Somebody gets suckerpunched and it's LIGHTS OUT. End of fight. This can be quite brutal and dare I say, spectacular.

Alternatively, it can go to the floor very quickly and end in a very "masculine" rolling contest where each combatant hopes somebody steps in and breaks it up. This of course is very lame.

Finally, somebody gets suckerpunched or tackled, and the guy on top punches his mounted bitch repeatedly in the face. This is just bloody and sick and if you have any human compassion at all you will attempt to break it up.

Is this against AICN dogma and I just don't know it? I'd think you'd want to do this, to establish your trademark or something, like Quint gives this movie a life-threatening sharkbite on the leg or something unique, slightly odd, but identifiable as yours...??

BTW: first time poster but long time reader, I joined to echo others' sentiments on how much I look forward to this column. I've seen about two-thirds of the movies listed (mostly the oldest ones) and hope you keep up the good work as long as possible. To that end, I have no complaints but proffer a suggestion to make future life easier: When you feel the need for a rest, how about about handing the reins over for one or two months to Beaks, Moriarty, or even Harry? You'll get your break, others can try their hand at the MAD pace and we in the peanut gallery can be aghast at their own gaps in film history.

I've always had a soft heart for the "golden age" of movie making...the wordplay has always been excellent. I wonder if there were people who actually talked like that. Ah, to have a time machine just to observe.

Guy says "Funny finding you in a place like this." Mitchum say,s real sarcastically "Yeah me and the kid are laughing all the time."

and, actually, quint, this has the potential for being the best thing on AICN, realized best with under-duscussed classics like this, and less so for things like, um, _meatballs_. i realize the controversy i'll unleash by saying this, but i'd say the tourneur is a better film. btw, isn't this the film that was in production when mitchum got picked up on pot charges? those heavy lids never went away, not for another 50-odd years...

Something like: Mint, Near Mint, Very Fine, Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor... but not the word, instead generic comic book covers visualized in those conditions...??

As long as very few get rated Mint or Near Mint, it would be a real differentiation of a classic, and you could have fun baselining it with a glossary of movies explaining what movie goes with what condition...