in film at Northumbria University, is an independent scholar who specialises in early film history, horror, adaptation studies and film technology. He is the author of Cecil Hepworth and the Rise of The British Film Industry (University of Exeter Press, 2016) and Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television (University of Texas Press, 2018).
Spoiler warning - we pretty much give away the endings of both the films being discussed.
UK