The Great Flamarion (1945)

The Great Flamarion (1945) is an Anthony Mann flashback and voiceover vaudeville love and murder cheap-shot theatreland lowlife uptight artiste double love triangle scheming woman and cross-continental double-crossing dame pan-American alcohol-related hunt and chase drifter narrative classic sucker falls for a conniving woman film noir, starring Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes and Dan Duryea.

Five Graves To Cairo (1943)

Five Graves To Cairo (1943) is a World War Two espionage and desert assumed-identity Nazis on the march adventure and romance thriller, made by Billy Wilder, and while not often thought of as classic film noir in its story and outlook, is as essential to the canon as other key works from its super talented and Germanic Americanic, classic of all time wonderful uberfilm powerhouse of a director.

Five Graves To Cairo (1943) remains of critical interest to the noireaux and other aficionados who hover among the tombstones which mark the old old films that are rarely but watched no more, because it forms the foundational evidence for the thesis of one of the most interesting noir writers and commenters on the globe, which is Dan Hodges of The Film Noir File.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

The best Golden Age film noir movies such as Sunset Boulevard (1950) rank among the favourites of all movies lovers.

The best examples of the film noir style remain as the greatest examples of cinema as a whole, and the most popular. 

Given that as the Golden Age of Hollywood closed, nobody was specifically aware as such of there being a style or a genre called 'noir', it is surprising how cohesive the style was. Film noir really was a thing, and Sunset Boulevard is a classic example, of classic film noir.

That 'Golden Age' is usually said to be from 1930 until 1945, but it's hard to pin these things down.

Consistent to movie storytelling is time. Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, linear, and uniform, since non-linearity calls attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback, which is a staple of film noir, and comprises the entirety of Sunset Boulevard.

What's fascinating is that we can perhaps ask what it was that the makers of classic film noir era thought they were making? What were the workmanlike film noir cycle movies of the era aimed at; and what were the common reference points that allowed the style to develop?