Over at Ed Gorman’s blog, there’s a fantastic set of detective-related lists. Dick Lochte, the President of the Private Eye Writers of America, has compiled three lists of “Essentials”: Top 20 Private Eye Novels, Top 20 Private Eye Movies and Top 20 Tv Private Eyes! Naturally, my eyes immediately went to the list of movies. Here are Dick’s choices (and I’ve linked each title to its imdb page so you can follow up on those that intrigue you!):
1. The Maltese Falcon (Huston/Bogart version)
2. Chinatown
5. The Big Sleep (the original, not the Mitchum-Winner remake)
6. Twilight (Lochte notes “with Paul Newman, not the vampire crap”!)
8. Vertigo
10. Zero Effect
11. Kiss Me Deadly
13. Gumshoe
15. The Thin Man
16. Harper
18. Night Moves
19. Tony Rome
20. PJ
He also gives honourable mentions to The Big Fix, Michael Shayne Private Detective, Fast Company, The Runaround, Face Down, Nick Carter Master Detective, Hammett and Shamus.
I’m especially pleased to see the underrated Twilight, Gumshoe and Night Moves get mentions. Personally, I’d put The Thin Man a bit higher, but then I’m biased! And does anyone know where I can get a copy of Hickey and Boggs?
I can’t see any serious omissions, though I am fond of It’s a Wonderful World (1939, W.S. Van Dyke), which has James Stewart as a PI taking Claudette Colbert on a Capra-like adventure…
How about you, dear reader? Is your favourite Private Eye movie on the list?
From that list it has to be Vertigo for me… I do love a Hitchcock!
Vertigo’s great, isn’t it?! My brother went to San Francisco recently and visited a number of locations from the film. I was hugely envious…
Though perhaps not my top private eye film (oddly pleased by its inclusion on list), Big Lebowski does have my favourite private eye pun “I’m a brother shamus!” “Brother Shamus? Like an irish monk?!”
Yeah, that’s such a quotable film! And while it riffs on The Big Sleep, I think the major influence on Lebowski is Altman’s updated The Long Goodbye. Now that’s a movie that ought to be on Lochte’s list…