Watch With Jen - S4: E22 - French Crime Movies: Part 1 with William Boyle

Returning to Watch With Jen this week, we have my very talented friend and an official (and very popular) friend of the show. William Boyle is the acclaimed novelist behind such titles as Gravesend, The Lonely Witness, A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself, City of Margins, and Shoot the Moonlight Out. In addition to crafting these wonderfully humanistic Lumet-like character-driven ensemble crime epics, Bill is quite the pop culture buff and one hell of a good movie trivia game player too.

Although he's a distinctly American writer-, given that he sets his sometimes interconnected tales in Brooklyn neighborhoods, Bill has quite a following for his work in France where he routinely visits for appearances and book events. Knowledgeable in his love of film, and continuing to foster his keen interest in the country, its people, as well as its cinema, this episode seemed like the perfect starting point for a new series that Bill & I will be revisiting in the future that's devoted to our love of French Crime Movies.

To kick us off, Bill bypassed some of the most obvious iconic titles like ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS, RIFIFI, PURPLE NOON, and LE CERCLE ROUGE, and selected slightly deeper cuts from the '50s, '60s, and '70s respectively. In this fascinating 86-minute installment that we're calling Part 1, we explore the films TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, and MAX & THE JUNKMEN, while also championing other titles you'll want to be sure to jot down. Vive La France!Vive La France!

Originally Posted on Patreon (7/5/23) here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/85589343

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Theme Music: Solo Acoustic Guitar by Jason Shaw, Free Music Archive