a review of 倒扣的王牌

2020 Cult Movie Challenge Week 46: Film Noir Week I was led to check this one out by Patton Oswalt's personal filmgoing memoir "Silver Screen Fiend", in which he describes catching this one along with "Sunset Boulevard" on one of his first trips to the New Beverly Cinema in LA. Although I was familiar with Wilder's other work in the noir genre from college film classes, I am ashamed to admit that I'd never really heard anybody talking about this movie. I don't think this one is in quite the same league as "Boulevard" or "Double Indemnity", but I appreciate the Southwest setting and the elaborateness of the plot. There's often a claustrophobic quality to noir, and while this movie certainly has that for the poor guy stuck in the rocks, there's an expansive quality to the rest in terms of watching the whole circus (which becomes literal at one point) swirl into existence around Kirk Douglas's ever-growing line of bullshit. In some ways, this was kind of the perfect movie to watch a couple of weeks past the election that (hopefully?) ended the Trump era.