Pulp Fiction Art: The Set-Up and Pulp Fiction

Imposing, ruggedly handsome lead who made his film debut in "Golden Gloves" (1940) and signed with RKO two years later. Ryan hit his stride in the late 1940s playing a string of psychopathic or hard-boiled types, notably the anti-Semitic murderer in "Crossfire" (1947) and the over-the-hill pug in the classic boxing drama, "The Set-Up" (1949). Source: www.tcm.com

Robert Ryan: In real life he was the exact opposite, a private, family man, a fierce liberal who campaigned for many causes like civil rights, against Sen. McCarthy's withchunts, anti-nukes, etc. He did many stage productions at the height of his movie stardom which not too many actors would do including Irving Berlin's last musical "Mr. President." He said, "In movies, I've played pretty much everything that I've dedicated my life to fighting against."
A legitimate tough guy in a land of fake tough guys, he was a Marine Drill Instructor and an Ivy League boxing champion who on the set of "The Wild Bunch" threatened to punch out legendary tough guy Sam Peckinpah whom he didn't get along with.

In "The Set-Up" considered by many one of the best of all the boxing movies and Bob's favorite role, Ryan plays a real ham and egger in the dead end world of small time boxing. “Bob caught all the nuances of guts and shattered hopes, and small-time aspirations of a never-was beating the hell out of the desperation of being a club fighter.”– Samuel Fuller. I'll be as bold to say that Ryan's performance is the best in any boxing movie.

An actor first, a star second, not afraid to take an unsympathetic role. Ryan brought a dignity and intelligence to any film that he was in and if you love movies and acting you should definitely try to catch some of his films at the Film Forum, TCM or Netflix. Source: johnnyspin.blogspot.com


The Set Up (1949) entire fight sequence:
Need to choreograph a boxing fight scene? Start here then move on to Raging Bull. Robert Wise's staging of this scene is not only a blistering and poetic stand alone fight scene its a 24min sequence that is the story. Character, plot action all meet to create a dramatic climax. Need to steal the classic Set Up plot for your action flick? Use this one, Tarantino/Avary did just that to kick start Pulp Fiction in the Bruce Willis chapter


Pulp Fiction Bar Scene with Bruce Willis - Marcellus Wallace Speech


The Set-Up and Pulp Fiction: Comparing Robert Wise's classic boxing noir drama "The Set-Up" (1949) with Tarantino's postmodern thriller "Pulp Fiction" (1994)

"In the screenplay, Butch is a featherweight boxer but in the film, Butch's opponent Wilson has his weight announced as "210 pounds" - implying that Butch is a heavyweight. The role of Butch was originally supposed to be an up and coming boxer. Matt Dillon was in talks to play the role, but never committed.
Quentin Tarantino then changed the role and offered it to Bruce Willis, who had been disappointed at not being signed to play Vincent". Source: www.imdb.com

"As for what influences the movie's action, the episode in which hapless Vincent is tempted by Marcellus' wife, Mia (Thurman), whom he's been asked to ''look after'', echoes the vintage noir 'Out of the Past', in which Robert Mitchum falls for a bad guy's girl.
When Pulp Fiction's Butch takes a payoff to throw a fight and then doesn't, Tarantino nods to director Robert Wise's engrossing The Set-Up, in which the apostate pugilist (Robert Ryan) tries to flee from mobsters after failing to take a dive.

Gen-Xers like to cite Repo Man's glowing car trunk as the source of the unearthly light emanating from the briefcase Vincent and Jules are delivering to Marcellus, but said glow doubtless originated from a sealed box in Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly.


Ralph Meeker in Boxing Scene of "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955).

The whole joke behind Jack Rabbit Slim's, the restaurant where Travolta and Thurman win the twist contest, is that everything about it is a movie — or a pop-culture — reference". Source: www.ew.com


No American art form has ever managed to capture the enduring appeal of the profoundly sordid as neatly as pulp fiction. From the propulsive storylines to the laconic prose to the striking cover art that has, for decades, routinely adorned pulp paperbacks, the genre is edgy pop culture at its most elemental: sex and violence with a side of wry.
Today, one publisher in the U.S. keeps the hard-boiled paperback tradition alive: since 2004, Hard Case Crime has published scores of titles -- some of them brand new, others classics of the genre lovingly reprinted for a new audience -- each one featuring a cover that, like the tale inside, grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. Here, in partnership with Hard Case, LIFE.com presents a celebration of American pulp fiction, and the gorgeous, lurid cover art that has forever been its visual trademark. Source: www.life.com

Jake Gyllenhaal supports Michelle Williams at "My week with Marilyn" premiere

They say a good friend will always come through for you. And this proved to be true when Jake Gyllenhaal turned up at the premiere of My Week With Marilyn in New York tonight to support his old chum Michelle Williams. The Brokeback Mountain hunk starred with her in the Oscar-winning hit, which told the story of two gay cowboys.
Jake looked excited to see the new film, which documents the tense interaction between legendary actor Sir Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during production of The Prince and the Showgirl.

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard heading to temple in New York

Jake Gyllenhaal is spotted heading to temple with his family on 8th October 2011 in New York City.

The 30-year-old actor was seen arriving to a temple in New York City with his family on Saturday for Yom Kippur services. Looking casual, Jake was sporting a white tee and geek chic glasses.

Though he shaved his head for his latest role, it looks as though it’s growing back quite nicely!
Jake is set to star in End of Watch, a cop drama, which will also feature America Ferrera, Michael Pena and Anna Kendrick. It hits theaters in 2012. Source: www.celebuzz.com

Jake Gyllenhaal enjoying a Smoothie at Organic Avenue in New York, on 6th October 2011

Dan Duryea & Martha Vickers in "The Burglar" (1957) by Paul Wendkos

Dan Duryea and Martha Vickers in "The Burglar" (1957) directed by Paul Wendkos

David Goodis surrounded by "Dark Passage" stars Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall

"The night air had a thick softness and the smell of stale smoke from the factories that had been busy in the day, and the smell of cheap whiskey and dead cigarettes and Philadelphia springtime".
"He glanced at his wristwatch. Eight minutes. He had been out for eight minutes, and twenty-two minutes remained. A restaurant sign displayed itself on the other side of the street. He crossed and entered, sat down at a sloppy counter and told the waitress he wanted coffee. The waitress made a comment about how hot it was today for coffee, and maybe he would like it iced. He said he didn't want it iced. The waitress said it was good when it was iced. Harbin said he had never tried it iced and would appreciate their terminating the discussion; the waitress said the reason the world was like it was could be attributed to the fact that too many people were hard to get along with." -"The Burglar" by David Goodis (first published in 1953)

The Burglar (1957) directed by Paul Wendkos, script by David Goodis, starring Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield and Martha Vickers

Robert Ryan's last role: The Iceman Cometh (1973) by John Frankenheimer

Robert Ryan as Bill 'Stoker' Thompson in "The Set-Up" (1949) directed by Robert Wise

Robert Ryan as Joe Parkson in "Act of Violence" (1948) directed by Fred Zinnemann

Robert Ryan as Montgomery in "Crossfire" (1947) directed by Edward Dmytryk


Robert Ryan as Larry Slade in "The Iceman Cometh" (1973) directed by John Frankenheimer

Edmund and Slade do not long for death in the mode of Whitman and his descendants -Wallace Stevens, T. S. Eliot, Hart Crane, and Theodore Roethke- all of whom tend to incorporate the image of a desired death into the great, triple trope of night, the mother, and the sea. Edmund Tyrone and Larry Slade long to die because life without transcendence is impossible, and yet transcendence is totally unavailable. O'Neill's true polemic against his country and its spiritual tradition is not, as he insisted, that "its main idea is that everlasting game of trying to possess your own soul by the possession of something outside it.''
The play's true argument is that your own soul cannot be possessed, whether by possessing something or someone outside it, or by joining yourself to a transcendental possibility, to whatever version of an Emersonian Oversoul that you might prefer. The United States, in O'Neill's dark view, was uniquely the country that had refused to learn the truths of the spirit, which is that good and the means of good, love and the means of love, are irreconcilable.
Such a formulation is Shelleyan, and reminds one of O'Neill's High Romantic inheritance, which reached him through pre-Raphaelite poetry and literary speculation. O'Neill seems a strange instance of the Aestheticism of Rossetti and Pater, but his metaphysical nihilism, desperate faith in art, and phantasmagoric naturalism stem directly from them.

-Larry Slade:

"Mine [my dreams] are all dead and buried behind me. What's before me is the comforting fact that death is a fine long sleep, and I'm damned tired, and it can't come too soon for me".

-Rocky
"De old anarchist wise guy dat knows all de answers! Dat's you, huh?"

-Larry
-"Forget the anarchist part of it. I'm through with the Movement long since. I saw men didn't want to be saved from themselves, for that would mean they'd have to give up greed, and they'll never pay that price for liberty. So I said to the world, God bless all here, and may the best man win and die of gluttony! And I took a seat in the grand stand of philosophical detachment to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance".

Robert Ryan (Dreamer in my Dreams) video: Robert Ryan video featuring stills and scenes from "Crossfire", "Caught" (with Barbara Bel Geddes), "On Dangerous Ground" (with Ida Lupino), "Odds Against Tomorrow" (with Gloria Grahame), "Lonelyhearts" (with Myrna Loy), "Clash by night" (with Barbara Stanwyck) and "The Iceman Cometh" (with Lee Marvin and Jeff Bridges).

Songs "Here", "Range Life", "Heaven is a Truck" by Pavement, "That's the story of my Life" by The Velvet Underground and "Dreamer in my Dreams" by Wilco.

Happy Anniversary Carole Lombard!

Happy Anniversary Carole Lombard! (1908-1942)


They were the golden couple of the classic Hollywood. Clark and Carole remained married from 29 March 1939 to 16 January 1942, when Carole died in an airplane crash. She was only 33 years old...

Femme Fatales & Fall Guys video

A video featuring stills and scenes of classic actors and actresses: Audrey Totter, Gene Tierney, Rita Hayworth, Linda Darnell, Dana Andrews, Coleen Gray, Cleo Moore, Robert Ryan, Jane Greer, Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Lizabeth Scott, Humphrey Bogart, Janet Leigh, Charlton Heston, Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Van Heflin, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner, John Garfield, Dan Duryea, Joan Bennett, Burt Lancaster, Yvonne DeCarlo, Ida Lupino, Ava Gardner, Claire Trevor, Marie Windsor... mostly in noir films: The Lady in the Lake, Laura, Out of the Past, The Big Sleep, This Gun for Hire, Touch of Evil, Clash by Night, The Set-Up, Cry Danger, Pitfall, Dead Reckoning, The Postman always rings twice, Dark City, Manhandled, Ace in the Hole, The Narrow Margin, Scarlet Street, The Prowler, Act of Violence, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Detour, Gilda, Raw Deal, High Sierra, Murder My Sweet, Where the Danger Lives, Roadhouse, Too late for Tears, Black Angel, Criss Cross, On Dangerous Ground, The Woman on the Beach, The Killers, etc.