Angela Lansbury

What makes The Manchurian Candidate such a great film is that its themes are conceivable still today, and the formal execution of this paranoid thriller is itself remarkably modern.

There is a recurring motif in film noir, as several astute aficionados have undoubtedly discerned. If a protagonist stumbles upon a beautiful woman that encourages him into signing a lucrative business proposal requiring an important life insurance clause, then said protagonist should back off and run for his life, but of course he will not.

Those familiar with Billy Wilder’s iconic noir Double Indemnity may find the opening minutes of directorPlease-Murder-Me-1 Peter Godfrey’s Please Murder Me a bit too similar. In the annals of film history, more than once have filmmakers tapped into previous works to put their own stamp on the material. As of the picture’s subsequent scene, most of the similarities end however.

It is by complete surprise that I ended up with a copy of this movie. There I was, walking the aisles of my virtual movie store, looking for ‘The Empire of the Wolves’ when my clumsy fingers stumbled and clicked on Neil Jordan’s (The Crying Game, In Dreams, Breakfast on Pluto) film instead. The result? …