The Master Plan (1955)

The Master Plan (1955) is a Cold War amnesia spy military paranoia post-Korean war mind-control McCarthy era blacklist ahead of its time Limey noir made by Cy Endfield, already exiled from America and resettling within the British film industry.

The Master Plan (1955) is another circa 1955 thriller loss mysteries which open on a transatlantic flight in 'you are American!' mid air kind of whimsy arriving in an all too wrong England, it is sufficient of a noir trope to be expressive for decades, the Korean War is also mentioned in passing quoting banter, while they still also have the overgrown headaches from what they call already the last war.

36 Hours, or as it is daftly or is it deftly otherwise known Terror Street own start this way these characters we meet on the plane, it's the same with another Cy Endfield fun piece from the exact same time, and no surprising because he did fly into England in intrigue and who knows, maybe even disappointment at the old boys of the OSS back home, rooting out the communists.

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947) is a Cy Endfield Bowery Boys comedy P.I. film noir pastiche murder spiritualist romp with Teala Loring and Betty Compson.

In early 1946, director Cy Endfield began working for Monogram Pictures, a studio known for producing low-budget B-films. Monogram, established in the early 1930s, found greater success in the late 1940s under the leadership of president Steve Broidy. 

The studio’s philosophy was to keep production costs low, focusing on well-known but not top-tier actors. Broidy once candidly remarked that some audiences preferred "stale bread" over "fresh bread," reflecting the studio's aim to cater to a specific segment of the movie-going public.

Hell Drivers (1957)

Hell Drivers (1957) is a blue-collar ex-con high energy British exploitation truck noir tale of violence, corruption and the unscrupulous carriage of aggregates across small distances within the British countryside.

Stanley Baker as per the script of this still popular tale of truckery does the ex-con going straight routine with heavy nods and grave expressions from start to finish, indicating that he has been 'away' and that he has been living 'here and there' and doing 'this and that' while being from 'around' and having lived at 'around' for several years.

It isn't really full explained what this ex-con with an upright galvanised steel morality did to wind up in prison, but we know that because of his escapade he did one year of time, although more meaningfully, it seems that his younger — brother played by the mysterious Klae Corporation's very own invisible man David McCallum — seems to have been permanently injured during the crime, and reduced to working in his mother's Welsh corner shop for life.

The Argyle Secrets (1948)

The Argyle Secrets (1948) is a zany meta low budget fun and mysterious film noir parody item that while styled on such noir as The Maltese Falcon, does try to either massively plagiarise another work of art altogether, while concealing the fact in the copying of other mystery hits.

As an almighty act of cobbling together The Argyle Secrets (1948)

The Argyle Secrets (1948) exemplifies the creative opportunities and limitations of post-war Hollywood, a period marked by declining studio power and the rise of independent production. Changes in tax law, the fallout from the Paramount antitrust case, and declining audience numbers in 1947 all contributed to the weakening of the major studios, creating space for new production companies to emerge. 

The Limping Man (1953)

The Limping Man (1953) is a murder and blackmail American in England post-war mystery thriller film noir from Cy Endfield and starring Lloyd Bridges, and one with a classic unwelcome and rather dire trope ending which renders most of it somewhat pointless.

Terror Street, which is also 1953, and starring Dan Duryea is quite a similar production in many respects. There is first the trope of the American in England, a man who spreads glamour wherever he goes.

Both films of course commence in mid air, as the American hero lands in London, ready for action, love and mystery. Both films unravel in a leading mystery across the city, joined by the police, but focused on uncertain crimes and small culture clashes.

Night of the Demon (1957)

Night of the Demon (1957) is a Jacques Tourneur British horror demon special effects creepy supernatural sceptical disappearance and mystery magic murder movie, that is not a film noir, but which like all of the fifties horrorouevre does confine itself to noir, insofar as noir themes, effects and personnel will dominate. 

For who could be more noir than noir's Jacques Tourneur, director of the quintessential expression of the style, that is of course Out Of The Past from 1947, one ten year decade hence, noir incarnate no less.

Yet still who more noir than Dana Andrews, too, quite the figure of the film style, a man of noir, and one of the solids of the medium?

The Underworld Story (1950)

The Underworld Story (1950) is a journalism and media murder family intrigue race relations noir starring Dan Duryea, and directed by Cy Endfield.

Also starring Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, Howard Da Silva and Michael O'Shea with Da Silva playing the loud-mouthed gangster Carl Durham, one of his last roles before becoming blacklisted.

The newspaperman played by Duryea in The Underworld Story is similar in attitude to that played by Kirk Douglas in Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951) —  a reporter that does anything for publicity for himself regardless of ethics.

The Underworld Story is a strange name for a film that is largely about newspaper ethics, and which features little about the underworld, which albeit forms an occasional backdrop for the action.

The Sound of Fury (1950)

The Sound of Fury (1950) is a hard hittin' tale of narcissism, sensational journalism, criminality and mob violence from the very heart of film noir and a classic of its kind.

It's a film that fires on all cylinders and one of the few from the era that still has the power to shock — the full on shocks coming in the final scenes, when a mob gathers to hit a jailhouse. 

In the long build up to this however, there is a full film noir panoply of crime, saps, weak males, money-minded females, a brutal murder that is just as gratuitous and frightening as the justice it inspires, and classic spiral-into-alcoholism that is every bit the quintessential sign of public failure — wrapped up in a hard hittin' tale of crime, punishment and yellow journalism.

The dramatic set up for The Sound of Fury (also known as Try and Get Me!) is a classic of its kind. Frank Lovejoy is the honest family man who is out of work and getting dissed like a jerk wherever he goes. Back home he's got an honest family life in the form of a wife and kid to support  — but there is still a sense there that he is going to crack.