Hello!

Well knock me down. I got a really nice surprise Saturday night, on TCM’s Noir Alley show. In his introduction for the 1946 Monogram noir Decoy, the dapper Eddie Muller paid me an unexpected compliment. After explaining Decoy’s status as an entirely off-the-wall noir oddity — its plot includes some preposterous fantasy science — Eddie chose to finish his remarks with a quote from my old DVD review.

Who can argue with such generosity? — when Eddie Muller reads it, any quote becomes clever. Writing not only helps me stay sane, it has occasional pleasant rewards.

I really wish Warners would restore their copy of Decoy, as it’s missing an outrageous bit of violence that was in the print we all but died laughing with at Noir City back around 2003. I explain in the review. If they can recall a disc to fix a missing shot in The Cyclops, why not this entertaining film noir?

Joe Dante circulated this link yesterday: CBS Morning’s nifty video piece on ‘the last of the great movie poster artists, Renato Casaro.

Well into his ‘eighties, Casaro’s career was re-ignited by a phone call from Quentin Tarantino, for whom Casaro whipped up a series of fabulous spaghetti western posters starring ‘Rick Dalton’ for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson