Day 6 of The Daily Dish: It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate

Pull up a chair and check the menu for today’s Daily Dish – the special of the day is the Noir Villain You Love to Hate. There are lots of noir villains, from Phyllis Dietrichson, Kathie Moffat, and Kitty Collins, to Cody Jarrett, Tommy Udo, and Waldo Lydecker. Each are standouts in their own way, and each has a villainous resume that would qualify them to successfully carry out the most dastardly deeds. But when it comes to noir villains I love to hate, the first one I think of is Mr. Brown from The Big Combo (1955). This feature centers on police Lt. Leonard Diamond, played by Cornel Wilde, who’s obsessed with bringing down a local crime boss, the murderous Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). Incidentally, Diamond also happens to be in love with Mr. Brown’s neurotic, suicidal girlfriend, Susan (Wilde’s then-real-life wife, Jean Wallace), which I imagine makes him even more eager to see the mobster behind bars (or dead, whichever comes first). “Tell him he won’t have time to change his…

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