Body and Soul (1947)

Body and Soul (1947) is a Robert Rossen directed classic film noir Citizen Kane of all boxing movies flashback and occasionally De Niro sounding voiceover violence and corruption portraits in noir family and friendship melodrama of doom and lucre classic boxing and anti-boxing civil rights James Wong Howe shot boxing clever solid punch clawing your way to the top boxing film noir starring John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee and Art Smith.

The Red House (1947)

The Red House (1947) is a Delmer Daves genre-defying rural horror mystery film noir dark secret in the woods and dark secret in the past suspense thriller young love southern gothic and western guilt ridden disabled farmer rudimentary domestic adventure chiller suspenser with Edward G. Robinson, Lon McCallister, Judith Anderson, Rory Calhoun, Allene Roberts, Julie London, Ona Munson and Harry Shannon. 

Golden Earrings (1947)

Golden Earrings (1947) is an immediatley post-war wartime Romany-gypsy adventure transformation prisoner of war with shades of screwball comedy in the shape of a misbehaving wild sexpot gypsy espionage kind of backdrop infused film noir flashback but no voiceover man on the run and behind enemy lines Eurowaldian soundtage based romancer flick about a man and a 'gypsy' who is at odds with English morality, obviously, and who drives a cliched caravan through Nazi Germany with the SS in cold pursuit, ultimately creating a fusion genre that could be described by the phrase serious comedy, and starring Ray Milland and Marlene Dietrich, with Murvyn Vye, Bruce Lester and Dennis Hoey.

The Upturned Glass (1947)

The Upturned Glass (1947) is a British flashback and voiceover brain surgeon and love affair murder madness and suicide sanity-searching wicked lady and high quality limey 1940s criminologist revenge introspective and calculated insanity intriguer with star of the show James Mason, and Rosamund John, Pamela Kellino and Ann Stephens.

Frieda (1947)

Zu Beginn der Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison hattest du noch nie von diesem kraftvollen, vom Holocaust inspirierten Anti-Nazi-Film-noir-Klassiker über einen heimkehrenden Veteranen gehört.

Frieda (1947) is a Basil Dearden British returning veteran World War Two anti-German sentiment in post war society and unrepentant Nazi brother stiff upper lip tension and xenophobia bucolic and Arcadian bar room punch up social issue romance and integration tear jerker film noir of longing and hope, of the holocaust itself rare and yet displayed in full X rated horror, displaying 1940s fig in a tale of national forgiveness and starring Glynis Johns, David Farrer and Mai Zetterling, and how terribly, terribly wrong it is to treat people as less than human.

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) is a post war British limey spivving and drug dealing film noir classic psychopath action adventure returning veteran misty London rooftop and scabby old boozer thriller prison break police procedural fist-fighting exploitation violence-against-women crime movie by Alberto Cavalcanti and with all the mystery of any Alberto Cavalcanti production, it races onwards with Trevor Howard at his handsome hero best, and Sally Gray, Maurice Dunham — and Griffith Jones as a class act noir psychopath, complete with hanky mannerisms and a funeral business to cover his narcotics dealing, which is pretty hep for '47.

A Double Life (1947)

A Double Life (1947) is a melodramatic psychological theatreland ego-driven personality and jealousy possession and amnesia lousy husband film noir with ham leanings, set on and off the stages of Broadway, and directed by George Cukor, admittedly not know for his forays into film noir.

Don't be too fooled though, as Cukor has some real noir sliders and sleepers up his sleevers. There was A Woman's Face (1941) which is a solid classical noir entry for its fantastical psychological doubling and dealing and pro and de- scribing of the female. And of course he directed Gaslight (1944) one of the most seminal movie happenings of the century, for the impact its theme came to have.

The Two Mrs Carrolls (1947)

The Two Mrs Carrolls (1947) is a lousy husband paranoid woman blackmail murder and poison mystery manor house art and intrigue infidelity and obsession Mark Hellinger portraits of women in noir film noir starring Barbara Stanwyck, Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Nigel Bruce.

You might imagine that this melange of mild madness and misty focused love and lust has often been misapprehended as an ungainly hybrid of overwrought melodrama and tepid suspense. Such assessments have become axiomatic, yet they do not withstand close inspection. 

Though the film remains aesthetically uneven, it exerts a strange and unrelenting fascination, anchored by peculiar tonal shifts and grotesque exaggerations that reveal, rather than obscure, its psychological acuity.

Crossfire (1947)

Crossfire (1947) is a classic film noir returning veteran anti-Semitic military procedural Hollywood Ten produced and directed murder chase thriller with Roberts Ryan, Young and Mitchum, in a night-long low-budget detection and paranoia drama.

Known and loved as a classic of its kind, Crossfire (1947) is best known as being a fore-runner to the justices of HUAC and features many heavily Communised individuals including actors, writer, director and producers, and in fact bearing that in mind it is not surprising that this red-fest of socialist freedom and civic principles in the face of any kind of incipient fascism was always going to be a McCarthy favourite. The film in fact premiered at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City on July 22, 1947 and only a few months later producer Adrian Scott and director Edward Dmytryk were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), becoming part of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten.

Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

Quai des Orfèvres (1947) is a genial, talkative, vibrant dance hall and French film noir police procedural exploration of human frailty and crime.

Based on the book Légitime défense by Stanislas-Andre Steeman, 'Quai' was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot tand stars Suzy Delair as Jenny Lamour, Bernard Blier as Maurice Martineau, Louis Jouvet as Inspector Antoine and Simone Renant as Dora.

The film was Clouzot's third directorial work, and the first after the controversy of Le corbeau. Without having the novel on hand, Clouzot and Jean Ferry based the film on memory and deviated significantly from the original story.

Marriage in the Shadows (1947)

Marriage in the Shadows (1947) or as we should prefer to offer it its proper title, the film called Ehe im Schatten is a beautiful noir melodrama masterpiece of East German Trümmerfilm, telling an epic war-spanning tale of Nazi complicity and Nazi attrocity and the Nazi destruction of art and the Nazi destruction of social bonds, and the Nazi destruction of the theatre of Germany and the Nazi destruction of personal relationships and friendness, with the Nazi destruction of social bonds driven home, sad frame after sad frame, in a story of Trümmer awfulness, elevating liberal thought and love, and showing that the only things stronger than Nazism are on the threshold of being itself.

Here is the story, as it were: in Nazi Germany actor Hans refuses to divorce his Jewish wife Elisabeth. He is threatened to be drafted and sent to the front while she will be deported to a concentration camp. Desperate, Hans decides that suicide is their only way out.

Lured (1947)

Lured (1947) is a moody mystery female seeker hero investigatory London-set serial killer thriller outré film noir, made by Douglas Sirk and perhaps as far as the Sirk toes get into the fascinating dark and complicated world of noir drama.

In its way, Douglas Sirk’s lurid Lured (1947), an example of the lurid noir, reimagines hard enough upon Robert Siodmak’s 1939 film Pièges, that it must surely be classed as a remake, capturing the essence of a film noir thriller with an impressive cast and smoke machine moddiness and soundstage London-effect cinematography. 

The plot follows and does trail the female seeker hero type Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball), a sassy American dancer in London who is roped into a police investigation as a decoy for a serial killer targeting women through newspaper ads. 

The Web (1947)

The Web (1947) is a fast-moving entertaining late-early period and slightly preposterous but fun film noir filler, with Ella Raines, Edmond O'Brien, Vincent Price and William Bendix, so that is certainly a stern and select noiresque collection of faces to do the actin'.

The Web (1947) is in effect a Private Investigator film noir (P.I. Noir) although the character played by Edmond O'Brien is supposed to be a lawyer, although he functions entirely as a P.I,. being hired to be a bodyguard, carrying and using a gun, hanging with his coat collars up in alleyways, and more and more traditional and common P.I. behaviours.

He doesn't get down to none legal work, that is for sure. Other than the top and tail styling back of his maligned blue collar character, played by Tito Vuolo, with typical Vuoloism.

The Thirteenth Hour (1947)

The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is a haulage and hallucination diamond smuggling duplicity and mystery film noir story from the The Whistler series of the films, eight of which appeared in the 1940s.

Haulage heel Steve Reynolds, played by Richard Dix, is a trucker guy who falls foul of a scheme that he uncovers from what seems like a series of accidents, and may in fact just be that, a series of accidents. 

Indeed and for whatever reason, there are questions unanswered at the conclusion of this tale, possibly the greatest of these being why is this film called The Thirteenth Hour, and what is the thirteenth hour and what in fact is it the thirteenth hour of?

Temptation Harbour (1947)

Temptation Harbour (1947) is a sympathetic British morally complex period piece post-war Limey noir suitcase full of money gangster versus civilian poverty versus temptation melodrama romance film noir, with Robert Newton and Simon Simon struggling on the south coast of England. 

The title of Temptation Harbour (1947) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, lifting of wet suitcases full of money from the harbour, the harbour wherein the temptation lies, floating, and so nobody gave much thought to letting the old tale roll with such an oddly unflattering production designation for this now triple-remaker Simenon bobbing by the shore watery crab hunting classic of noir.

Is decency real? is the question of the day and the coal burning in this hard working and effective tale of temptation, and morality, and doing the right thing, which of course has been presented before, and is still presented yet, and as has been said, miraculously presented three times in the case of the suitcase belonging to the man from London.

Dark Passage (1947)

Dark Passage (1947) is a face-lift ex-con innocent hunted man on the run POV prison break cabbie sexual chemistry classic Warner Bros. mystery picture starring the Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, who are all over this marvel of a chemistry set of a classic film noir.

The mythology of the face-lift is deeply rooted in cultural narratives and societal expectations, particularly regarding beauty and aging. In many stories, women undergo face-lifts to retain their partners, highlighting the societal pressure for women to remain beautiful. 

This contrasts with men, who are often depicted as seeking new partners rather than maintaining their current relationships. The perceived ugliness of aging women is seen as natural and biological, though it is heavily influenced by cultural standards that do not apply equally to men.

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.

Time Out Of Mind (1947)

Time Out Of Mind (1947) is a gothic angst failed artist faux-Gainsborough historical family drama semi-nautical film noir which was not a success in its day, and which retains curiosity for the seasoned noireaux being a Robert Siodmak film, and the certain inclusion of a certain Ella Raines, adored by the fans, for all time.

The film opens with a title card reading Rachel Field's Time Out of Mind and begins with an offscreen narration by the character Kate Fernald, who recounts the return of Chris Fortune from his first sea voyage. 

The production of this film is notable for its behind-the-scenes developments, as detailed in various news items. It's also notable for a certain lack of popularity among the guardians of noirish good taste, which makes it perennially ripe for reappraisal.

The Shop at Sly Corner (1947)

The Shop at Sly Corner (1949) is a lightweight Limey mystery film noir with a pleasant historical creep factor and an antiques business setting, featuring a psychopathic Pinkie-like young shop boy on a noir rise to power over the mild mannered walrus faced character actor stylings of Oscar Homoloka

The Shop at Sly Corner is based on a play by Edward Percy, a Conservative MP, which debuted in London in May 1945 and received positive reviews, with Variety praising it as "good theatre." 

The play enjoyed a successful two-year run in London, generating a significant profit for its investors after an initial production cost of just $12,000. 

Daisy Kenyon (1947)

Daisy Kenyon (1947) is a classic Otto Preminger lousy husband romantic triangle arrogant commercial artist melodrama noir-style moral wrongness feature film with Joan Crawford, Dana Andrews, and Henry Fonda.

Preminger’s sensibility clashed with the shadows. His modus operandum, like a smoke-filled room, ran counter to the polished veneer of society. Daisy Kenyon, a dame caught in the crossfire, danced on the edge of desire and danger.

The two leading men, a fedora and a military hat, did anybody write a book about the hat motif and codes and modes of symbology in noir. They had better had. Noir needs hat analysis. Hat analysis may be brought to bear in any and many a film noir, a good example we could enjoy might be Ramrod, starring Lana Turner.