Sam Morrigan

HI, THERE! I'm an Italian neurocriminologist and art expert in progress. While I study to achieve these goals, I write Gay-Romance Horror, Mystery, Thriller and Paranormal novels. Now and then I make a few forays into Urban Fantasy. I read a bit of everything, but in this blog, I'll talk mainly about Crime. I'm not good at English. Not yet. I apologize. Despite that, I've decided to take the courage and try to post something. PROFILE PIC: "Noir Princesses, Snow White" @ Alastor Alexander.

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London After Midnight (also marketed as The Hypnotist) is a lost 1927 American silent-era mystery-thriller pseudo-vampire film that collectors now consider the 'holy grail' of lost films—directed and co-produced by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, with Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer distributed the film.

The last known copy was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, along with hundreds of other rare early films, making it for decades one of the most sought-after lost films of the silent era. In 2002, Turner Classic Movies aired a reconstructed version, produced by Rick Schmidlin, who used the original script and film stills to recreate the original plot.

In May 2022, there were attempts to find a copy of the film in Australia, which was at the end of the film distribution chain.

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Art by Rhys Cooper

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What wonderful news!

"50 Years of Dave Brandstetter: Fadeout, Death Claims, Troublemaker," by Joseph Hansen

In an auspicious event for mystery readers, Syndicate is reprinting all 12 of Joseph Hansen's pioneering Dave Brandstetter novels over 12 months. "Fadeout," the first in the series featuring the comfortably gay World War II vet and L.A. insurance investigator, was published in 1970. As Michael Nava points out in his insightful new introduction, that's when gay sex was a criminal act in 49 of the 50 states. Through grit and sheer talent, Hansen found a wide audience. Nava writes, "It is his art, ultimately, and not simply his subject matter, that makes Joseph Hansen one of the great masters of California noir." Crime fiction fans who don't know Hansen's work are in for a treat."

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A life-sized sculpture of Boris Karloff in Jack Pierce’s makeup chair having tea, based on a photograph (on right) of Karloff on the set of 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein. Some stories about Boris Karloff. When he was young, he suffered from periods of malnutrition: the first time he played the Creature, he looked authentically cadaverous. To perform his role more convincingly, he removed a rear denture, giving his face a sunken look. Also, he stood in life-long pain due to the weight of the made-up headpiece and the boots he had to wear.

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Okay, I'm not good at English. Not yet. Despite that, I've decided to take my courage and try to post something like short reviews, impromptu thoughts, day-to-day life facts—this sort of stuff—starting with my spur-of-the-moment comment on Netflix's show "Safe".

I just watched the 6th episode, and I'm not convinced of what I've seen so far. I mean, the show is plenty of cliffhangers and it has its fast-paced moments. There are secrets and quests and reveals, but everything seems… Childish? Naive? Maybe these aren't the better adjectives, but they explain quite well what I thought about a couple of situations. For example, Emma and Pete. I figured a gripping storyline about these two—something dark in Pete's past involving Emma—and then…. D'oh! That's all I can say. And what about the missing girl? Wow. A well-trained teen detective. At sixteen, I was such a babe in the woods—to be kind. Times have changed a lot. Some subplots build potentially intriguing situations which, however, lead to solutions that made my arms fall to the ground. Either way, there are at least two matters I agree 100% with. A family can be a clot of silences and resentments masked by polite interactions. I have experienced that in person. You may be unaware of them or maybe you feel them and choose to ignore them, trusting in the power of time to heal anything that goes wrong or hoping that one morning you wake up and they are gone with a poof. Until they don't heal nor disappear and your life gets a boom. It's something to think about. The same with your community. We have a proverb, here in Italy: l'abito non fa il monaco. It can be translated, in a literal way, as the dress doesn't make the monk. You know it as: don't judge the book by its cover. The point is: you can feel safe with your neighbours, you may think your neighbourhood is a good place to stay and raise your kids, but you can't know who really are the people living behind the door next to yours. Some think a teenager's mind is a terrifying place, but of an adult's is much more sinister.

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HI, THERE!