Thank God Fritz Lang's Excellent The Big Heat Managed To Somehow Get Past Hayes Code Censors

Film noirs were one of the rare relatively high-profile Hollywood genres that could get away with a certain amount of moral ambiguity in the Hayes Code era of filmmaking, though even a number of film noirs had to concede to Hayes Code restrictions in the name of "protecting the sanctity of the family". Watching The Big Heat, it's a wonder this film made it past the Hayes Code censors, especially since The Big Heat takes a gigantic agitated sledgehammer to the institutions of law & order that the Hayes Code was so keen on upholding. The Big Heat is an utter nightmare for anyone devoted to what the Hayes Code stood for but it's a dream come true for everybody else just looking for some good cinema to enjoy.

Julie & Julia Offers Up Two Pleasant True Stories For The Price of One

The saddest part of watching Julie & Julia in 2019 is that it feels as foreign from modern American cinema as 1953's The Big Heat (another movie I watched for the first time yesterday). Can one even imagine the current version of Sony/Columbia, whose present-day slate features Peter Rabbit, Men in Black International and a Morbius the Living Vampire movie, spending $40 million on a delightful mid-budget movie like this? Julie & Julia was mighty profitable in its initial theatrical release and scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination, but if they tried to make it today, well, they'd have to make it as an eight-episode Netflix miniseries, there's just no room in the modern American marketplace for movies that aren't made for under $10 million or over $250 million.