King Creole (1958)

King Creole (1958) is an Elvis Presley Michael Curtiz rock n roll noir juvenile tearaway love and crime street tough southern violent young love tale of parental and filial failure in the homes and streets and schools of 1950s America.

If there should be a place, a note on celluloid, where Elvis and film noir should meet, then King Creole will be that. It was always your favourite Elvis film and while it is good for an Elvis film, nay in fact a veritable Citizen Kane of Elvislry compared to most of the mush he filmed, and despite hosting Michael Curtiz in the master's chair, it is still not so great a movie. We may force a noir pairing with Jailhouse Rock (1957). The film that took youth culture to prison.

House of Wax (1953)

House of Wax (1953) is a 3D remake historic horror chiller thriller non film noir blockbuster movie from the gold age of 3D cinema.

House of Wax, filmed under the working title The Wax Works, was Warner Bros.' response to the unexpected success of the 3D film Bwana Devil, which premiered in November 1952. 

Recognizing the potential of 3D technology, Warner Bros. adopted Julian and Milton Gunzburg's Natural Vision 3D system, the same system used in Bwana Devil.

 They chose to remake their 1933 Technicolor thriller, Mystery of the Wax Museum, originally based on Charles S. Belden's play The Wax Works. 

While Mystery included a newspaper subplot and was set in its release year, House of Wax, set around 1902, retained much of the original's plot and dialogue.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) is a classic science fiction classic film noir classic horror classic paranoia thriller, from the crested tip of the wave of domestic American paranoia, a period which produced some of the zaniest and most intense fabulous fear fests of all time.

An early masterwork from one of the most unsung heroes of film noir and cop cinema, Don Siegel, the man who gave us the best run of post-noir cop movies in the entirety of cinema, the (largely) Clint Eastwood-based sixties-to-seventies quintet of  Coogan's Bluff (1968), Madigan (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971).

With all the talent and experience of the noir era, a man who in fact began his cinematic trade a properly in 1941 performing montage in Now, Voyager (1941), and Casablanca (1942), Siegel is as essential to the film noir journey as a director can be, even if his youth at the time meant he was veritable child alongside the better known noir masters such as Fritz Lang, et al.

Johnny Trouble (1957)

Johnny Trouble (1957) is not a film noir despite its posturing title and potential eagerness to be classed as such using the classic Johnny ― Noir naming motif.

Instead Johnny Trouble is a softly presented teen tearaway inter-generational whimsical drama about one elderly lady's grief and her longing for a society and a family in which everything will turn out all right.

The elderly lady in this matter is none other than Ethel Barrymore and this was her final film role which does lead to some interesting places including a fond fade to farewell when she bows out as well as 

Shield For Murder (1954)

Shield For Murder (1954) is a violent crooked cop bad-lieutenant style savagely enjoyable classic spaghetti cellar film noir starring a heaving Edmond O'Brien as a mentalist officer with a bend on for the dark side.

It's the mid 1950s and all is roaring forward into a bright future, but on the streets of the noir city it's a different story, where one man is bending the American Dream outta shape with every slug, snog and gamble.

A beautiful and even darker twin to the other great bent and copper movie of the moment which was Pushover (1954), with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak. It's not debatable whether or not you want the cop to get the money and the woman. 

In the brooding corridors of urban noir, Shield for Murder, a collaborative directorial effort helmed by Edmond O'Brien and Howard Koch, thrusts audiences into the visceral underbelly of Los Angeles, where O'Brien's portrayal of a cop gone awry serves as a chilling harbinger of moral decay and nasty noir cop rage.