The Glass Key (1942)

The Glass Key (1942) is a classic Ladd-Lake Dashiell Hammett violent political intrigue and romance film noir thriller remake directed by Stuart Heisler and starring a case-file of noir talent including Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Bonita Granville, Richard Denning and Joseph Calleia.

It's a complex fast moving typewriter-written stylistic and at times super violent political romp, with a dog attack.

Whatever your take on and tolerance for film noir the 1942 second production of The Glass Key is almost a law unto itself at times, not so outré as some of its peers, but far harder for it.

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.

Shakedown (1950)

Shakedown (1950) is a slick and high speed journalism and media film noir crime and blackmail film about one young photographer's ambition to be the richest, best and most romantically involved snapper in the entirety of the great noir city.

Directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Howard Duff, Brian Donlevy, Peggy Dow, Lawrence Tierney, Bruce Bennett and Anne Vernon, Shakedown manages to blur the lines between crime and reportage.

With its hero to heel ending Shakedown (1950) is a lot more than a thrilling item of media noir, with its twin villains and twin romance stories, and with a central character about whom we shouldn't but do sympathise with.

Kiss of Death (1947)

Kiss of Death (1947) is a psychopathic traumatic sttol-pigeon crime procedural film noir, featuring Victor Mature as a troubled ex-con; Brian Donlevy as a firm, fair and forgiving Assistant DA; Richard Widmark as a crazed psychopath; and Collen Gray as a sweet and innocent goody-two-shoes, the type of woman in fact beloved of all film noir scenarios, the guiding angel flying in the fateful face of sexual lust and loose living.

An all-American woman perhaps, certainly offering morality and everything else in line with the cinematic Code of operation.

The semiotic valuations which lead to the promotion of one family ideal, and the extinction of African American life in the process, was a bold attempt by Hollywood to attempt to mythify the American way of life into a set of values that all would adopt.

While similarly in this case being spooked up to high heaven by the emerging figure of the psychopath. And that with one of the greatest psychopath's in film history. Noir is its own set of cultures and ideas, and is roughly speaking, a set of conventions defining perception in limited and predictable ways within just about any picture of American life you might care to inject it into.

Impact (1949)

Impact (1949) is a film noir classic of confusion, plot twists, identity and love and follows the mishaps and fateful fortunes of industrialist Walter Williams, played by Brian Donlevy.

What makes Impact an impactful film noir as opposed to a plain old drama, is the twisted plot around the successful industrialist's marriage. 

As grouchy as an old bear, his wife sits around at home, the very epitome of the scheming wife, out for what she can get, and of course plotting murder.

A marriage made of monogrammed shirts and pyjamas is helpful for plots like this. Much is made of the bizarre accidentals which lead poor Walter Williams from the heights of success to the lows of small-town isolation, such as the odd device of the domestic assistant Su Lin (played by Anna May Wong) overhearing what she thinks is a threat, when in fact it's a husband larking around with his wife.

The duplicitous wife in Impact (1949) is here writ heavy in the form of Helen Walker, who plays the Irene Williams, the lady behind the plot to kill. Like a good deal of solid noir, Impact is a marriage fantasy, the likes of which 1940s film noir specialised in. 

By this we demonstrate a wife who is so ill-suited that she is planning your murder, and a wannabe love that turns up out of nowhere, already embodying the American dream, and valuing love above cash - a perpetual dilemma. 

Hangmen Also Die! (1943)

At the height of the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, four German exiles in Hollywood:

• director Fritz Lang
• playwright Bertolt Brecht
• composer Hanns Eisler 
• and actor Hans Heinrich von Twardowski

... combined their skills to make Hangmen Also Die!, a surprising film noir propaganda piece about the Czech resistance.

Twardowski plays Reinhard Heydrich, an SS Obergruppenführer and the 'Reich-Protector' of Czechoslovakia, an infamous character from history and known alternately as 'The Hangman' and 'The Butcher of Prague'.

When he is assassinated by a surgeon (played by Brian Donlevy), the city is locked down and the doctor must rely on the help of the resistance to evade capture. 

Hangmen Also Die! is a fine mix of war picture, film noir and political thriller, with other surprising elements including mad Nazi darkness to the fore.

The Big Combo (1955)

The walls and floors are streaked in shadows and there's a noisy boxing match roaring in the city.

Behind the scenes, a girl is pursued down darkly expressionist corridors, with only the self-gratified roar of the crowd as backdrop.

As The Big Combo starts we’re right in there at the heart of the caper, although the real story of The Big Combo is that of Cornel Wilde’s cop, and his obsession with catching the cooly menacing crime lord, Mr Brown, played brilliantly by Richard Conte.

To fulfil its film noir promise, The Big Combo is also hot with slick dialogue, the sort they just don't write no more:

Joe McClure: I guess I'm getting too old to handle a gun.

Mr. Brown: Yeah, maybe you're just getting too old, Joe.