Every classic Hollywood movie edited to ‘Sugar’
(Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for “Sugar.”)
“Sugar” is a neo-noir television series set in contemporary Los Angeles, featuring private investigator John Sugar (Colin Farrell) who, in addition to being very good at his job, is also a movie buff. Sugar’s latest case, finding the missing granddaughter of legendary film producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell), only sends him down a path of Hollywood lore.
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Throughout the first season’s eight episodes, Sugar’s journey to find Olivia brings to mind scenes from some of his favorite classic movies, interwoven throughout the series as if we’re seeing little flashes of what’s on Sugar’s mind.
“It was all done after the fact, so I had no idea until I saw how many clips (and) they used,” Farrell told IndieWire. All-time favorites, like “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Maltese Falcon.” “It’s a really interesting juxtaposition for me, as a fan of the movie and a fan of this story.”
The overlapping scenes from classic films were the brainchild of director Fernando Meirelles and editor Fernando Stutz, and you can read more about their bold use of archival footage here, but here’s a full breakdown of each film that appears in “Sugar,” including descriptions of how and where those scenes were used in The series. Some are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flashes of classic films; Some draw direct connections between Sugar’s story and that of the classic characters played by Humphrey Bogart, Glenn Ford, and Burt Lancaster.
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