Mission to Moscow (1943)

Mission to Moscow (1943) is a lengthy docu-style pro-Stalinist American mid-War political and diplomatic film noir tour of pre-World War Two Europe and the Soviet Union, displaying Nazi activity in the USA and in Germany and offering a vaguely unique 120 minutes of cinematic earnest as diplomat Joseph E. Davies, a handpicked business choice by President Roosevelt, featured in shadow, moves pleasantly and occasionally with a furrowed brow through the landscapes of the Nazi world of confusion which presaged the fatal conflagration of the early to mid 1940s.

The Woman in White (1948)

The Woman in White (1948) is a historical film noir melodrama gothic Victoriana novel adaptation of the Wilkie Collins classic hypnotism ghostly creeper tale, offering up Gig Young, Sydney Greenstreet, Agnes Moorhead and no mouse inside of Count Fosco's waistcoat, much of a missing misery that was for us.

The comforting narrative of women in captivity, makes the writing so much clearer. There is noir sensibility, and feminist undercurrents, barely squeaking beneath the weight of the production, and adaptation as a moribund style of movie.