It’s Valentine’s Day, folks. You can celebrate it, you can refuse to celebrate it, you can ignore it, you can be tired with all the suggestions that you do something about it, whatever. Here at CrimeReads, we’re taking this holiday as an opportunity to reflect on the sappier side of the grit, filth, and death we normally embrace. Enjoy this brief assemblage of movies which are VERY MUCH serious, dramatic crime stories, but which are also beautiful, very healthy, totally normal, and not sad or terrifying love stories. There are lots more in existence, but you only have 24 hours, so we’ll keep it fairly short. Happy Valentine’s Day—here’s hoping it doesn’t kill you. Or us.
They Live By Night, dir. Nicholas Ray (1948)
Escaped and wounded convict Bowie (Farley Granger) falls in love with a beautiful nurse despite the fact that her name is “Keechie” (Cathy O’Donnell), when she heals him. Soon, they begin a lovely relationship. But nothing’s ever that easy, is it? No, it is not.
Queen & Slim, dir. Melina Matsoukas (2019)
Two young people (Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya, respectively) go on a wonderful first date, which then goes horribly wrong when they are pulled over by an unscrupulous policeman. The incident unfortunately escalates, leading to Slim’s shooting the policeman in self-defense. But after this ill-fated moment, the two know what lies ahead for them (Queen is a lawyer), so they go on the run together. But as they are chased down, a video of their encounter goes viral, turning them into national symbols for black rights. Written by by Lena Waithe, Queen & Slim, with its deep social importance, is the only movie on this listicle I’m not going to joke about.
Breathless, dir. Jean-Luc Godard (1969)
A paragon of the French New Wave, this debut film from Jean-Luc Godard is about a small-time car-jacker named Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo). He winds up murdering a policeman and going on the run, where he bumps into his old flame, beautiful American journalism student Patricia (Jean Seberg, who looks, for the whole movie, like she’s just in a cool Gap ad campaign—lots of stripes and cropped straight-leg pants) and tries to get her to go on the lam with him.
The Big Sleep, dir. Howard Hawks (1946)
PI Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired by the wealthy Sternwood family to find out who is blackmailing the youngest daughter, Carmen. But perhaps more interesting than the case is the Sternwoods’ older daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall), who has lots of secrets up her elegant blazer-sleeves.
Out of Sight, dir. Stephen Soderbergh (1998)
Pro bank robber Jack Foley (PEAK George Cloony) breaks out of jail, and has to stay one step ahead of the US Marshall hot on the chase, and with whom he has incredible sexual chemistry (J-Lo, and I’d add “PEAK” but there has never been anything but).
The Postman Always Rings Twice, dir. Tay Garnett (1946)
Based on the novel by James M. Cain, it’s the story of the immoral drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) and the unhappily-married Cora Smith (Lana Turner), who fall in love and conspire to murder Cora’s inconvenient husband. It’s the shortest book in the world, but it’s a surprisingly long movie for the ’40s. Don’t watch the remake.
Rebel Without a Cause, dir. Nicholas Rey (1955)
Troubled and rebellious teenager Jim Stark (James Dean) moves into a new town (it’s Los Angeles), where he meets many other troubled and rebellious teenagers, including Judy (Natalie Wood) and “Plato” Crawford (Sal Mineo). Like all high school movies, things do not go well.
Laura, dir. Otto Preminger (1944)
This movie starts out with a fun plot twist: it’s about a police detective (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with a woman (Gene Tierney) while he begins investigating her murder. HOW is this going to work out?
The Honeymoon Killers, dir. Leonard Kastle (1970)
This movie might be just as stressful for its stereotypes as its murders (except that it is based on real events, so the murders ARE stressful?), but it’s about a middle-aged woman named Martha Hunt (Sirkey Stoler) so desperate for love she is happy to stay with Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), a guy she meets in a lonely hearts correspondence program who turns out to be a con artist who seduces lonely women. Which is fine, because, as it turns out, she’s a homicidal maniac???
The Town, dir. Ben Affleck (2010)
Welcome to the list, Boston. Veteran bank robber Doug MacRay (Ben) is planning his next heist while also trying to date a bank manager (Rebecca Hall) he kidnapped, incognito, during his last heist, and whom he seriously traumatized in the process. Other things to worry about: his genuinely-evil, lose-cannon partner (Jeremy Renner), and the FBI agent (Jon Hamm) hot on his trail.
Chinatown, dir. Roman Polanski (1974)
I think everybody reading this website knows what this movie’s about, but here goes: PI Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired to spy on a man at the behest of his wife (Faye Dunaway), who suspects he’s cheating on her. But it’s not long before he’s *flooded* with impossible clues, met with a stream of dead ends, and is knee-deep in a mystery which pools much larger than he could have ever predicted. (Get it?)
Double Indemnity, dir. Billy Wilder (1944)
Staid insurance representative Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) falls in love with Phyllis Nirdlinger (Barbara Stanwyck), in spite of her name, and conspires with her to get rid of her husband, but also, to commit insurance fraud.
Entrapment, dir. Jon Amiel (1999)
Don’t let this movie’s gross age difference scare you away. It’s about an insurance investigator named Gin (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who has to ingratiate herself into the company of a older art thief named Mac (Sean Connery) following the mysterious theft of a valuable piece of art. As they grow closer to a giant score and more attracted to one another (ew), things seem to be going pretty well. Only, “who” (to paraphrase the IMDB summary) “is playing whom?”
Elevator to the Gallows, dir. Louis Malle (1958)
Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet) is having an affair with his boss’s wife Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau), and they conspire to kill him. While Florence waits for him in a cafe, Julien sneaks back into their office building at closing time to do the deed and succeeds—but gets stuck in an elevator on the way back down. I know. I KNOW.
Raising Arizona, dir. Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen (1987)
Here’s your bonus comedy that’s barely a comedy. Petty thief H.I. (Nicolas Cage) and his police officer wife Ed (Holly Hunter) can’t have a child of their own, so they steal one of the quintuplets recently born to a local retail tycoon. This movie is very much a madcap farce, but it’s also really damn grim so it’s going on this list.
