The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

Jane Wyatt and Lee J. Cobb

The Man Who Cheated Himself, 1950 film noir and available free from archive.org - directed by Felix E. Feist and starring Lee. J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt and John Dall.

For anyone who isn't only enjoying the film noir feel of skid row, but is actually living on skid row and can't afford to rent any movies, free film noir is an invaluable source of entertainment.  

Free in this instance just means free of copyright, but of course this generally means you can watch a bunch of these films on archive.org or on public uploads made to YouTube.

Directors beware. Failure to renew copyright can default your masterpiece to the List of Films in the Public Domain in the USA.

Where Does Poetic Realism Fit in to Film Noir?

If we are going to get anywhere with this film noir thing, we have to understand Poetic Realism.  For once, let's not got to WIKIPEDIA.  Instead, I'll try and call this one in pictures of Jean Gabin.

The story goes that when film noir surfaced in America in the early 1940s, it was the product of a mixing of current American themes with two stylistic strands from Europe, the first being German Expressionism and the second being Poetic Realism.

C'EST QUOI CE POETIC REALISM?

It's hard to define this topic of Poetic Realism however, without mentioning another whole heap of -isms, but that is what European art was always about.

It's the difference between movement and genre.  Genres have names like — thriller — comedy — action and adventure — romance — and so forth, and that's because genres are used to create and market certain expectations.

Isms however, such as Poetic Realism, are not so easy to market.  And film noir, if it is anything, is an ism, not a genre.

New York Confidential (1955)

Frank Castello appearing before the Kefauver Committee

In the wake of the televised Kefauver hearings which revealed the extent of organised crime in the USA to a fascinated public, Broderick Crawford stepped up to camera to play a leading member of a syndicate, in its Manhattan headquarters, in the movie New York Confidential.

The television broadcast of the Kefauver committee's hearings had attracted huge public interest and informed the public about issues of municipal corruption and organized crime.

An estimated 30 million Americans tuned in to watch the live proceedings in March 1951, and so it was no surprise that the popularity of these broadcasts would lead to a brief rash of exposé crime films.  It might have seemed like life was imitating the movies, but film noir fans will know that during the 1940s and 1950s, film noir had been prodding away at America's underbelly, and exposing a world of crime, deceit and greed.

The first one of these films was probably The Captive City (1952), which was produced with the blessing of senator Kefauver himself, who appears in the prologue and epilogue, informing viewers about the evils of organized crime.  Other notable examples of exposé films include Hoodlum Empire (1952) and The Turning Point (1952), but the best of them by far is New York Confidential (1955)

Color Film Noirs

Niagara is a full color film noir

There is no rule of criticism which states that a film noir has to be in color.  

The fact that most film noirs are in black and white is probably down to their budget, and the times in which they were made. 

We all agree today that film noir is properly associated with black and white, but since nobody was saying: "Hey let's make a film noir!" in the 1950s the use of black and white was probably not a deliberate and conscious decision.  I'll deal with colorisation elsewhere, bub.

The first thing that you'll notice about this list of color film noirs is that it is pretty much confined to the later period of film noir.  This is for technological reasons as much as anything.  There are also some bankable names on the list, two of the films being directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  The Hitchcock films are interesting, because they often come up in discussions regarding their credentials. Generally Alfred Hitchcock is held to be not a film noir director, but for the purposes of this page, he's in the canon.

So you bums, here is a short list of a few of the color films noirs out there.  Take up your arguments with the boss.