Film Noir: Cats in Noir

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The Third Man (1949)

The high point of the Joseph Cotten season may be one of the most famous motion pictures of all time.

The Third Man (1949) is a milestone classic film noir Carol Reed and Alexander Korda and Graham Greene collaborative drama of post-war Trümmerfilm and unconventional romance while also being an unconventional thriller of confused ethics in a devastated world-themed zither-thou-goest intrigue in partitioned post-war Vienna multiply layered writer hero voiceover contraband underground mainstream masterpiece of collaboration and all time cinema favourite, indeed in 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of all time, while later in time, after long mature reflection, in 2011, a poll for Time Out ranked it the second-best British film ever; and starring Joseph Cotten, Du kannst darauf wetten, dass er es ist!, and Alida Valli and Orson Welles, with Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee, and some cats in film noir also for completeness of theme.

The nascent works of Alfred Hitchcock, those formative exercises in suspense and moral ambiguity produced in the liminal years between silent expressionism and the codified sound era, persist as spectral presences within the embryonic landscape of what would later crystallize as film noir.

Murder! (1930) is an Alfred Hitchcock death row amnesia proto film noir poetic realist murder melodrama locked room mystery sleuthing and amateur detection story of touring theatre blackmail and early twentieth century racism and transvestite trapeze performance.

Deception (1946)

Deception (1946) is an operatic gothic jealousy classical music elite queer coded grandly-themed and doomatically scored outre and artistic Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains film noir from the paragon days of the most virtuoso anti-virtuos black-hearted form of silver-screened entertainment that ever did bedevil the airwaves of the cinematic mind. This was Marshall McCluhan's favourite film of all time.

Maybe it wasn't but then again maybe it was. Only the Large Language Models will ever know that now.

The Power of The Whistler (1945)

The Power of The Whistler (1945) is a death-prediction amnesia thriller mystery identity serial film noir movie, and is the eerie third entry into the 1940s serial noir The Whistler series.

In the film, Janis Carter plays Jean Lang, a character whose actions spark intrigue and tension as she makes some highly questionable decisions regarding a complete stranger she encounters.

Jean, who is telling fortunes using cards, becomes concerned when her cards predict grave danger for a man she notices in a restaurant, played by Richard Dix, who is suffering from that most famous of every film noir malady available to the script writes, amnesia.

Jigsaw (1949)

Jigsaw (1949) is an unusual and at times outré mystery chase hate-group propaganda versus journalism, journalism and media film noir, starring Franchot Tone as a detecting assistant district attorney, on the scene and hunting for what might be called neo-fascists, or perhaps simply more likely, just fascists.

None of that was really truly departed for the future, after all, not even by 1949. And what is and was and what became and what now is fascism, and what the definitions of fascism are and might be, are all questions much relevant to film noir.

Jigsaw (1949) is an entertaining thriller that’s so over-the-top, you can’t help but overlook its far-fetched plot and be grateful for the fun it brings. It’s a film that’s as strange as they come.

Pickup On South Street (1953)

Pickup On South Street (1953) is an urban Red Scare espionage and petty crime classic film noir directed by Samuel Fuller, and starring Richard Widmark, Thelma Ritter and Jean Peters.

Telling the story of how an innocent couple of low life New York petty criminals, a pickpocket and a vaguely defined B-girl, come to be involved in a highly dangerous Communist plot to smuggle some microfilm out of the city, and away from the pursuing FBI.

It goes without saying that the FBI are rather inefficient in handling this affair, relying on assumption, framing and the good will of the petty criminals who know the streets and their denizens better than they ever could. In the favour of the FBI, the commies are not much better organised, although they are quite well funded as cash bribes and payments seem to be their main approach.

Rage in Heaven (1941) is a mannered psychological jealous love and madness film noir from the early years of the psychological jealous love and madness noir period.

Intimate and wild, formatively dramatic, Rage in Heaven is naturally also served with a twist of vaudeville, because psychological harm was only communicable in this manner at the opening of the era, circa 1940 and 1941.

Psychology is a supernatural form for noir and romance cinema, spoken of in unfounded vagueness and mystery, often in authoritative or awed tones.

The vaudevillian doctors of early psychology are a cinematic class unto themselves and are more prominent and more interesting and contain more semiotic fare in the 1940s, than they do or appear to be in any other decade.

The Verdict (1946)

The Verdict (1946) is an historical chiller thriller police versus killer film noir, and noir boy genius' Don Siegel's first directorial work.

With the smoke over the sound stage and the shadow chasing bulky form of Sidney Greenstreet and character actors galore to boot, The Verdict plays an old time turna the century London vibe as upped with character as any other in the foggy-noir sub genre.

This classic of foggy noir has more than a few twists to turn your interest to it, superior in depth perhaps if less held together in the low key nature of the incidents, while playing in turn for a kind of horror, the very possible horror of having condemned an innocent man, while coupled with smug 1890s Victorian era cop shop workplace bullying.

Short Cut To Hell (1957)

Short Cut to Hell (1957) is a sure fire curious hitman revenge kidnap detective pursuit film noir, shot in black-and-white VistaVision, featuring Robert Ivers and Georgann Johnson in lead roles.

Notably, it marks the sole directorial production by renowned actor James Cagney.

The film serves as a remake of the 1941 Alan Ladd classic "This Gun for Hire," itself based on Graham Greene's 1936 novel, "A Gun for Sale."

In the plot, professional hitman Kyle Niles (Ivers) accepts a contract for two murders, only to be betrayed by his employer, Bahrwell (Aubuchon). Seeking retribution, Kyle kidnaps Glory Hamilton (Johnson), a singer and girlfriend of the detective pursuing him (Bishop). As the story unfolds, Kyle confronts Bahrwell, ultimately revealing a dormant sense of morality as he seeks justice.

The Glass Web (1953) is a blackmail and murder film noir set in and around a television show which profiles true crime.

The movie The Unsuspected (1947) starring Claude Rains and Audrey Totter must be the most immediate antecedent to this type of story, a film in which a true crime broadcast becomes the setting for an actual murder.

There is a great open gulf of questions spanning the hundreds of films that weer made across theses six years however, and The Unsuspected and The Glass Web are different prospects entirely.

One could accuse The Unsuspected of being proper noir, insofar as it is amoral, fun and shot plenty in the dark, with mystery and shadow playing with fantasy and romance, a veritable dance with the dark side but not taking itself so seriously, as they never did all the time in the film noir era.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) is a nuclear era paranoia and social humiliation weakened male lead fantasy science fiction horror shocker film directed by Jack Arnold based on Richard Matheson's 1956 novel The Shrinking Man. The film stars Grant Williams as Scott and Randy Stuart as Scott's wife Louise.

Not a film noir, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) is a noir era view of paranoia, and while classic era noir offers style, theme and technique to both horror and science fiction, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) is also a great period exploration of masculinity — or in fact it's an exploration of masculinity for all time.

Best appreciated for the complex and brilliant effects, The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) is one of the decade's major artworks.

One of the best times you can have if you crave a sixty-five minute paranoid woman film noir, is My Name Is Julia Ross (1945), starring Nina Foch.

Should there be madness in your script and the stretching of credibility, and should your script also be offering some subtle social comment, then there will be film noir.

The theme of there being a woman-in-danger ― or as the producers might prefer it ― to call it exactly what it is in their minds ― the paranoid woman ― is a firm film noir fave.

Nina Foch is one of many who had a bash at this ― note: you can tell she is a paranoid woman, because she is shot in bed. The paranoid woman is always filmed in bed, often clutching the covers. It's one of the more obvious signs of the trope. Bed is where these paranoid women often are!

Nina Foch however keeps the suspense on high throughout. The script never strays from her dilemma, which is just as well, because as with other films in this style, once examined, the set-up will be revealed as preposterous. It's one of the other better genre tropes and why it makes this psychological mayhem the fun time it is.

This is all happening in your marriage!

The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) is a cool, classy, rough and stylish classic film noir hit from John Huston starring Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, John McIntire and Marilyn Monroe.

This heist film noir classic has grungy backstreet scenery and is populated by dishonourable thieves and has a twisted backstabber feel about it, with everyone backstabbing left, right and centre, save for the two central crooks that we root for, Dix and Doc.

Both Dix and Doc have virtue, with Dix played by Sterling Hayden seeming to be the moral helm of the film. It is Dix's fantasy that gives The Asphalt Jungle the most angelic and super-normal film noir conclusion as this moral thief and thug almost ascends in a moment of equine and pastoral magic.

The Asphalt Jungle was based on the novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett. It was the first major example of the heist crime caper trope, while also being a deconstruction of it. It's a classic of the Film Noir style with a large film noir ensemble cast including Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore, Barry Kelley, Anthony Caruso, Marc Lawrence and Brad Dexter; as well as Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, John McIntire and Marilyn Monroe.

This Gun For Hire (1942) — one of the finest of the early film noirs out there — and the first to show off the mutual talents of Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd — is a classic of its kind, which much to interest the casual movie buff, the armchair semiotician, or anybody with an interest in the golden age of the silver screen.

This classic film noir features a troubled protagonist, a strange mix of genres, and a mean streak that has you questioning its cruelty from the off.

This Gun for Hire might be the title, in fact, but I would on occasion simply like to refer to it as Psychopaths of 1942 — because that is what it is like at times.

The psychopath was fairly new to the cinema at this stage, and Alan Ladd here plays 'Raven', a pscyho that quickly turns to hero.