Pocket notebook sighting

[“You see, there’s five more weeks’ interest”: Abe Reles (Peter Falk) is about to make Joey Collins (Stuart Whitman) an offer he cannot refuse. Click for a larger view.]

The Schemer isn’t the only hoodlum who keeps his accounts in a six-ring pocket notebook. Killer-for-hire Abe Reles does the same. Murder, Inc. (dir. Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg, 1960) is a crime story with a split personality, dwelling on Falk’s Reles (a combination of Brando and Cagney) before shifting to a faux-documentary police procedural with voiceover. As much as I like that narrative style, I wish they’d stayed with Reles: Falk’s performance is brilliant and scary.

[Click for a larger view. See the name Joey to the left of the paper clip?]

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Extras : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : The Sopranos : Spellbound : T-Men : Union Station