Glenn Corbett

Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street

by
Glenn Corbett as private eye Sandy

Directed by Sam Fuller, Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße) is something of an outlier, both for Fuller and for the German TV show Tatort. Tatort, still running after more than 50 years, translates as Crime Scene, and is a Sunday-night landmark on the German TV landscape. It offers feature-length policiers set in various different parts of the German-speaking world and is populated with a huge cast of characters, some who recur and others who don’t. Part of its formula for success is this lack of a rigid formula – it’s highly adaptable. It’s also a proving ground for rising talent. Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot), Edward Berger (Conclave) and … Read more

The Crimson Kimono

by
Sugar performs shortly before dying

The posters are much more direct about what’s going on in The Crimson Kimono than the film itself is. Over a picture of a couple in a clinch they klaxon – “YES, this is a beautiful American girl in the arms of a Japanese boy!”. YES, this is a movie about a transracial relationship! Columbia boss Harry Cohn wasn’t convinced that American audiences would be interested, or happy about, a story about such shenanigans but greenlit the film anyway, undoubtedly influenced by writer/director Sam Fuller’s ability to turn out profitable films quickly and cheaply – this was his second of three in 1959. Perhaps Cohn’s doubts also influenced Fuller’s decision to open his film … Read more