Meurtres à l'Empire State Building

Film Information:
Year:

2008

Building Empire State Building Murders

País:

 

Director:

William Karel

Color:

Color + B&W

Format:

Digibeta

Duration:

72 min

Cast:

  • Cyd Charisse, Mickey Rooney, Marsha Hunt,
  • Anne Jeffreys, Richard Erdman

Production:

  • GUIÓN: William Karel,
  • Jérôme Charyn
  • FOTOGRAFÍA: Remy Tournois, Franck Dhelens, Greg Smith
  • MONTAJE: Stéphanie Mahet
  • PRODUCCIÓN: Dominique Tibi

Contact:

  • Roche Productions
  • Dominique Tibi
  • 45 rue de Louvain
  • 92400 Courbevoie, France
  • T +33 1 4334 0712
  • F +33 1 4334 0724
  • E roche@rocheproductions.com

Synopsis

“By the time you get this tape, I will also be dead. They won’t let me live, Jim. I know too much. I’m counting on you to free the nation from this scum. I love you.” The envelope sent in 1949 by someone named Penny Baxter triggers –almost six decades later– the memories of former detective Kowalski. What comes next are the hyper-documented chronicles of a gripping, turbulent and completely fake gangster-like saga. Mixing scenes from black and white classics (like The Big Sleep, The Big Heat, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and The Naked City) with current interviews to the alleged survivors of mobster Tony (a few nobodies: Kirk Douglas, Mickey Rooney, Ben Gazzara, Cyd Charisse…), Karel puts together a playful, passionate, and atypical tribute to film noir. A game involving the genre that never actually existed (the one invented by French critics as an attempt to understand the pessimism in diverse American films, which were released all together in France after the war), yet played following its rules to the letter. And narrated –how could it be otherwise– by a voiceover that gloriously shoots Chandler-style phrases like “She was a gorgeous blonde with a body that just wouldn’t quit”.

Dates and Times