OFFICIAL SITE OF AUTHOR MICHAEL RICKARD

William Friedkins's To Live and Die in L.A., a terrific thriller film, but does it qualify as film noir? Join me for part three of this...

Another noir element used in L.A. is the use of shadow. The film uses shadow and light to create a dual image on several characters’...

William Friedkin’s 1985 film To Live and Die in L.A. is not only a terrific crime film but a true neo-noir film. The film contains noir...

Peter Lorre does an excellent job of portraying Joel Cairo. In Chapter Four of The Maltese Falcon, Hammett describes Cairo as "…a...

The film The Maltese Falcon is a close adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel. This should come as no surprise given the film's...

Originally presented at Canadian Bulldog's World. When you think about it, there really haven’t been a lot of films about professional...

The costume film is another example of how a film’s characteristics define its genre. Graves and Engle list a costume film’s...

Science fiction and fantasy films have individual defining characteristics but they also have characteristics that overlap between them....

Check out the spring 2017 issue of Jack Lord's Hair. This issue, we celebrate the 45th anniversary of Marvel Comics' Tomb of Dracula...

To the casual filmgoer, the musical may seem like any film that has songs but the musical is a genre with many subgenres derived from...

While mad scientists may seem to create monsters and potions with ease, filmmakers may find there is no easy formula for a good horror...

The genre of the “woman’s film” is arguably the most problematic one discussed in Graves and Engle’s book Blockbusters: A Reference Guide...

After decades of success, the epic faded in popularity to the point that it rarely appeared in the 1970’s and 1980’s. When it did appear,...

While defining comedy can be difficult, Gerald Mast’s chapter “The Comic Mind” provides a structural guide to analyzing comedic works by...

Hitchcock also uses photographic images to show symbols related to the film’s themes. Many of them are Jeff’s photographic tools such as...

“Murder” was written by Cornell Woolrich, a noted author of hard-boiled fiction. Woolrich was considered a peer of hard-boiled writers...

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is a masterfully worked cinematic adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s short story “It Had to Be Murder”...

Originally presented in Fall 2015 edition of Jack Lord's Hair. Michael J. Pollard's performance as C.W. Moss really wowed me. He does a...

Adapting a play into a feature film presents challenges for filmmakers including how to expand the spatial limitations of the stage,...

The Winter 2016 edition of my web magazine Jack Lord's Hair is now online, continuing a look back at the 50th year anniversary of Gene...