Book Review: The Art of Classic Crime and Mystery Movies

One of the most beautiful books I've had the pleasure to read in the last few years is THE ART OF CLASSIC CRIME AND MYSTERY MOVIES.

This brand-new book, releasing from Schiffer Publishing on May 28th, 2025, was written and edited by film historian Ed Hulse.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Hulse speak at the Lone Pine Film Festival, so when I learned about the subject matter of his new book I was immediately interested.

The front cover advertises "The Genre in 800 Eye-Popping Posters," and that's certainly an accurate description. The book is a work of great visual beauty, thanks to all the posters in contains, but it's much more than that.

The book is divided into 12 chapters, ranging from "The Silent Era" to "Sherlock on the Silver Screen" to "The Emergence of Film Noir." Most of the films are from what I would define as the classic era, from the early years of film and up through the '60s, but there are also a few posters for '70s movies. A small handful of even later posters accompany the author's afterword.

Along with an introduction at the beginning of the book, each chapter has a thorough intro by Hulse, as well as shorter sidebars throughout the book on a variety of topics, such as "Sleuthing Spouses," "Those Dizzy Detecting Dames," "Cornell Woolrich," and "Formative Noir."

Hulse presents solid history, with his own critical insights scattered throughout; for instance, I loved his mention that THE PREVIEW MURDERY MYSTERY (1936), which has become a real favorite of mine, was "directed with great panache by Robert Florey."

As that mention hints, many of the posters included are for relatively lesser-known but highly enjoyable films such as GIRL MISSING (1933), DANGEROUS TO KNOW (1938), HAUNTED HONEYMOON (1940), and DANGEROUS BLONDES (1943). I also found myself jotting down some unfamiliar titles I'd like to track down thanks to some of the posters!

Of course, posters for well-known classics of all kinds are included as well. The book is an excellent mixture of the familiar and the more obscure; the knowledgeable commentary on a wide variety of films, combined with beautiful art, makes the book a winner for film fans with any level of knowledge on the subject.

This title is also perfect to serve as a literal coffee table book; perhaps some of those who pick it up to thumb through it will find themselves intrigued and start down the path of the watching the movies seen in glorious color in the book's pages.

THE ART OF CLASSIC CRIME AND MYSTERY MOVIES is 320 pages including index. It contains 800 color and black and white photos printed on glossy paper. It has a foreword by Glenn Kenny.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to Schiffer Publishing for providing a review copy of this book.

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