Casablanca (1942)

Casablanca (1942) is the one of a kind classic cinema anti-Nazi tale of war time love and intrigue which regularly appears in greatest film of all time compositions and not that often in classic film noir selections nor even moderate noir canons, nor even in the non-canonical and noir at a stretch.

Funny that Casablanca was not an instant hit and funny that your first thoughts are that the special effects are not that good for the greatest film of all time. 

By which you mean that the basic investment made in this greatest film of all time seems moderate to say the least. The aeroplane and some of the attending dressing of scene, the special effects.

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 Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (1933) is a mad scientist science fiction invisibility-themed Universal horror classic monsters franchise series franchise commencement classic of pre-Code cinema, horror, formative science fiction adventure and escapade drama adaptation of a classic grotesque romance novel from the late 1890s, speculating on the individual and social ramifications of a crazed and powerful narrative fantasy of invisibility.

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.

The Wolfman (1941)

The Wolfman (1941) is a Universal horror cycle classic lycanthrope thriller adventure amalgamation of Gothic ambience and psychological film making which juxtaposes the primal and the civilized within a tragically cursed protagonist who goes on to play in a variety of non-threatening carnival of monsters-style of movies, while cycling into the larger culture notions of monsterism coded with what in film noir terms could be a kind of gothic Überwald mis en scene.

Exploring the fragility of human identity through lycanthropic metamorphosis, The Wolfman (1941) has become one of the more indelible stopping points in the narratives of horror lore, not so much creating horror as such, but forming a solid concrete base upon which to build the identity of this genre.

Kings Row (1942)

Kings Row (1942) is an epic local large-scale detailed slice of life dramatic-style tableau course-of-history melodrama, which is not film noir, and yet retains a space in the noir hall of fame, not on the wall of shame so much as on the formative features feature.

Still — in reading the all-time seminal seminar on noir, Raymonde Borde and Etienne Chaumeton's A Panorma of Amercian Film Noir (1941 - 1953), we do find that Kings Row is one of several non noir productions that rise up early in the authors' studies, as an example of the ultra-conventional being infected with the same dark currents that were hitting civil as well as cultural and criminal society — noir.

Where Danger Lives (1950)

Where Danger Lives (1950) is a disturbed wife psycho murder couple on the run film noir with Robert Mitchum as the hell in love with Faith Domergue, one deranged half of a supremely dysfucntional marriage — the other half being Claude Rains.

A severe combinations of noir elements give the story of Where Danger Lives (1950) a bizarre enough edge to classify it as several types of crazy, largely derived from the mad and maddening behaviour of the suicide patient played by Faith Domergue.

The relationship with her husband which is abusive and very much a front for her to get access to money and for him (the husband played by Claude Rains) to have ownership of a young woman , and as such a marriage doomed to fail.

Notorious (1946)

Notorious (1946) by Alfred Hitchcock is an espionage romance story, with film noir overtones.

The picture stars Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, with support from Claude Rains, and is a favourite among Alfred Hitchcock lovers for its mature cinematic portrayal of a love affair. 

The film noir overtones that characterise Notorious are best illustrated in the dark forces that negatively affect Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) in the form of alcohol and poison, both of which cause her hallucinations that are shared with the viewers of the film through noir photography, fully developed by this stage in the film noir cycle, as is the theme of the ineffective marriage, which is fully played out between Bergman and Rains. 

The Unsuspected (1947)

The Unsuspected (1947) is a multiply textured mystery and suspense film noir starring Claude Rains as a handsome patriarchal radio show presenter, who specialises in true crime. For film noir — it's a way of life.

Technology and murder combine in The Unsuspected in the form of Claude Rains' own master studio where he engineers as much evil as he does family entertainment, with his hi-tech equipment.

Victor Grandison (Claude Rains) plays a character more embedded in crime than most, and hosts a murder mystery radio show.