Kings Row (1942)

Kings Row (1942) is an epic local large-scale detailed slice of life dramatic-style tableau course-of-history melodrama, which is not film noir, and yet retains a space in the noir hall of fame, not on the wall of shame so much as on the formative features feature.

Still — in reading the all-time seminal seminar on noir, Raymonde Borde and Etienne Chaumeton's A Panorma of Amercian Film Noir (1941 - 1953), we do find that Kings Row is one of several non noir productions that rise up early in the authors' studies, as an example of the ultra-conventional being infected with the same dark currents that were hitting civil as well as cultural and criminal society — noir.

The Glass Key (1935)

The Glass Key (1935) is an underworld of politics and crime thriller that is not film noir but well may be a proto-noir, but is an adaptation of a seminal Dashiell Hammett novel, later remade into a more lavish effort in 1942.

In the dimly lit chambers of literary discourse, where the flicker of candle flames dances upon the parchment, let us embark upon a journey through the labyrinthine corridors of this narrative. 

The tale that unfolds before us, like the intricate workings of a Victorian pocket watch, neither wears the gilded mask of merriment nor the embroidered cloak of frivolity. Nay, it treads the murky path of shadows and secrets, where the echoes of footsteps linger long after the last page is turned.

Our protagonist, Ned Beaumont, emerges from the fog of obscurity—a man of enigmatic countenance, his features etched by the chisel of fate. 

City For Conquest (1940)

City for Conquest (1940) is an epic Warner Bros. stories-of-the-city style prestige picture with a few filings of film noir placed within its frames, which tend to sprawling grandeur rather than intimate psychological portrayal.

Manhattan melodrama is the pure-bred genre this humanistic tale of immigrant struggles in New York City, does not fare high in noir, but is still a part of the story of the style, above all in the efforts of Warner Bros. to depict James Cagney as something more than a criminal, a boxer on the rise and fall, a story paralleled by the story of his young love Peg Nash, played by Ann Sheridan.

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) is the great post-code gangster film. 

The fun truth that is constant about film noir, is that at its heart it does talk about morality. 

Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Brothers, and starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The Dead End Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, and George Bancroft, makes at a stab at futurity and morality, the twin pins that the production is based on.

This is flat out morality with as much gangsterism as could be squeezed on to the screen, while Catholicism beckons from the sidelines, filtered through the rough-housing rough antics of a real juvenile delinquent squad of tearaways, who wreck the movie, much as the real life juvenile actors behaved true to type and wrecked the studio. 

This is an irony because film noir was brought about itself by the imposition of a moral code on cinema production, and film noir became an artistic way to discuss this code and frame its requirements in the most interesting ways possible.

Castle on The Hudson (1940)

Castle on the Hudson (1940) is an early classic film noir high drama morality-guided prison movie with several differences. 

Hubris-powered hood John Garfield has ambitions to be The King of New York. 

He's young and good-looking, and filled with the kind of confidence that was popularised by the full-on gangsters of the 1930s.

He owns the night clubs and he owns the streets and he's just the sort of hero we have seen emerging over the last decade, out of the pre-Code era and into the fully coded sort of productions as Castle on the Hudson represents.

Working his way up from the streets, the hoods and mobsters of the 1940s were a special kind of gift to the world. American cinema offered more than a taste of evil, but a full on immersion into the lifestyles of the rich and criminally infamous.

They Drive By Night (1940)

A box office hit in its day, They Drive By Night (1940), with George Raft, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart is a film noir trucker movie, which opens on the embattled lives of some West Coast fruit hauliers, and closes on murder, madness and corporate corruption ― as obsession and madness destroy femme fatale Ida Lupino’s life.

The rub is that director Raoul Walsh had a flair for subverting genres, and really only made what you might call “Raoul Walsh pictures” whatever the basic  genre ― and this one is about as Raoul Walsh as you can get.

It’s a trucker movie, it’s a comedy, it’s a romance and it’s a thriller. It’s a picture about class relationships and the cutthroat nature of business; and it’s a picture about madness and the little guy rising to the top.

Raoul Walsh ― who also made the following film noir favourites ― High Sierra (1941); Pursued (1947); and White Heat (1949) ― had a feeling feeling for regular people, informal surroundings, and he portrays the hustle and bustle of working life very well.

Nora Prentiss (1947)

Nora Prentiss (1947) and starring Ann Sheridan may not make it on to the major league lists of the great film noirs, but it could still teach us more about the style than many other flicks.

As an object lesson in the behaviours of the femme fatale, Nora Prentiss is an elevated example of that great noir trope - the family man falling foul of the femme fatale. 

What we learn is maybe unintentionally revealed. But the classic figure of the femme fatale represents much more than the dangers of sex, or living loose on the rough side of the city. She represents female emancipation and this being Hollywood and the manners of middle America, that can only be a bad thing. 

Kent Smith plays the mild mannered and successful family man who has it all, and is about to find out the hard way, what it means to lose it, by falling for the wrong woman. That in essence is the straightforward moral and the quick plot summary here, but this is film noir, and the waters run deep.

First is the exciting opening of the movie, featuring a strange shrouded character who is being led to trial, and who will neither speak nor reveal their true identity.

Woman on the Run (1950)

Woman on the Run (1950), starring Ann Sheridan and directed by Norman Foster, is a gripping if minor race-against-time film noir, with enough pleasing twists and conceits to keep most admirers of the style happy.

There is excellent location photography of San Francisco, the likes of which is seen in very few features. Woman on the Run entirely makes a virtue of the streets, alleys, spectacles and scenery of San Francisco, with more location shots than anyone could shake a .44 at.

These include concluding scenes at the fairground at Santa Monica, which perhaps disappoint. This is because most of the questions posed by the drama have been resolved by this stage; we know who is who and what is going to happen, and so by the time the scene is set for the conclusion, there isn't much left to conclude.

The promise here at the ending is that the fairground and the rollercoaster ride are going to be a super-exciting finish, but it doesn't quite pan out like that. 

The true excitement of Woman on the Run involves the passing and pursuing around the streets, through various bars, clubs, apartments and diners; and where the mystery of the race against time which keeps things going. 

Edge of Darkness (1943)

Edge of Darkness (1943) is a Nazi-heavy Norwegian war romp with more dead bodies in its opening few minutes than you could shake any number of Nazi pointing devices at, assuming your Nazi pointing devices were not too busy pointing things out on your incredibly detailed Nazi models of Norwegian villages, strategic or otherwise.

The alternative title for this amazing war effort is Norway In Revolt, which does sum things up in a manner of speaking.

And once viewers have overcome the surprise of the many piles of dead bodies, piled across other dead bodies, piled inside and outside in mounds and heaps which would seem utterly infeasible, had the bodies once supposed to have been alive, there is a fairly exciting, fairly tepid, and at times pleasantly complex film awaiting, promising not just Errol Flynn, but more critically than this, Ann Sheridan.

Yes, you can come for the piles of bodies or the Norwegian models, or the overtly evil and ridiculous Nazis, but it turns out that only Ann Sheridan is worth the wait.