In The Long Wait, Anthony Quinn gets his kicks on Route 66 — kicked by physics right out of a car after it careens off a cliff, that is. Although he survives, he emerges with a serious case of amnesia. Not only did his ID burn in the crash, but so did his fingerprints! He’s so desperate to discover who he is, he thumbs through the White Pages at random, hoping any name will trigger the necessary synapse.

A chance meeting results in a tip he’s from the town of Lyncaster, where he learns his name is Johnny McBride. Oh, and that he’s also wanted for murdering the district attorney. Despite not recalling a thing, McBride knows enough to know he couldn’t have committed such a crime. Could he? Only a woman named Vera West holds the key to unlock the vault that is his clouded noggin — if he can find her. And recognize her.

Based on the Mickey Spillane novel of the same generic name (the author’s lone non-Mike Hammer book for about a dozen years), The Long Wait followed the 3-D I, the Jury to theaters a year later, striking while the Spillane iron was still hot. A film noir that grows more stylish as it goes, The Long Wait is the better picture by far.

For starters, it has an accomplished director in Victor Saville (Dark Journey), who pulls off some real doozies of shots and sequences, adding a dab of the Impressionistic without being showy about it. One particular instance shows McBride standing where he used to work as a bank teller; Saville briefly frames Quinn (Across 110th Street) behind the counter’s bars, foreshadowing where our protagonist will end up if he can’t solve his own mystery.

Another ace up the film’s sleeve is co-scripter Lesser Samuels (rightly Oscar-nominated for Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole), adapting Spillane’s slim novel with equal thriftiness. Hammer-less though the movie may be, the signature character’s tough-guy vibe ably lives in spirit through McBride, who answers a “why” question with a curt, “I took a Gallup poll.”

This film arrived at Quinn’s post-Academy Award transition from supporting parts to leading man; with ink-black hair and eyebrows the size of XL caterpillars, his mere presence commands the screen. He gives the proto-Memento pic its stony heart, while Saville stacks the deck with four gorgeous women to provide the sizzle, with Jury forewoman Peggie Castle joining Shawn Smith, Mary Ellen Kaye and Dolores Donlon. Losing one’s memory has always been this dangerous, but never so sexy. —Rod Lott

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Suitably, I, the Jury begins with a bang — literally, as the sawed-off muzzle of a .45 pokes through an apartment door and fatally plugs a one-armed man. And it should, this being the first live-action depiction of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer character. At the time, Spillane had sold millions upon millions of paperbacks featuring the private dick, so a movie was a big deal — so big, it was made in 3-D!

Biff Elliot (The Day of the Wolves) plays the investigating Hammer like an exposed nerve with a hair-trigger temper. If he’s not shoving a nosy journo into the contents of a china cabinet, he’s throwing a drink in the face of some hood. Equally agile is his mouth, eveready with a salty cutdown of doubt. For example, when a person of interest claims he can prove he was in bed at the time of the crime, Hammer snaps, “How? Take a notary public with ya?”

With a Christmas setting making misery, writer/director Harry Essex (Octaman) keeps the frames moving at a pace approximate to the seemingly effortless swiftness of Spillane’s pages. We follow Hammer as he leaps from informant to suspect and back again, including an alcoholic fighter, a veterinarian, a dance instructor, a Spanish bartender and, most notably, a hotsy-totsy shrink (Peggie Castle, 1952’s Invasion, U.S.A.) who serves as our femme fatale. Everyone is so colorful, the whodunit aspect practically becomes secondary.

Although limited as an actor, Elliot makes for a fine-enough tough guy, excelling in his narration of Jury, which is an admirable way to transition the character from novel to screen. I’d say it’s a shame neither he nor Essex got the opportunity to repeat their jobs as a franchise, but then we wouldn’t have Robert Aldrich’s definitive Kiss Me Deadly two years later. That’s a crime classic; I, the Jury is a pretty solid lead-in. —Rod Lott

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When a 60-year-old man is found dead at the bottom of a mountain, police detective Hae-joon Jang (Park Hae-il, Memories of Murder) has reason to suspect the deceased’s much younger wife, Seo-rae (Tang Wei, Blackhat), may be to blame. As in so many cinematic crime stories, from film noir to erotic thrillers, the more our protagonist investigates, the more he falls in love with this enigmatic beauty. Thus, a dual mystery forms: Did she or didn’t she, and will they or won’t they?

Despite drawing influence from so many films before it, Decision to Leave is hardly derivative — not in the hands of a top-shelf craftsman like Park Chan-wook. The South Korean filmmaker unspools this one at a dizzying pace that makes it as twisty as Oldboy and as visually sumptuous as The Handmaiden, to name two of his best in a long, distinguished career.

Even with those previous pictures setting the bar high, Decision to Leave clears it with seemingly little effort, although we know that’s not the case. Park is in total control of his material, matching the caution and preciseness Hae-joon does in examining crime scenes for clues; even when Hae-joon’s heart causes him to slip, the director never does. If anything, he grasps the reins even tighter as he weaves the remaining threads of a rich Hitchcockian tapestry of passion, peril and tragedy. Getting tangled within that is all too easy, for the characters and their viewers.

Like your Vertigo, the movie is oddly, even achingly romantic — a mix that wouldn’t work if either lead weren’t atop their game. Both actors are excellent, but Tang is the real surprise in a plot brimming with more than its share of them. Marked by masterful composition and transitions throughout, Decision to Leave is a spellbinding knuckle-cracker. Your loss, xenophobes. —Rod Lott

Set in the high-stakes world of a sound-effects designer, Brian De Palma’s Blow Out follows everyman technician Jack (an effective John Travolta) plying his wares in the world of trashy films and outré smut. Late one night, scoring some sounds, he records an accident on the road.

While most people would get a commendation from the police force, Jack suspects foul play. A man obsessed, he goes deeper to excavate the mondo world of sound effects as he’s targeted with political intrigue, cold-blooded killers and sweetly affected Nancy Allen and her baby voice.

As he gets to the deeply overwhelming conclusion, Jack uses his well-trained ears to unravel the mystery and, ever more so, using his wits to catch at killer. Taking inspiration from Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up, the mystery of Blow Out is not the killer, but instead the ramifications of the killer.

A true testament to De Palma’s 1980s brilliance, this is a complex film that weaves a dirty brilliance in its Philadelphia freedom, bringing everything from rote slasher skinflicks of screen to John Lithgow’s eel-like presence as the hands-on strangler; he hits all the buttons. While this well-timed thriller had semi-glowing reviews upon reception, Blow Out seems to be forgotten by most parties; I guess a coke-fueled movie like Scarface will do that do you. —Louis Fowler

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When the body of a barmaid surfaces in a river in London’s Chelsea district, the police realize they have their third murder “in a fortnight” — two weeks to you and me — with no noticeable connection. The dogged investigation by a young detective (Christopher Bramwell, TV’s The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe) reveals a theory too whacked-out to be true … except it is: The victim’s initials all match those of famous Chelsea residents.

Also, a homemade “God Bless This Crapper” sign figures into the plot.

Based on the same-named 1978 novel by Lionel Davidson, The Chelsea Murders was made for England’s Armchair Thriller anthology series. Whether you watch it in six episodes at 145 minutes or the feature-length version at 108, the mostly tell-don’t-show procedural of coppers, journos, artistes, dandies and, eventually, a “cuppa tea” is bone-dry.

Out of budgetary practicality, the pic is shot on video, except for the infrequent jaunt outdoors, shot on film. To or fro, the switch is never not jarring — certainly not the type of impact director Derek Bennett intended for a murder mystery. Only the killer’s choice of mask — something akin to fitness guru Richard Simmons banging a clown emoji — jolts interest; one sequence with a hapless woman catching its glimpse in the shadowed hallway of her apartment building is truly chilling (as is its opening Thames logo animation, a scarred-for-life fright). The rest is truly boring. —Rod Lott

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