Category: Directed by Irving Pichel

  • Quicksand (1950, Irving Pichel)

    Quicksand is a film noir with room for cream and about five sugars. The genre often has a morality element to it, but this entry goes way too far with it. Or it might just be how the film treats lead Mickey Rooney. Most film noir male protagonists are overconfident simpletons taken in by devious…

  • The Most Dangerous Game (1932, Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel)

    Running about an hour, The Most Dangerous Game shouldn’t be boring. But it somehow manages. Worse, the boring stuff comes at the end; directors Schoedsack and Pichel drag out the conclusion with a false ending or two. The film doesn’t have much to recommend it. That laborious ending wipes short runtime off the board, leaving…

  • O.S.S. (1946, Irving Pichel)

    Pichel does such a good job with the majority of O.S.S., it’s a surprise how ineptly he handles the jingoistic last scene. It’s a WWII patriotism picture (is there a proper term for this genre?), so that last scene is requisite, but Pichel could have at least made it work. Instead, he hangs the film…