B Role #2: Wichita (Tourneur, 1955)

I look at Jacques Tourneur’s excellent western Wichita for my second “B Role” column at The House Next Door. The film deals with the Earp legend in very interesting ways, one of which is representing his origin story as almost pre-ordained and fated.

B Role #1: Dark Waters (de Toth, 1944)

Some of you already know about the first part of my aforementioned “big news,” but I wanted to share it here at MATCH/CUTS nonetheless.

I’ve been given the green light to write a long form column at the indispensable blog The House Next Door, a bimonthly look at the endlessly mysterious aesthetics, politics, and ideologies of B movies. It’s entitled B Role, and my introduction/debut piece on Andre de Toth’s slithering swamp noir/melodrama Dark Waters went up a few days back.

It’s an exciting pet project based on my own personal process of film discovery, and I can’t wait to find out where it takes me. Special thanks go out to my editors, Ed Gonzalez and Keith Uhlich, for giving me the proper virtual real estate to go crazy.