Moonrise (Frank Borzage's Moonrise) (1948)

Ethel Barrymore - Movies I've Viewed (9 person items)

" ... and Dane Clark"

Moonrise

“The cycle of violence becomes an ever-widening gyre in Frank Borzage’s Moonrise. Less a violent story than a story about violence, and there is a difference between the two, where each successive action strengths that cycle of violence and chaos. The aftereffects of a parent’s death by capital punishment lead to that child’s stunted adulthood and barely concealed urges for retribution and score settling.   Borzage builds his reality on clearly artificial sets that underscore the suffocating ties that bind this society together. Swamps and ponds aren’t merely these things but haunted places to bury secrets or to seek refuge from the world. This is after all a cinematic world that’s recognizably like our own but filled with secretive places that become near holy in their emotio” read more

Slant’s 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time (100 movies items)

"Frank Borzage’s Moonrise is a sensual scrutiny of a man’s free will. In the film’s striking opening moments, a dazzling spectacle of black-and-white chiaroscuro conveys the throbbing sense of madness that’s cattle-branded into the imagination of Danny Hawkins, who’s terrorized by bullies from childhood to adulthood because of his father’s execution. When Danny (Dane Clark) kills one of his tormentors, he must struggle with the terrible push-pull effect of the past and the memory of h"