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The Set Up

The movie The Set Up was based on the book My Laugh Comes Last.

Which one did you like better, the movie or the book?  There are 6 votes for the book, and 6 votes for the movie.

Movie details for The Set Up

The movie was released in 1995 and directed by John Huston, Joseph H. Lewis and Edward Dmytryk, who also directed Under the Volcano (1984), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and Victory (1995)Under the Volcano (1984), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and Victory (1995)Under the Volcano (1984), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and Victory (1995). The Set Up was produced by Warner Home Video. More information on the movie is available on Amazon.com and also IMDb.

Actors on this movie include Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Marc Lawrence, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Teresa Celli, Marilyn Monroe, William 'Wee Willie' Davis, Dorothy Tree, Brad Dexter, John Maxwell (IV), Pat Flaherty, Joseph Darr Smith, Wilson Wood, Gene Evans and Eloise Hardt.

 

Read More About This Movie

Some boxed sets claim to be definitive, but are haphazardly selected. Not this one. Four of the five titles here can legitimately lay claim to being essentials in the film noir canon, and the fifth, The Set-Up, is a terrific boxing picture with a strong n... Read More
Some boxed sets claim to be definitive, but are haphazardly selected. Not this one. Four of the five titles here can legitimately lay claim to being essentials in the film noir canon, and the fifth, The Set-Up, is a terrific boxing picture with a strong noir atmosphere. If you're a fan of noir--or have no idea what it's all about--this collection is a treat.

Of course, none of these movies were made as "film noir." The term was coined later by French critics to describe the moody, anxious feel of postwar American movies, especially the genre that highlighted duplicitous dames and susceptible men lost in the criminal jungle. Indeed, the title The Asphalt Jungle conveys the edgy urban arena of these pictures. That film is John Huston's masterly 1950 account of a heist, with Sterling Hayden the disenchanted, noirish hero. Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy (1949) is one of the most supercharged (and sexually perverse) of noir films, with John Dall and Peggy Cummins as young criminals in love. Murder, My Sweet (1944) is a straight adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel Farewell, My Lovely. Amid the film's shadowy chiaroscuro, former musical comedy star Dick Powell makes a career-changing transition as Chandler's private dick, Philip Marlowe. Out of the Past puts Robert Mitchum (perhaps the quintessential noir actor) in trouble with gangster Kirk Douglas, complicated by classic femme fatale Jane Greer. Jacques Tourneur provides the evocative direction. And The Set-Up plays out an ingenious boxing tale in "real time," superbly enacted by (former boxer) Robert Ryan. --Robert Horton

Book details for My Laugh Comes Last

My Laugh Comes Last was written by James Hadley Chase. The book was published in 1977 by House of Stratus. More information on the book is available on Amazon.com.

James Hadley Chase also wrote Miss Shumway Waves a Wand (1944), Just Another Sucker (1960) and Try This One for Size (1980).

 

Read More About This Book

Farrell Brannigan, President of the National Californian Bank, is an extremely successful man. So when he builds another bank in an up-and-coming town on the Pacific coast, he is given worldwide publicity, and this new bank is hailed as 'the safest bank i... Read More
Farrell Brannigan, President of the National Californian Bank, is an extremely successful man. So when he builds another bank in an up-and-coming town on the Pacific coast, he is given worldwide publicity, and this new bank is hailed as 'the safest bank in the world'. But Brannigan's success came at a price and he made many enemies on his way up the ladder. It seems that one of them is now set on revenge and determined to destroy both the bank and Brannigan himself.