The Best Years of our Lives (1946)

The Best Years of our Lives (1946) is a returning veteran epic post-war romance and social adjustment classic and sweeping melodrama of PTSD, alcoholism, social manners and physical disability charting America's adjustment to the post war order with broken limbs, broken relationships, broken aircraft and civilian indifference, directed by William Wyler and starring Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Cathy O'Donnell, Frederic March, Virginia Mayo, Teresa Wright, Steven Cochran and with best of all perhaps, Hoagy Carmichael on piano.

Eight O'Clock Walk (1954)

Eight O'Clock Walk (1954) is an anti-capital punishment limey-noir in which an innocent bourgeois is catapulted into the justice system after circumstantially being held to be the murderer of a small girl.

Directed by Lance Comfort and starring Richard Attenborough, Cathy O'Donnell, Derek Farr and Maurice Denham, Eight O'Clock Walk (1954) is a fairly solid example of how the British adapted common film noir themes to their own place, time and circumstances, with a taste of the post-war era and British theatrics in an extended look into the legal procedures of a murder trial than is usual in a film of this type.

Based on a true story, Eight O'Clock Walk is an anti-capital punishment film — the title refers to the hour at which executions were traditionally carried out — that highlights the danger of circumstantial evidence resulting in the death of a mistakenly accused prisoner. 

Detective Story (1951)

Detective Story (1951) is a classic stage play brought top screen film noir psychological police drama directed by William Wyler and starring Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker, among many more.

It's not the most obvious film noir but makes up for that in a mighty cast, with a mighty punch, based on a play by Sidney Kingsley. This picture also brings up the tricky subject of police brutality — something that should have been against the Production Code of the time — and yet which still forms the central moral aspect of this piece.

Detetcive Story is a brilliant cop-on-the-edge narrative, a form familiar to film noir. Kirk Douglas is that cop, every bit as tense and nervous as Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (1951); or maybe Sterling Hayden in Crime Wave (1953).

Bury Me Dead (1947)

Bury Me Dead (1947) is a mystery noir with comic and fantasy elements, directed by Bernard Vorhaus and starring Cathy O'Donnell, Sonia Darrin, June Lockhart, Hugh Beaumont and Mark Daniels.

Made by Eagle-Lion films, this entertaining if slight and lightweight film noir is a straightforward whodunnit, with more of a who-tried-to-do-it feel, as the murder victim survives the attempt on her life, and must then sleuth out the would-be killer from the cast of friends and family.

When the remains of a woman's body are found after a fire consumes the stables on the estate of wealthy Barbara Carlin, it is assumed that the body is hers, especially since the body is found Barbara's diamond necklace. 

Classic noir mystery weirdness kicks off the action however, with the mourning victim on the way to her own funeral in a taxi — an event rich in an almost goofball flavour of black comedy.

The Amazing Mr. X (1948)

The Amazing Mr. X (1948) is a 1948 American horror thriller film noir directed by Bernard Vorhaus with cinematography by John Alton. It is also known as The Spiritualist, which is just as well, because nobody in it is called Mr X, or referred top as Mr X, although it's true that it does make a fairly sensational title.

The film tells the story of a phony spiritualist racket, which is rather excellently described with the various tricks of the trade merrily on display, much as they are in fairground noir Nightmare Alley (1947), which also reveals some of the tricks of the trickster's trade in all their shabby glory. 

The film is prominently featured in Alton's book on cinematography Painting with Light (1949) and , the photography does certainly have a full-on film noir feel, with its massive plays of dark and light around doorways and stairways and other architectural corners — including an interesting and repeated shot of the spiritualists at work via the crystal ball — shot from below. Some of the most memorably and recognisable film noir photography on the block.

Another of the stranger angles places the viewer inside a sink.

Side Street (1950)

Side Street (1950) is an urban slice of romantic classic film noir, starring love-birds Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger.

The couple who debuted in They Live By Night, the debut too of director Anthony Mann, made a total of four noirs in a line.

Although the action in Side Street is underpinned by the hard city, with its dark corners, bars, cop shops, rentals, night clubs and stone blocks.

Side Street makes a virtue of every urban geography going, a psychogeography in fact of the young man wrestling with the madness of the city whirlpool.

The city is filmed constantly throughout, a place of promise to begin with and straight on into the action, transformed by crime - - by a crime - -  into a depth charged doom hole of paranoia, doubt and fear.

What also makes Side Street so interesting is the violence, rather extremely played, particularly with the strangling. And it is also cool that Fraley Granger as Joe Norson attempts to atone, in a way that few other film noir heroes do.

The saps usually go all the way down to the end. And never atone. The pain of atonement, guided of course by the good lady love of  love-a-dove lady Cathy O'Donnell  - - as Ellen Norson, his young wife.

They Live by Night (1948)

They Live by Night is a 1948 an essential stop on the American film noir tour. 

Not just directed by Nicholas Ray, but his directorial debut, and starring Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger, is a tale of young love on the run; another film noir staple.

The story is psychologically bound to emergent teenage culture: after an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.

First to note here is how and why the trope of the young lovers on the run was created and developed; because the idea sprang into being on the doorstep of film noir. It is no accident that Nicholas Ray, responsible for many of the finest and most intelligent items in the film noir cycle, went on to direct Rebel Without A Cause.

The similarities between They Live By Night and Rebel Without a Cause are many. The driver in both cases, is young love, certainly doomed love, and the puzzle as to why two such young and innocent people should fail to find the happiness that they believe can be achieved. The happiness in question is something of a myth in itself, and ironically is part created by the cinema itself.