Unpublished Story (1942)

Unpublished Story (1942) is a Harold French wartime espionage and adventure journalism and media noir Valerie Hobson star attraction blitz and fifth columnist paranoid London under seige screwball comedy battle of the sexes conspiracy thriller woman in the media tale of British pluck and courage in the face of Nazi bombing and Nazi inflitration under rubbelous wartime conditions, and starring Richard Greene as second billing in everybody's opinion to Valerie Hobson, produced and co-written by Anthony Havelock-Allan set as a propaganda film during World War II with two main plots, the first one involving a journalist whose stories are repeatedly censored by the Ministry of Information and the second one the same folks involvin a pacifist organisation, whose members are actually agents of Nazi Nazi Germany.

Three Silent Men (1940)

Three Silent Men (1940) is a Thomas Bentley directed pacifist surgeon and deadly weapon of war early nuclear threat war-themed innocent man accused of murder mystery courtroom largely farcical semi-serious pre-War style but intra-War produced drama noir low budget thriller intriguer, directed by Thomas Bentley and starring Sebastian Shaw, Derrick De Marney, Patricia Roc and Arthur Hambling, written by Jack Byrd and Dudley Leslie.

I See a Dark Stranger (1946)

I See a Dark Stranger (1946) is a neglected masterpiece espionage and Irish republican IRA hopeful British Sydney Gilliat and Frank Launder voiceover for comic intensity and commentary woman's film noir and adventure story post war reflection picture comedy starring Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard, commencing in Ireland in 1937 and following young Bridie Quilty who has grown up listening to her father's heroic tales of the Irish Revolution, . . . . .  she develops a hatred for everything and everyone British, especially "the wicked murdering blackguard" Oliver Cromwell. By 1944, Mr. Quilty has died. Bridie, who is now 21, sets out for Dublin to carve a life of her own, hoping to join the IRA. 

Conspirator (1949)

Conspirator (1949) is a double agent British espionage and early Cold War Soviet versus England romance and intrigue anti-USSR propaganda spy thriller starring Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Taylor, Honor Blackman and Robert Flemyng, in a Victor Saville directed tale of female belittlement and abuse in the honourable name of spying for the Soviets, while protecting the integrity of the Brits.

Round it thusly spins, not so fast, but with a fairly interesting admixture of fog and domesticity, with some cold and lonely English wetland landscapes to break up the misery.

Night Train to Munich (1940)

Night Train to Munich (1940) is a Carol Reed wartime sticky wicket concentration camp train and mountain and foreign territory based super anti-Nazi Alfred Hitchcock-influenced spy thriller by the mighty Carol Reed and starring Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Paul Henreid, and written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, and itself derived from Gordon Wellesley’s 1939 tale “Report on a Fugitive,” which charts the perilous tribulations of a brilliant inventor and his devoted daughter, both spirited away by the Gestapo in the ominous shadow of the Nazi incursion into Prague on the very brink of global conflagration, while into this treacherous milieu steps a resourceful operative of His Majesty’s Secret Service, who insinuates himself into the upper echelons of the German military machine, assuming the guise of a senior officer and feigning amorous interest in the young woman, all in the delicate hope of luring her and her invaluable father from the tightening coils of the Nazi embrace.

The Return of the Fly (1959)

The Return of the Fly (1959) is a monster mad scientist shocker feature guinea pig hands and feet sequel effort from hell that is mild in noir relevance, so mild in noir relevance that the owners apologise, and here we argue that in fact this film's flyness and expected shock moments scientifically double effect a tale of industrial espionage, if indeed there is any hovering narrative to this atomic age sequel, and give it little reason to be here.

A minor creature, buzzing at the margin of the sublime, a mote in the cathedral of science, this film describes like no other the moment when the man and the insect pass through the molecular eye together, the universe commits a grammatical error, and republishes cheap. What emerges is not human, not fly, but a grotesque synthesis: the moral algebra of hubris incarnate. A catalogue entry in worst sequels?

Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)

Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) is a Sherlock Holmes wartime propaganda espionage crime and mystery thriller and adventure film noir-style which sees the nineteenth century and indeed, very early twentieth century private detective co-opted into the advocacy work of the Allies in the Second World War, as antiques-led mystery and match-book intrigue see Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Henry Daniell and George Zucco hamming up a storm in an effort to embarrass the Nazis into a ham-strung ham-based and confusing defeat.

The Thief (1952)

The Ray Milland Season dilates in time, endures with fascination. 

The Thief (1952) is a non-verbal one of a kind atomic age location-shot nuclear secrets classic Ray Milland and Russell Rouse film noir, both innovative and inventive, curious and classic, telling the engrossingly spun paranoid tale of one man's turning Communist spy and his discovery and having to go on the run, with escape and capture fantasy played out across New York, in some most famously shot locals and corners.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943)

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) is a dense anti-Nazi World War 2 returning veteran film noir of paranoia, trauma, and espionage, with John Garfield as a Spanish Civil War veteran in possession of a priceless keepsake, who returns home to find out who murdered his friend. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) directed by Richard Wallace is a convoluted, politically charged spy thriller steeped in noir sensibilities. Starring John Garfield as the psychologically fractured Kit McKittrick and Maureen O’Hara as the enigmatic Toni Donne, the film operates within a framework of paranoia and trauma. 

The Spy in Black (1939)

The Spy in Black (1939) is a British espionage World War One submarine and double agent spy noir, and the first collaboration between the filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 

These two visionaries of the mid-century were brought together by Alexander Korda to make this World War I spy thriller novel of the same title by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film. 

Powell and Pressburger eventually made over 20 films during the course of their partnership.

Across The Pacific (1942)

Across The Pacific (1942) is a mildly xenophobic nautical noir spy movie with plenty of whimsy despite it being an eve-of-World-War-Two thriller, depicting in the figure of Humphrey Bogart, one studio's view of what involvement in that war might cause to bring about, while flinging some style-defining chops at the seascape in the traditional form of portholes, smoke machines, sea bars, deck rails, and Nihonnian peril seen through some rather insulting spectacle lenses.

Humphrey Bogart proves that despite being man of the century, which he may well have been, he does not look good in a uniform.

If we learn lesson about film noir and one lesson only let it be this: Humphrey Bogart does not look good in a uniform. Who would have thought that? More essentially: what deeper noir message can we elucidate from these sartorial obs?

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Foreign Correspondent (1940) is an early American period Alfred Hitchcock wartime journalism and media political adventure anti-Nazi propaganda espionage romance thriller chase and assumed identity movie, not in any sufficiency of the term as film noir, but most importantly a spy noir, and an espionage adventure, made noir almost with the advent of the twentieth century's best known bad types, the Nazis. 

Made in, for and about a morbid and bellicose hiatus period before the United States entered Word War II and when World War II had no name and is referred to as 'a general war', when Germany has invaded Poland but Russia is still in Alliance with Germany and Britain is at war of a sudden, while Holland is Nazified and occupied and makes up most of the set piece glory, most famously some windmill scene and scenery, amounting to some of the best and if not the best windmill film of the century.

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.

Contraband (1940)

Contraband (1940) is a Powell and Pressburger British espionage wartime maritime female super hero nautical erotic romance thriller with shades of the early noir style, and shades too of what may be called 'camp expressionism' or 'expressionist camp', along with very early noir-style markers apparent in the blackout-Britain style approach which presents a wartime underworld London, in a time of real peril, when national identity becomes a matter of life and death, and where pluck and humour bob to the surface to provide the Limey noir feel that only the besieged Britain could provide, offering in fact what became the cementing of several clichés for all time including the female spy hero.

Without any shadow of a doubt it is time once more to turn to Dan Hodges and his studies on spy noir and its place in the origins of film noir in the UK and the US.

Eyes In The Night (1942)

Eyes In The Night (1942) is a crime and detection sleuthing espionage spy noir directed by Fred Zinnemann which features Edward Arnold as blind detective Mac MacLain, and the dog Frida, as the dog Friday.

Oddball, unusual and earnest, Eyes in the Night (1942) doesn't suffer as many of its cheapo contemporaries do from dud scripting and the ill-effects of bum-row production values.

This celluloid endeavor, which inaugurated an ill-fated B-movie detective series, featured the venerable Edward Arnold in the role of a sightless sleuth, and although the public’s tepid reception precluded the realization of subsequent instalments, super oddity and noir make good companions and this blind sleuth endeavour has a lot to say.

Saboteur (1942)

Saboteur (1942) is an Alfred Hitchcock wrongfully-accused man espionage and propaganda war-time terror and adventure romance thriller, replete with Americana, American landscapes, oddity, comedy, suspense and tropes galore.

A sheer joy of rollicking war time entertainment, Saboteur (1942) refuses to suffer critiques that it is too preachy in deep pro-Protestant American messaging, promoting the great values of its great self, and going too far in its reaching into the pockets of the nation's moral code.

But this is not the case, given that Hitchcock would go on to film the country, re-recreate the country, give the States such direction and place an immortal stamp on the nation's culture and film industry.

Underground (1941)

Underground (1941) is an action packed counter-Nazi propaganda espionage adventure movie in which one brave brother fights a massive propaganda war within wartime Germany while his brother supports and upholds the regime.

Nothing could be more dangerous in this artfully constructed version of Nazi society which is exactly as you would expect it. A place of propaganda. Where people are not free to speak. 

No mention is made of the Nazi's racial mania, although the young mouthpiece who is the dedicated wounded Nazi soldier, whose brother is hard at work in the underground, is racially crazed for the notion of Mother Germany and its capacity for ruling all of Europe and the World.

His brother runs an illegal and dangerous radio van service which certainly seems to be broadcasting a minority message. This message is that Nazis are an untrustworthy evil and not fit for power.

The Flying Saucer (1950)

The Flying Saucer (1950) is a film perennially and erroneously filed as science fiction, despite the fact that the movie is as much in the action and adventure and romance film noir style of its day — as it is anything else.

With its bizarre chain smoking hero and elite Washington power brokers, its blockish tropes and violence, there is not a hella lot of science with this fiction but there is plenty Alaskan wilds travelogeurie and nature adventuring, including no end of aerials, with a fat deal of picnicking romance style fun and longing to a melodramatically marital soundtrack. 

In between these is a stab at an espionage story, with the notion being the playboy hero.

The Flying Saucer does suddenly forget itself from time to time but it surely identifies as noir. It must be the only science fiction with a film noir voiceover when it wants it. 

Shack Out On 101 (1955)

Shack Out on 101 (1955) is a  roadside-diner anti-Communist espionage film noir with goofball elements set in a crummy but funny roadside diner and on a low-budget, and made by Allied Artists.

Indeed, you could call the joint a shack.

Down at the shack, Lee Marvin plays Slob a lecherous and bullying short-order cook who ain't good for much, other than sniping with his war veteran boss played by Keenan Wynn, whose life is a mixture of sarcasm and PTSD.

In September 1952, Monogram announced that henceforth it would only produce films bearing the Allied Artists name. The studio ceased making movies under the Monogram brand name in 1953, although it was reactivated by AAI by the millennium. The parent company became Allied Artists, with Monogram Pictures becoming an operating division.

In fact French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard dedicated his 1960 film Breathless to Monogram, citing the studio's films as a major influence.

The House on 92nd Street (1945)

The House on 92nd Street (1945) is an FBI espionage undercover Nazi wartime propaganda film noir starring William Eythe as Bill Dietrich (based on FBI double-agent William G. Sebold); Lloyd Nolan as Agent George A. Briggs; and Signe Hasso as Elsa Gebhardt (based on the spy Lilly Stein)

The film was made with the blessing and backing of the FBI — so much blessing in fact that Bureau director, J. Edgar Hoover, appears during the introductory montage. 

The FBI agents shown in Washington, D.C. were played by actual agents and the film's semi-documentary style inspired other films, including The Naked City and Boomerang.

Producer Louis de Rochemont was known for creating some pre-War anti-Nazi material for the March of Time newsreel series in which he mixed documentary footage with staged re-enactments.