Film Noir

Take Aim at the Police Van (1960)

Take Aim at the Police Van (1960) is a borderless youth prison guard pursuit cat and mouse violent revenge noir-bent thriller that was made in Japan in 1960.

Police Van serves slab of cold prison guard in a preemptive strike against global cop culture, fresh for the 1960s and with all the right style.

The reviews for Take Aim at the Police Van provide a nuanced perspective on the film, reflecting both admiration for Seijun Suzuki's distinct directorial style and some reservations about certain aspects of the plot and character development. Seijun Suzuki, known for his unconventional approach to filmmaking, is described as one of the more eccentric Japanese directors of the 1960s, and Take Aim at the Police Van is seen as a reflection of his penchant for pushing the boundaries of traditional film noir.

Short Cut To Hell (1957)

Short Cut to Hell (1957) is a sure fire curious hitman revenge kidnap detective pursuit film noir, shot in black-and-white VistaVision, featuring Robert Ivers and Georgann Johnson in lead roles.

Notably, it marks the sole directorial production by renowned actor James Cagney.

The film serves as a remake of the 1941 Alan Ladd classic "This Gun for Hire," itself based on Graham Greene's 1936 novel, "A Gun for Sale."

In the plot, professional hitman Kyle Niles (Ivers) accepts a contract for two murders, only to be betrayed by his employer, Bahrwell (Aubuchon). Seeking retribution, Kyle kidnaps Glory Hamilton (Johnson), a singer and girlfriend of the detective pursuing him (Bishop). As the story unfolds, Kyle confronts Bahrwell, ultimately revealing a dormant sense of morality as he seeks justice.

Between Midnight and Dawn (1950) is a police procedural and revenge urban prowl car noir mob boss murder trial and violence against women film noir, starring Edmond O'Brien, Mark Stevens and Gale Storm.

The violence against women aspect of Between Midnight and Dawn (1950) is worth mentioning in this instance as it is called out and questioned. When Edmond O'Brien's no-nonsense beat cop bitch slaps up Gale Robbins' character he is challenged.

His response to this is not only that he kinda regrets losing it and beating up this woman, but that in his view, 'tramps like her ain't women', which becomes his justification for this cruelty.

Iron Man (1951)

Iron Man (1951) is a violent rivalry blue collar remake boxing film noir sport action movie, making it to the film noir canon for its portrayal of a man's inability to control his fists.

Of all the miserable movie mugs, hats off to Jeff Chandler who pulls the stiffest and hangedest doggest looks, spitting noir at times and flat out desperate to have his cheeks raised in a smile that will never come.

Better still is the coal mining back ground form which these tough mugs emerged, solid mining milieu not so much Zola as Zoloft as a man goes mad with coal dusts and mania.

Not just coaly but a gritty, hard-hitting noir that'll knock you flat on your back albeit in a beautifully photographed ring, and for fans of boxing noir and boxing movies, this must simply be an underrated and overlooked gem, or lump of coal, whichever way you want to look at it.

Murder Is My Beat (1955)

Murder Is My Beat (1955) is a cheapo classic class act Edgar G. Ulmer snow-time sleazy cop uh oh detective and sleazy dame thanks for the company, now it's time to take a little ride, who do you think you are film noir from the back annals of the lost lots of the dark style.

Even as it checked out and evolved into the new riffs of the 1960s and the miracle cop movies of the seventies did elect to emulate its own hey day with pictures like Murder Is My Beat (1955) which seems stuck to 1940s noir tropes in an almost nostalgic manner, as if the picture craved to be made in 1945 and not in 1955.

Patsy Flint as the voiceover tells us, has a hard little package with a cunning brain sharpened by constant grinding against the world. And is that kind of snapping theatrical flat wobbling noir, with its amazing snow-scene surprise, one of the best snow noirs on the block.

It's a frankly exciting story right on the ridge of peril, and with noir merit to spare. It slips in all types and travails, including "I'd seen enough killing in the Pacific," as the noir hero makes weary work in his suit and coat through the worst snow drift in film noir.

The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942) is a historical film noir mystery rendering of an early detective crime solving story film starring Patric Knowles.

The story in question is The Mystery of Marie Rogêt written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. The film, directed by Phil Rosen and produced by Universal Pictures, is set in 1889.

In 1889 Paris, musical comedy star Marie Roget has been missing for ten days. Police inspector Gobelin is investigating her disappearance. This is side shaving of film noir with the ambience of the old city creating ham where there should may not be so much ham, but also creating tension where possible, in a solid attempt to bring the mystery and the history as one to the screen.

The French Minister for Naval Affairs, Henri Beauvais, a friend of Marie's grandmother, Madame Cecile Roget, and her younger sister Camille, threatens to take Gobelin off the case. Therefore, Gobelin brings medical officer Dr. Paul Dupin into the case.

One Way Street (1950)

One Way Street (1950) is a couple on the run in Mexico killer gangster thriller starring James Mason, Märta Torén and Dan Duryea.

The full cast list is impressive however, with some solid noir delivered by some of its finest character exponents, like Jack Elam, King Donovan, William Conrad and even Rock Hudson making a showing.

As the city of Los Angeles pulsates with the wail of sirens, the stage is set for a tale of intrigue and betrayal. From the window of her apartment, the enigmatic Marta Toren observes the chaos below, her cigarette smoke curling into the night. She relays her findings to the cunning Dan Duryea, the architect of a daring heist. But when one of his henchmen falls to a bullet, it's James Mason's turn to shine, using his surgical skills to extract both the slug and Duryea's coveted prize - Toren herself.

Their flight takes them across the border to the rugged terrain of Mexico, where the pace slows to a languid crawl. In a rustic village, Mason's talents as a healer are put to the test, while Toren finds herself drawn to the simplicity of their surroundings.

Black Friday (1940)

Black Friday (1940) is a brain transplant crime movie from the nascent moments of horror cinema as an as of yet undefined genre, and it is a film that shared some thematic and technical elements with the emerging film noir style.

With no monster as such to boast of and little in the way of a full mad scientist trope Black Friday does imply the crime genre full on in its fantastic progress to a sane conclusion.

Excuses for maddened acting and raw death row fun combine realities which could only in essence be explored in 1940, with no fully developed tropes fully recovered and broadcast in the cinemas, trope combination produced no end of experimental forays into what could have been.

The brain transplant movie genre emerged during a period no doubt of fascination with medical advancements and the exploration of the human psyche in cinema.

Black Tuesday (1954)

Black Tuesday (1954) is a violent death row prison break journalism and media gang on the run sociopathic killer film noir.

Shot on sparing sets and more intense and violent than your average 1954 thriller, Black Tuesday with Edward G. Robinson is one of those noir gems that you hear about.

More than the sum of its parts, Black Tuesday (1954) pulls an epic violent bad guy sociopath role from G. Robinson and does so across some of the most unique set scenery of the day.

The two sets largely used are a set of prison sets, including a shoot out exterior, and plenty high angles looking down staircases and across yards. The electric chair scenes are probably the best across the whole style.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) is a bitch-and-towel slappin violent anti-social criminal psychopath flashback murder courtroom film noir with the king of the noir loons himself James Cagney as a no nonsense violent career criminal en route to hell.

Ralph Cotter, a hardened criminal with a penchant for violence, embarks on a harrowing journey of deceit and betrayal after a daring prison escape turns deadly.

The death of his escape partner, Carleton, at his own hands sets the stage for a twisted game of manipulation and obsession. Is the love between brother and sister greater than that between gangster and long-suffering moll?

As Cotter insinuates himself into the life of Carleton's unsuspecting sister, Holiday, a dark and disturbing dynamic emerges — a typical web of desire and domination, where passion and pain collide in a volatile mix of emotion.

Their sadomasochistic bond is laid bare in a chilling scene where Cotter's brutality is met with Holiday's fervent embrace — a stark portrayal of the depths of their depravity. They are American. They are you.

He Ran All The Way (1951)

He Ran All The Way (1951) is a John Garfield classic home invasion disillusioned post-war young man turns-to-crime parental nightmare indolent rebel film noir, from the high era of the indolent rebellious criminal youth turns to crime movie style.

In the murky depths of 1950s Tinseltown, where secrets slither in the shadows and peril prowls at every turn, He Ran All the Way emerges as a gritty yarn of deceit and treachery.

Directed by the mysterious John Berry and starring the dynamic duo of John Garfield and Shelley Winters, this noir gem plunges audiences into the seamy world of youth in trouble with the law in the doom male post-war era of male doom and desire as doomed males turned to home invading robbery and anarchy, only to satisfy that world-ending craving they have for they know what, only in the movies, and only ever in film noir.

He Walked By Night (1948)

He Walked By Night (1948) is a procedural lone psychopath hunter killer thriller semi-documentary police technical adviser film noir starring Richard Basehart and directed by Alfred Werker.

Drain dwelling hi-technology oscillograph and television projector building full fat classic film noir, He Walked By Night may also be appreciated for the stunning array of tech gadgets and insight into the technical electronic industry as it might have stood in 1948, as well as its stunning lack of female actors and characters and for what it says about the battles for social control that went on as fascism was unspooled across social institutions after World War II

Gun totin and fast moving, He Walked By Night rides through the night of course, that being its charm, and of course it's night in the storm drains too, where master lone wolf Richard Basehart - the character's name is Roy Martin or Roy Morgan - has a stash of guns too.

When it comes to doggy nemesis none are harder and cleverer and more determined and sharp as Scott Brady, who also plays a mean police milkman when need be.

Chicago Deadline (1949)

Chicago Deadline (1949) is a journalism and media murder conspiracy film noir with Alan Ladd as the laddish reporter with the jump on the police, as a deadly chase takes place in unravelling the mystery of a murdered lass played by Donna Reed.

In the shadowed alleys of the alleys shadowed by the shadows of Chicago's seedy alley Alan Ladd-based underbelly, reporter Alan Ladd stumbles upon the lifeless form of a mysterious woman, her tragic demise shrouded in the haze of what is surely a noir boarding house murder mystery.

Yet, within the pages of her address book lies a tantalizing glimpse into a world of intrigue and decadence—a world that beckons Ladd into a labyrinthine quest for truth.

As Ladd delves deeper into the enigmatic past of the deceased, guided by the alluring June Havoc, a society dame with secrets of her own, he becomes ensnared in a web of deceit and danger.

Walk East on Beacon (1952)

Walk East on Beacon (1952) is a procedural red scare voiceover documentary style detective versus communist manhunt plodding screed of a film noir crime picture, roughing up the reds who are russifying the States with their mean mob tactics.

Eye on the prize the Communists know what they want in the form of America's most TOP SECRET space diagrams, showing the dream revolving space station envisaged by the tech wisdom and fantasist futurists accelerationists of 1952.

With a clip shot of Hoover refusing to look at the camera Walk East on Beacon (1952) is a fed-dreamboat of technological noir as the movie artfully shows the latest and best in detection methods.

Man Afraid (1957) is a morality murder widescreen revenge, religion and child film noir from late in the cycle, dealing with issues of culpability and trauma, in the light of a Christian minister accidentally killing a young burglar.

This fascinating tale is told as mentioned in ludicrous wide-screen, giving extra inches of enjoyment on either side of the action, and often leaving large black and white expanses of unfilled space, ready to be made into any flavour director Harry Keller can conceive.

Despite the religious consultant mentioned int he credits however this is not a religious movie, but just so happens to be a movie about a religious man.

Framed (1947)

Framed (1947) is a sap drifter frame-up femme-fatale murder film noir which features many a trope from the classic canon, and provides evil atmosphere aplenty for noir-seekers seeking the less than canonical but still functional examples of the classical canon.

Within this atmospheric noir landscape Glenn Ford assumes the role of the intrepid trucker miner and engineer heel and sap for the rap drifter Mike Lambert, a man thrust into an alcoholic ordeal when he unwittingly becomes embroiled in a web of deceit and danger.

Behind the wheel of a truck sans brakes, his journey careens into the shadowy confines of La Paloma, a nondescript bar and restaurant where fatal sleaze and hot love intertwines his path with that of the enigmatic waitress, Paula Craig, portrayed with mesmerising female fatalistic allure by Janis Carter.

A Woman's Secret (1949)

A Woman's Secret (1949) is a jealous woman murder melodrama with film noir pretensions, which casually mixes the woman genre with the thriller to create a mood movie. It's a good nod of the hat towards the notion of the Woman's Picture, much beloved of the forties filmmaking frater-hood, who when they were not feminising fatality, had plenty other background tropes to develop into motion pictures. Behold the enigma that is the screenplay of this cinematic endeavor, shrouded in mystery as thick as the fog veiling the forlorn streets of a noir tale. The aim, if indeed there is one, remains an elusive specter, teasing viewers with its ambiguous intentions. Is it a whodunit, a labyrinthine maze of deceit and treachery?

Flame of the Islands (1956)

Flame of the Islands (1956) is a social climbing society and marlin fishin' color film noir crime melodrama from Republic Pictures.

Strange and colorful and with the gaudiest Christmas tree in all of color noir and maybe all of Hollywood's golden age, Flame of the Islands is bright and cheap and made by men with color palettes in mind.

Is this fare classifiable as noir in the hallowed flaming halls of sacred cinema or is this flaming flambeuax of a mock camp full color crime melodrama, an exercise in the colour red?

Hard to say what kind of noir this is, other than a bright red plastic tinsel Christmas tree of all out weirdness that is disappointingly not rescued from kitsch by camp and rescued from thrills by an noir sensibility that might have been able to make it across the colour divide.

Black Widow (1954)

Black Widow (1954) is a colour DeLuxe mystery Broadway cocktail suicide murder CinemaScope motion picture with film noir leanings.

Attention spans alerted everyone this slider of a slow noir is another object lesson in the class of colon noirs which feel their way in a cinematic dark so much of the time and are managerially staid with a tragic inability to fill the vacant screen space created by colour-vision and wide screen tech. A double whammy of screen emptiness.

Come diving headlong into the murky waters of a slow burn noir flick that's as sluggish as a slug on a warm sidewalk. This one's a textbook case of those colour noirs that stumble in the shadows, groping blindly through the cinematic darkness, like a gumshoe with one too many shots of rum, yum. Yeah, it's got all the fancy-pants tech — living colour, widescreen — but it's like watching paint dry in a rainstorm. A double-barreled blast of cinematic emptiness that hits you square between the eyes.

Accused of Murder (1956)

Accused of Murder (1956) is a gangster gangland-killer witness nightclub singer full color semi-static murder film noir from the bemusing and hard to grasp color film noir cycle of the 1950s.

Accused of Murder emerges from the shadows of 1950s American cinema as a non-quintessential example of the film noir style, directed with precision attention to color and its processes by Joseph Kane and featuring a semi-stellar cast led by David Brian, Vera Ralston, and Sidney Blackmer.

At the heart of this Republic Pictures produced and distributed work of noir art narrative lies the enigmatic figure of nightclub singer Ilona Vance, portrayed with captivating allure and alluring captivity by Ralston. When crooked attorney Frank Hobart meets his untimely demise, all eyes turn to Vance, the last person to have seen him alive. As the accusing finger of suspicion points in her direction, Vance finds herself entangled in a web of deceit and intrigue, fighting to clear her name and unravel the truth behind Hobart's demise.

Niagara (1953)

Niagara (1953) is a murder femme-fatale colour classic film noir movie with Marilyn Monroe as a scheming and seductive noir villainess who is planning the truly classic murder of a true film noir sap, played by Joseph Cotten.

All of this takes place by the roaring falls of the title which are magnificently displayed and form a foamy misty counterpart of art to the mortally scheming people, both innocent and guilty, who lurk upon its touristic shores.

This color noir movie, a 1953 commonplace of the American cinematic underworld, oozes with tension and shadows, directed by the seasoned hand of Henry Hathaway, overseen by the shrewd eye of Charles Brackett, and crafted in the dark alleys of screenplay by Brackett, Richard L. Breen, and Walter Reisch.

Starring in this grim tale are the luminous Marilyn Monroe, the enigmatic Joseph Cotten, the seductive Jean Peters, and the slick Max Showalter, known in the shadows as Casey Adams. It strutted onto the scene like a siren in the night, capturing the hearts of audiences and leaving them breathless in its wake, a crown jewel in the treasury of 20th Century Fox's film noir files.

Inferno (1953)

Inferno (1953) is a vivid Vista-Vision survival epic revenge desert color film noir from the baffling files of bright and gaudy three dimensional 50s.

Inferno however is saved from most of the widescreen peril of most color noir and despite employing a moderately beige and drab process, manages to follow its noir roots well, and wear its hard-boiled pants hitched right.

As a superior vehicle for noir's captain of the tough-side Robert Ryan, Inferno offers perils and deceits and desert sun and rolls out hard with its dangerous tycoon narrative, as Robert Ryan with a broken leg is ditched in the desert to di of exposure by his scheming missus and her lousy lover.

In the rugged expanse of the desert, a formidable and driven business magnate finds himself ensnared in a dire predicament. Live or die, your choice tough guy.

The Badlanders (1958)

The Badlanders (1958) is a western revenge noir which bills as a bold reinterpretation of the timeless classic The Asphalt Jungle (1950) reimagined against the rugged backdrop of the Wild West.

In this cinematic tapestry, the echoes of the past reverberate across the sun-scorched plains, as the sins of the urban jungle find new life amidst the untamed frontier.

Drawing inspiration from its predecessor, The Badlanders makes moves to homage to the gritty realism and moral ambiguity that defined its predecessor. Yet, with a daring shift in setting and tone, the film breathes new life into the familiar narrative, imbuing it with a sense of vitality and urgency befitting the rugged landscapes of the West.

Party Girl (1958)

Party Girl (1958) is a brassy blast of 50s technicolor dance and jealous showgirl murder misogyny film noir.

Directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse and Lee J. Cobb, and filmed in CinemaScope, Party Girl celebrates like few other mediocre classics, the gazing male and the prancing half naked female, along with such blasts of wowed brass instruments the sound of those fat horns lingers painfully after the fact.

The movie we are talking about describes a perspective often portrayed in media and art that tends to objectify and depict women from a particular viewpoint.

This perspective often emphasizes certain physical attributes or characteristics of women, positioning them as objects of desire rather than fully realized individuals.

I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

I Died a Thousand Times (1955) is colour rural film noir one-last-job heist movie remake of High Sierra (1941).

Filmed in CinemaScope and Warnercolor this color film noir was directed by Stuart Heisler and features Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, with Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Lon Chaney Jr.

The stereotypical, comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film was replaced by a Mexican stereotype played by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. The film marks the second motion picture appearance of Dennis Hopper's six-decade career, and Nick Adams makes an uncredited appearance as a bellhop.

Johnny Dark (1954)

Johnny Dark (1954) is not a film noir title, despite Johnny Dark being a provocatively film noir style title.

Instead Johnny Dark is a rather pleasant and fairly swift drama film about a motor car engineer who builds a super-efficient sports car, but finds himself sanctioned by the owner of the firm he works for, who is so stuck in his ways that he only wants to make super chunky American family cars that take six people — a man who sees the sports car as a sign of corruption and decline in civic standards.

There is surprisingly little else to the story of Johnny Dark. The men are test racers and engineers and they used to be USAF pilots.

The owner of the company is fighting with a group of investors, each trying to gain control and this causes him to back the project, and kill it once the proxy vote is over.

Johnny Trouble (1957) is not a film noir despite its posturing title and potential eagerness to be classed as such using the classic Johnny ― Noir naming motif.

Instead Johnny Trouble is a softly presented teen tearaway inter-generational whimsical drama about one elderly lady's grief and her longing for a society and a family in which everything will turn out all right.

The elderly lady in this matter is none other than Ethel Barrymore and this was her final film role which does lead to some interesting places including a fond fade to farewell when she bows out as well as

Larceny, Inc (1942)

Larceny, Inc (1942) is a super-fun madcap comedy crime caper starring Edward G. Robinson, Broderick Crawford, Jane Wyman and Jack Carson, among several other golden age heroes of the screen.

Not your regular film noir fare, it's still important to patrol the edge of the style and find valuable curiosities such as this, a comedy to be sure, and a bold stab at comedy and crime collided. It's a lot of fun.

That said Larceny, Inc. is indeed a a swell 1942 flick, hitting the big screen on May 2, 1942, care of Warner Bros. Picture this.

It's a mix-up of comedy and gangster shenanigans, cooked up by director Lloyd Bacon. Starring heavyweights like Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Carson, and spiced up with Anthony Quinn and Edward Brophy.

The Beat Generation (1959)

The Beat Generation (1959) is an outré exploitation rapist versus cop beatnik beat thriller which manages to deal with the worst social topics imaginable and do so in a madly unorthodox and spoof manner, while working hard to retain narrative dignity.

Featuring an array of daft and hip beats, beat songs, beat drinks, a beat with a rat, a beat who goes scuba diving and is a kind of harpoon beat, a wrestling beat which is hard to beat, Louis Armstrong, one of the greatest musicians of all time who is playing with some tuneless white dropout cats and a noisy mime, some straight ladies who are not beats, and some other squares who are raped.

Then there is a serious discussion of abortion wedged in between the acting of Fay Spain and Steve Cochran, Cochran playing the cop who is thrown into the world of the beats while tracing a rapist beat.

Underground (1941)

Underground (1941) is an action packed counter-Nazi propaganda espionage adventure movie in which one brave brother fights a massive propaganda war within wartime Germany while his brother supports and upholds the regime.

Nothing could be more dangerous in this artfully constructed version of Nazi society which is exactly as you would expect it. A place of propaganda. Where people are not free to speak.

No mention is made of the Nazi's racial mania, although the young mouthpiece who is the dedicated wounded Nazi soldier, whose brother is hard at work in the underground, is racially crazed for the notion of Mother Germany and its capacity for ruling all of Europe and the World.

His brother runs an illegal and dangerous radio van service which certainly seems to be broadcasting a minority message. This message is that Nazis are an untrustworthy evil and not fit for power.

The Monster and the Girl (1941)

The Monster and the Girl (1941) is an outré monster death row revenge movie from the golden age of monster death row revenge movies.

Unorthodox and strange, this crime science fiction courtroom horror thriller revenge monkey noir is a message to film lovers for all time, and stands as an immortal portal to more than just entertainment.

Film noir is one the least issues with The Monster and the Girl (1941) as there is such a delightful heap of unpacking to be made of this short epic, which tells of a mad experiment with monkeydom, and a mad experiment in film making too, as Hollywood feels its way towards the horror genre out of the monster department, while still indulging in its deep passion for monkeys.

more mystery than monster for the main of its short running time, The Monster and the Girl is a courtroom framed thriller mystery told in flashback as the shocked participants of a murder trial piece together the most awful facts that had ever been imagined on screen.

The Turning Point (1952)

The Turning Point (1952) is a corporate crime prosecution crooked cop journalism and media managerial film noir starring Edmond O'Brien and Joseph Cotten, as a special prosecutor and a journalist — respectively — breaking a crime syndicate in downtown Los Angeles.

It was inspired by the Kefauver Committee's hearings dealing with organised crime which were of enormous public interest in 1950 and 1951, and which inspired quite a few film noir moments, as it happened.

The idea of these hearings as a locus for the challenging of crime by means of public morals, created a unique set of cultural points for the 1950s. Since prohibition times, crime had grown into a major enterprise, and this its mangerial Kefauver-style film noir re-telling with sensation, morality, family, frienship, thuggery and downtown Los Angeles location shooting.

Son of Dracula (1943)

Son of Dracula (1943) is not a film noir but does belong to the cycle of Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s much loved by audiences, aficionados and other knowledgeable persons who enjoy the film productions of the era.

In terms of presentation, acting and character, the horror films of the 1940s were not as sophisticated as the classic noir productions of those years.

In the domain of thematic substance, the elegant tapestries of Gothic horror that graced the silver screen during the nascent 1930s may indeed exude a semblance of gentility when juxtaposed against the prevailing benchmarks of our contemporary standards.

The noir taste is evident, but the nascent horror film has little in common with film noir. There is not even a great commerce between actors and the genre, versus the film noir style.

Tight Spot (1955)

Tight Spot (1955) is a witness protection prison police tough-talking tough-cop versus mob boss film noir, inspired by Senator Estes Kefauver's tactics in coercing Virginia Hill to testify in the Bugsy Siegel prosecution.

It's based on a play by Leonard Kantor, and so is largely contained within a single set, a luxury hotel suite, and within the mix of styles are touches of screwball romantic comedy, courtesy of Ginger Rogers, and material far darker and more in line with the hand of noir.

It takes place over a weekend before the start of a mob trial and with crucial witnesses murdered, prosecutor Lloyd Hallett (Edward G. Robinson) has only one long shot left in order to prosecute public enemy and nemesis mob boss Benjamin Costain (Lorne Greene)

Hoodlum Empire (1952)

Hoodlum Empire (1952) is a semi-documentary corporate noir managerial Kefevaur hearing inspired film noir starring Luther Adler as a managerial darklord of gambling facing up to a Senate hearing.

Solid film noir technique and actors including a star turn from Claire Trevor and the normative mustachoed noirisms of Brian Donlevy.

For a film that fix to flips flashbacks like flying filmic tales there is epic wobbly fades and wipes to indicate the passage of time, back to World War 2, offering a creditable treasure trove of tropes for all to look and learn.

Shield For Murder (1954)

Shield For Murder (1954) is a violent crooked cop bad-lieutenant style savagely enjoyable classic spaghetti cellar film noir starring a heaving Edmond O'Brien as a mentalist officer with a bend on for the dark side.

It's the mid 1950s and all is roaring forward into a bright future, but on the streets of the noir city it's a different story, where one man is bending the American Dream outta shape with every slug, snog and gamble.

A beautiful and even darker twin to the other great bent and copper movie of the moment which was Pushover (1954), with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak. It's not debatable whether or not you want the cop to get the money and the woman.

In the brooding corridors of urban noir, Shield for Murder, a collaborative directorial effort helmed by Edmond O'Brien and Howard Koch, thrusts audiences into the visceral underbelly of Los Angeles, where O'Brien's portrayal of a cop gone awry serves as a chilling harbinger of moral decay and nasty noir cop rage.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) is a race-against-time paranoia thriller film noir made in the semi-documentary style in which doctors politicians and police struggle to find small-pox infected female smuggler.

Also known as Frightened City, The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) stands as a cinematic testament hailing from the noir-tinged annals of 1950, a creation helmed by the cinematic maestro Earl McEvoy and featuring the luminous talents of Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, and William Bishop.

This celluloid venture, captured on location and steeped in a semi-documentary aesthetic, unfurls a gripping narrative centred around diamond smugglers who, unbeknownst to them, become inadvertent instigators of a smallpox outbreak amidst the gritty expanse of 1947 New York City.

Edge Of Doom (1950) is a desperate priest killer noir starring Farley Granger as a man driven to edgy paranoiac and driven madness by poverty and in his view the Catholic church.

A paranoid city streets noir of the first drainage, Edge Of Doom is a slum story set in increasingly crummier settings, pitting priests against poverty and poverty against sanity, as one man turns to blame the church for the ills of his life, and now has issues with them around the deaths of both his parents.

A brilliant noir with all the fun of the style which includes Dana Andrews as the priestly narrative glue, offering a framed Farley fable, a story of desperation from the poor side.

On the capitalist mean streets of 1950 there is a shinola-show of trouble for the poor, and all of this is focused on Farley Granger's increasingly desperate and tragic desire to see a large funeral for his penurious maw.

Undercover Girl (1950)

Undercover Girl (1950) is a female undercover cop film noir in which all of femininity suffers the indignities of the history of the world up to 1950, and since 1950 too in some workplaces.

Definitely the target of workplace bullying as well as workplace sexual harassment from smug mug himself Scott Brady, undercover girl Alexis Smith is also a good cop in an embarrassingly male world, only a few years out of wartime and no years into the 1950s, it is going to be a place where a woman is going to be muscled into the film noir environment of the home, this is going to happen.

She's on the range but they want her in apron, and it takes a touch cookie like Alexis Smith to break this patriarchy right open.

The Conspirators (1944)

The Conspirators (1944) is an espionage and resistance romance and adventure film noir made by Jean Negulesco, and starring Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid.

Despite its wartime time and the complexities of wartime spying and resistance and the very real and sometimes unreal presence of the Nazis, the set-up of this wartime noir is classicly typical of the style - - a man and a woman, both of whom are fleeing from their pasts, accidentally meet and he falls for her - - big time.

A chance meeting, indicative of the noirish fate of many a wartime film noir protagonist. He in particular feels that the past can never harm them, and urges his new love to forget it.

Where Danger Lives (1950)

Where Danger Lives (1950) is a disturbed wife psycho murder couple on the run film noir with Robert Mitchum as the hell in love with Faith Domergue, one deranged half of a supremely dysfucntional marriage — the other half being Claude Rains.

A severe combinations of noir elements give the story of Where Danger Lives (1950) a bizarre enough edge to classify it as several types of crazy, largely derived from the mad and maddening behaviour of the suicide patient played by Faith Domergue.

The relationship with her husband which is abusive and very much a front for her to get access to money and for him (the husband played by Claude Rains) to have ownership of a young woman , and as such a marriage doomed to fail.

Berlin Express (1948)

Berlin Express (1948) is a train-bound post-war espionage cloak and dagger military mission movie with plenty film noir tones, themes and touches.

Drenched in the unappealing and captivating intricacies of the post-war milieu, rife with a tapestry of tropes, landscapes, and clichés that echo the discordant symphony of a world grappling with the aftermath of conflict, Berlin Express (1948) is an unusual and compelling espionage noir.

In the brutal theater of World War II's ferocity, where mushroom clouds etched indelible scars on history, few glimpses pierce the collective consciousness like the haunting images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's atomic abyss.

Yet, within the silent reels of this revelation, a different, less heralded tale unfolds — a cinematic odyssey unearthing the aftermath of conventional bombardment upon the ancient lands of Germany.

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Ace in the Hole (1951) is the ultimate journalism and media noir with the most vile connivance going down between Kirk Douglas as a manically ambitious and revenge-fuelled journalist and a local sheriff in a life or death rescue situation.

Ace in the Hole, which also known as The Big Carnival is directed by Billy Wilder and stars Kirk Douglas as a disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper. The film co-stars Jan Sterling and features Robert Arthur and Porter Hall.

Kirk Douglas plays "Chuck" Tatum, a frustrated former big-city journalist stranded working for a small Albuquerque newspaper. Because of his megalo-manic ways and urge to revenge himself he exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to restart his career, but the situation fast escalates into an out-of-control circus which will end in death, and more death.

Crime Of Passion (1957)

Crime Of Passion (1957) is a cops in suburbia story of female subjugation by the American Dream, and the story of how one career woman in love regrets her decision to quit her job in the media and become a housewife.

Many of the favourite flavours of noir are evident in a curiously uncorrupted and happy cop shop whereas the subtle rot of suburban morality that is often unsubtly recorded in film noir is placed on a slow burn beneath the lot of this movie.

The men are the men and the women are the women in this vision of 1950s USA, and most especially of all this is a noir of suburbia, a tale of the middle classes and the stifling inability of the new American Dream to cope with any abnormality in the moral and gender relations of the day.

Forbidden (1953)

Forbidden (1953) is a gangster abroad illicit love affair mobster's widow exotica romance film noir set in Macao, directed by Rudolph Mate and starring Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger.

Echoing the heights of 1940s noir theme atmosphere and exciting the dark brew with the sunlight of the 1950s Forbidden bothers itself into existence as a low-subsistence noir which is recognisable as the cinema of ideas that have come before.

Romantic complications are the order of the day as are snippy twists and the constant colliding of three actors, often crammed into one shot — Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger.

The idea of dreaming the noir city into being when the city is Macao, and your film is shot on the lot — it is a big ask. Without much scenery to lean on, the actors look even closer together. The main set is a night club, the Lisbon Club, which is rather nice, but the noir city may not be entirely evident.

The Glass Web (1953) is a blackmail and murder film noir set in and around a television show which profiles true crime.

The movie The Unsuspected (1947) starring Claude Rains and Audrey Totter must be the most immediate antecedent to this type of story, a film in which a true crime broadcast becomes the setting for an actual murder.

There is a great open gulf of questions spanning the hundreds of films that weer made across theses six years however, and The Unsuspected and The Glass Web are different prospects entirely.

One could accuse The Unsuspected of being proper noir, insofar as it is amoral, fun and shot plenty in the dark, with mystery and shadow playing with fantasy and romance, a veritable dance with the dark side but not taking itself so seriously, as they never did all the time in the film noir era.

The Houston Story (1956) is a corporate managerial Texas-based oil-boosting racket noir from the high era of corporate and racket noir.

It's a tough tale of industrial scale mob dodging oil thievery from the slick black beating heart of the Texas oil industry.

Seedy and pulpy and violent and silly, with a streak of cabbie noir and a lot of dirty oil scenery as well as some sordid poolside lechery, The Houston Story is a rewarding noir of parts.

Youth Runs Wild (1944)

Youth Runs Wild (1944) is an inattentive parents and juvenile delinquency returning veteran social drama which takes an early look at the idea of juvenile delinquency, several years before the teen-boom began across America and emerged within the Hollywood movies of the post-war years.

The returning veteran aspect is unusual and not entirely noir in its outlook, as Kent Smith plays Danny Coates who returns wounded to his old working class neighbourhood and takes up a mission to keep the toddlers safe.

As a kind of side-mission to this, he is obliged by the local oldie judge to take care of some teenage tearaways, but he doesn't seem to succeed at this, and the teenagers tear right off and into Juvenile Hall.

Chicago Confidential (1957)

Chicago Confidential (1957) is a crime syndicate hard-boiled DA film noir thriller directed by Sidney Salkow, starring Brian Keith, Beverly Garland and Dick Foran.

It is based on the 1950 book Chicago: Confidential! by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer.

Chicago Confidential was the first film produced for Edward Small by Robert E. Kent, who had been a writer and story supervisor at Columbia. Small and Kent went on to make many movies together.

The movie is known for its crime-drama narrative and is set against the backdrop of organized crime in Chicago.

The story revolves around a crusading attorney named Jim Fremont, played by Brian Keith. Fremont is determined to take down the organized crime syndicate that controls various aspects of Chicago's business and political landscape. The narrative unfolds as Fremont gathers evidence to expose the corruption within the city.

Born To Kill (1947) is a savage psychopathic murder female seeker hero thriller noir, from the height of the classic film noir period, displaying virtually every noir vice and virtue in a brutal and thrilling tale of toxic male psychopathy and female resilience.

The opening minutes of Born To Kill are a quick and quiet succession of some of noir's best idiomatic themes and settings. All taking place in Reno, these scenes kick off with first the independent women, and then the suburban setting. Within that setting are more independent women, and plenty alcohol.

The next scene is in a casino, not a likely setting for an innocent divorcee perhaps, but a great place for Americana to wash up against itself - - and the scene right after that is back into perfect suburbia, where it's all iceboxes and radio sets, a friendly doggie and a double murder out of nowhere.