Leave Her To Heaven (1945)

Leave Her To Heaven (1945) is a psychological thriller toxic love and 1940s psychopath-styled state-hopping powerful female lead with undiagnosed ADHD Technicolor sophisticates in frocks writer hero high-grossing classic film noir melodrama, with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Craine and Vincent Price.

One of the most intriguing questions regarding Leave Her To Heaven (1945) is why it was Twentieth Century Fox's highest grossing film of the decade. 

Shockproof (1949)

Shockproof (1949) is a parole-officer and female murderer melodrama romance and politics film noir from Douglas Sirk, starring the at-that-time hot and noiresque married couple of Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight.

Cornel Wilde is the mental-headed and ambitious parole officer who falls crazily in love with his super attractive sexy as the day is long charge Patricia Knight, a one-time murderer who bucks the system early on be being female. 

And not being content to be a parole-officer romance and murder thriller, with suburban melodramatic tones with the excellent feature of having a super-attractive female criminal who is distinct it must be said from any traditional femme fatale film role, and a distant but crucial arc backstory line of political ambition, and the ditto the noir-like corruption of the civil and moral mind into lawbreaking middle class tearaway, Shockproof (1949) also veers hard into a couple on the run story at around its hour mark.

Storm Fear (1955)

On the run and in the snow ― a lethal combination for those caught in the violence of Storm Fear (1955).

As dramatic set-ups and frequently visited tropes go, the home invasion is as stable a staple as one might wish for, and was perfect for film noir.

There are many examples of home invasion film noirs, from Suddenly (1954), in which Frank Sinatra plays an assassin intent on killing the US President; all the way back to the slightly more conventional The Petrified Forest (1936). 

Probably the most famous example of this style of story from the classic film noir period is Key Largo (1948) ― and many of these movies contain the same set-up ― gangsters on the run take over a family home or similar residence, thus creating perfect conditions to explore the inevitable culture clash that crime inspired in the bourgeois imagination.

High Sierra (1941)

Although High Sierra (1941) is likely perceived by the public as a ‘Humphrey Bogart’ picture, it is not entirely fair to see it that way. 

Indeed, High Sierra is notable in many ways for how Ida Lupino’s character develops, and how she is portrayed. 

Viewers will also note that Ida has top billing too, before Bogart, and that is worth something!

Critically, Ida Lupino plays a fairly ‘straight’ role here, and hers is not a character the readily fits into the various tropes and stereotypes which it is often said, dominate the female portrayals in the style.

By ‘straight role’ we can confidently say the following of Ida Lupino in High Sierra ― her character is consistent and develops across the course of the action. 

While not cast as a femme fatale, or domestic simp of some sort, Ida's character, Marie, falls in love with Humphrey Bogart’s character, Roy, and remains true to the end. The entire episode is presented as her story, and her journey, with the viewer experience being hers.

Conversely, Bogart’s character is typical of a certain type of male from this era of film noir ― he may try to be doing good, but fate and his lower nature are in fact in control. 

This means Roy Earle (Bogart) regularly makes wrong decisions, and not just when he is railroaded into them. 

The Big Combo (1955)

The walls and floors are streaked in shadows and there's a noisy boxing match roaring in the city.

Behind the scenes, a girl is pursued down darkly expressionist corridors, with only the self-gratified roar of the crowd as backdrop.

As The Big Combo starts we’re right in there at the heart of the caper, although the real story of The Big Combo is that of Cornel Wilde’s cop, and his obsession with catching the cooly menacing crime lord, Mr Brown, played brilliantly by Richard Conte.

To fulfil its film noir promise, The Big Combo is also hot with slick dialogue, the sort they just don't write no more:

Joe McClure: I guess I'm getting too old to handle a gun.

Mr. Brown: Yeah, maybe you're just getting too old, Joe.