Street of Chance (1942)

Street of Chance (1942) is an early noir cycle amnesia noir that with Burgess Meredith and Claire Trevor which beautifully captures so many of the elements that would go on to make the full fat noir formula.

Burgess Meredith takes a little accident downtown and the fantasy world of Street of Chance has begun. You find a few full on readies in the early 1940s, where pretence to realism is only in the way, and every idea can be playful run.

Here is the hapless man who becomes film noir's solid centre stage staple. Here is a descent into an opposing world that this heel has experienced. He carries with him too a seeker female hero in Claire Trevor and it's going to be a helluva ride. There is domestic routine, without which any early noir would lose its bindings and be entirely wild.

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.