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Quicksand

Irving Pichel, director/Glass Key DVD

Here's good news indeed for lovers of American film noir: a new company, Glass Key DVD (presumably named after the Dashiell Hammett's classic novel) have dedicated themselves to reissuing a massive slew of the most intriguing American crime movies of the classics era. The 54 titles on the company's release programme are truly mouth-watering, principally as Glass Key are concentrating on less familiar fare. He Walked by Night (directed by, but not signed by, the great Anthony Mann) has been issued on DVD before, but most of the company's films are new to DVD. such as the first release, Quicksand, with Mickey Rooney as a typically luckless film noir victim of a heartless femme fatale. It's no undiscovered classic (and the print is fairly basic), but it's still highly intriguing – and any film with Pete Lorre as a sleazy amusement arcade owner is more than worth your time. Genre aficionados will be impatient for the other films in Glass Key's reissue programme.