Tipping My Fedora

34. Hitchcock Noir: SPELLBOUND (1945), NOTORIOUS (1946) and ROPE (1948), with Brad Friedman

Brad Friedman is back to talk about  Hitchcock's 1940s Noir thrillers with Sergio! This time they discuss the romantic whodunit, SPELLBOUND (1945), the spy drama NOTORIOUS (1946) and the real-time suspense thriller, ROPE (1948).

Brad blogs about Golden Age mystery books and movies at Ah Sweet Mystery: https://ahsweetmystery.com/

To read "The House of Dr Edwardes" by Francis Beeding, the basis for SPELLBOUND, click here: https://freeread.de/@RGLibrary/FrancisBeeding/Novels/TheHouseOfDoctorEdwardes.html

Spoiler alert: the plots for all the films discussed, including their respective endings, are explored in great detail.

33. WOMEN OF TWILIGHT (1952), with Jonathan Rigby

Special guest Jonathan Rigby joins Sergio to discuss WOMEN OF TWILIGHT (1952), the film adaptation of Sylvia Rayman's 1951 groundbreaking all-female play.

Jonathan Rigby has been writing about films for over 30 years now - and has been an actor for even longer. He is the author of several books on horror cinema, including English Gothic, American Gothic and Euro Gothic - with American Gothic 2 on the way – and Studies in Terror, and has also written biographies of Christopher Lee and Roxy Music. He has also recorded loads and loads of audio commentaries and solo video interviews for Blu-ray releases. As an actor, he's best known for playing radio comic Kenneth Horne on numerous occasions, and as a director he revived the Sylvia Rayman play Women of Twilight for the first time in nearly 60 years - and that was over ten years ago, with no further professional revival having happened since. Today we’re going to talk about that play, his revival and the 1952 film adaptation, originally released in the US as Twilight Women.

31. JOHN WICK, with Stacey Abbott

The Fedora podcast is one year old today. And it's also my birthday! To celebrate, my awesome buddy Professor Stacey Abbott (who also just had her birthday) makes a very welcome return visit to Fedora. This time we get together to celebrate the John Wick series starring the mighty Keanu Reeves.

Please note, we pretty much spoil every single one of the films.

[This episode is being re-presented to correct an earlier technical problem] 

My very special guest is Stacey Abbott, Professor of Film at Northumbria University, where she is a member of their Horror Studies Research Group. Her research focuses on horror and cult film and television, with a particular interest in vampire and zombies.

She is the author of Celluloid Vampires (2007), Undead Apocalypse (2016) and the BFI Film Classic on Near Dark (2020). She is the co-author of TV Horror (2013) and the co-editor of Global TV Horror (2021), both with Professor Lorna Jowett.

She regularly writes essays to accompany DVD and Blu-ray releases, including Second Sight’s Ginger Snaps, Possessor and Blair Witch Project, as well as Eureka’s Tank Girl and The Secret of NIMH. 

She is currently writing a book on Horror Animation.

Publication details:

Near Dark (BFI Classics) by Stacey Abbott: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/near-dark-9781911239277/

Angel (TV Milestones) by Stacey Abbott: https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9780814333198

Celluloid Vampires by Stacey Abbott: https://utpress.utexas.edu/9780292716964/

Global TV Horror edited by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett: www.uwp.co.uk/book/global-tv-horror/

TV Horror edited by Stacey Abbott and Lorna Jowett: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/tv-horror-9781848856189/

Undead Apocalypse by Stacey Abbott: https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/19174?login=false

30. BASIC INSTINCT (1992), with Rebecca McCallum

Today we launch headlong into the erotic thriller genre with a very deep dive into the 1992 box office smash, Basic Instinct. Starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Paul Verhoeven, this gaudy and controversial Neo Noir has many strong links to Hitchcock's Vertigo. To discuss this film and more, Sergio is joined by very special guest, Rebecca McCallum.

N.B. The podcast, recorded in February 2025, includes huge spoilers - and gives away the ending to Basic Instinct and Vertigo too!

Rebecca is a writer, speaker and creator/host of Talking Hitchcock, a podcast that explores the work and the world of her favourite director. The podcast covers deep dives on Hitchcock’s films as well as topic driven discussions on everything in the Hitchcockian universe. She curates, hosts and speaks at Hitchcock screenings and festivals up and down the UK and has written about the director’s films both online and in print for many publications including Fangoria, Grim Journal, Hemlock Books and MovieJawn. She has presented at Hitch Con, the largest international Hitchcock conference of its kind and co-hosted a Hitchcock programme on BBC Radio.

Talking Hitchcock Podcast:

Listen to Talking Hitchcock Podcast here: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/rebecca-mccallum/

Instagram/Bluesky: @talkinghitchpod

Linktree https://linktr.ee/PendlePumpkin to Read/Listen to Rebecca's Work: Rebecca McCallum | Twitter @hitch_pod

Find and Follow Rebecca

Instagram: @pendlepumpkin

29. Film Noir Fest 2025, with James Harrison

James Harrison of Film Noir UK joins Sergio to preview the 2025 Film Noir Fest, which is taking place from 31 October to 2 November at the Plaza Cinema in Weston-Super-Mare. This year's theme is heist movies and highlights include screenings of:

Kubrick's KILLER'S KISS (1955) and THE KILLING (1956), Huston's THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950), Siodmak's CRISS CROSS (1949), Dassin's RIFIFI (1955) and Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS (1992).  

There is also a retrospective dedicated to crime films starring Ida Lupino, including HIGH SIERRA (1941), ROAD HOUSE (1948), ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951), BEWARE, MY LOVELY (1952) and WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956). In addition there will be a silent Heritage Noir double bill with a live score by Neil Brand and screenings of British thrillers courtesy of Talking Pictures TV / Renown.

For full details about the festival and tickets, visit the homepage of Film Noir UK: https://ti.to/film-noir-uk/filmnoirfest2025

 

28. HIGH AND LOW (1963), with Aidan Brack

Sergio is joined by blogger Aidan Brack, of Mysteries Ahoy, for an in-depth look at Akira Kurosawa's classic 1963 suspense thriller, High and Low. This seems like the perfect time to look back at the film with the release of Spike Lee's remake, Highest 2 Lowest, starring Denzel Washington.

Adapted from King's Ransom - the tenth volume in Ed McBain's series of police procedurals featuring the cops of the 87th Precinct - Sergio and Aidan look at the original book, its 1962 American TV adaptation and Kurosawa's extraordinary film version. 

Aidan Brack is a public librarian with a love of mystery fiction. He started his blog, Mysteries Ahoy! in late 2017 as a way to connect with other fans of mysteries and to catalogue his experiences with the genre. Since then, he has shared his thoughts on over 600 books, 100 film and television productions, as well as the occasional radio drama. His father is crime novelist, Graham Brack.

Aidan enjoys reading and writing about many different types of mystery fiction, including works in translation. He has a particular interest in inverted mysteries - stories in which the culprit's identity is known to the reader from near the start.

You can find his writing at www.mysteriesahoy.com

For more info on author Graham Brack, visit: https://grahambrackauthor.com/

To watch the 1962 TV version of King's Ransom, visit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5sTB0_UyEc

 

 

27. Film Noir scepticism (part 2), with Sheldon Hall

Following on from the first part last week, Sergio and Sheldon Hall reunite for a second bout of Film Noir scepticism. How well does Sergio stand up to Sheldon's stinging and relentless criticism?

The genres being considered include Westerns, Horror, Science Fiction and the work of Alfred Hitchcock. 

To listen to the first part of the podcast, visit:

• Apple buff.ly/wDl4xnB
• Spotify buff.ly/34bRrLu
• YouTube buff.ly/QyLHaCo

The titles being considered, in chronological order, include:

THE SEVENTH VICTIM (Robson, 1944)

WHISPERING SMITH (Fenton, 1948)

ROPE (Hitchcock, 1948)

WINCHESTER 73 (Mann, 1950)

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (Siegel, 1956)

VERTIGO (Hitchcock, 1958)

Sheldon Hall is an Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. A former film journalist and lecturer, he is the author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (2005/2014) and Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981 (2024), co-author of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (2010), and co-editor of Widescreen Worldwide (2010) and Film Critics and British Film Culture: New Shots in the Dark (2025). In addition, he has contributed chapters and articles on British and American film history to numerous books and journals and interviews to many Blu-ray special editions of films including, most recently, Sirk in Germany (1934-35), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Black Tuesday (1954), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Juggernaut (1974)

 

26. Film Noir scepticism (part 1), with Sheldon Hall

At the beginning of every podcast, Sergio asks his guests to give their definition of Film Noir, a notoriously difficult assignment. This week, in the first of a two-part episode, Dr Sheldon Hall, long-time friend to Sergio and the podcast, picks holes in the host's own attempts to define the term. 

They consider two genres, screwball comedy and the gangster movie, and look to see how well they overlap with Film Noir, along with the 1931 version version of The Maltese Falcon, starring Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade.

The films under discussions, in chronological order, include the following:

UNDERWORLD (Von Sternberg, 1927)

THE MALTESE FALCON (Del Ruth, 1931)

TWO SECONDS (Le Roy, 1932)

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (Sturges, 1944)

WONDER MAN (Humberstone, 1945) 

Sheldon Hall is an Emeritus Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. A former film journalist and lecturer, he is the author of Zulu: With Some Guts Behind It (2005/2014) and Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981 (2024), co-author of Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History (2010), and co-editor of Widescreen Worldwide (2010) and Film Critics and British Film Culture: New Shots in the Dark (2025). In addition, he has contributed chapters and articles on British and American film history to numerous books and journals and interviews to many Blu-ray special editions of films including, most recently, Sirk in Germany (1934-35), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Black Tuesday (1954), H.M.S. Defiant (1962) and Juggernaut (1974).

Next week, in part 2 of our conversation, we look at Western, Horror, Science Fiction, and Hitchcock varieties of Film Noir.