Classic Film Noir exposes the myths by which we fulfil our desires and lays flat the means by which we created the audiovisual dispositif — sex — murder — and the suburban dream — 1940 to 1960 — FEATURING: amnesia, paranoid women, lousy husbands, red scare and HUAC, boxing, drifter narratives, crooked cops, home invasion noir, docu-style noir, returning veterans, #KEFAUVER! cowboy noir, vacuum cleaners in film noir, outré noir, espionage noir — and more.
Three Silent Men (1940)
Cast A Dark Shadow (1955)
Jeopardy (1953)
Jeopardy (1953) is a lean, 69-minute exercise in cinematic claustrophobia and moral ambiguity.
The Invisible Man (1933)
In a crummy British village populated by simple superstitious beer loving vaudevillians there is a sudden and genuine spooking as dramatic imagery blasts across the snow stormed screen and a demanding and aristocratic stranger in wrap appears as some kind of local uber mensch among the peasants, settling himself in an inn in one of the best openings in cinema, one of the best of the 1930s, one of the best of all decades indeed.
13 West Street (1962)
is the film that marked Alan Ladd's swan song as a leading man. And honey, let me tell you, this was not the grand finale one might have hoped for. Sure, it’s a decent movie—for its time—but the truth is, it’s hard not to see the wear and tear of Ladd’s years of excessive drinking and hard living, splashed across his face like a tired canvas.
Thunder Road (1958)
It's a noirish crime story with more than just a few late period swiping stabs at the style.
Boy must ya hate 1958 and this movie which opens with the banjo pickin moan of authority that complains millions of dollars are lost to the treasury through taxation each year by means of the power of illicit whiskey, boo hoo. Who cares!
On The Beach (1959)
On the Beach, written by Nevil Shute and adapted into a film by Stanley Kramer, stands as one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time. Both the book and the film are credited with significantly influencing the anti-nuclear weapons movement of the 1960s and contributing to the end of the nuclear arms race.
Woman in Hiding (1950)
Corporate villainy also appears in this car smashin chase and hide thriller in the form of Stephen McNally playing an industry boss who is going to be appropriate screen material for the 1950s, straight outta war and into world domination, starting with mob behaviour in the boardroom.
I would seem from the Wikipedia entry on Woman in Hiding (1950) that not everybody agrees that this is a film noir. The works that are cited are the super-seminal and all-ruling guide to the subject of film noir, Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton (2002). A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), and Ian Brookes Film Noir: A Critical Introduction.
Walk Softly, Stranger (1950)
Either way, these are some quite unbearble tensions to place beside each other. Can love succeed against noir? Can noir defeat love and make a man abandon a loving partner, when offered a hat, cigarette, pistol and a package of money?
The idea in Walk Softly, Stranger may be to combine the two. The film dips into film noir territory in moments then swoops into romantic scenery on balconies, around extravagant Christmas trees and on the verandas of the rich. The evil of the story is carried entirely by Paul Stewart who finds everything amusing and irritating, has a short temper and can't really follow the plan like the classic film noir weaker-willed heist partner who won't stick to da plan.
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