Blind Date (1959)

Blind Date (1959) is a Losey Limey London-based violence-against-women flashback and sophisticated murder mystery puzzle artist anti-hero police procedural erotic class and privilege social corruption film noir, directed by Joseph Losey and starring Hardy Krüger, Stanley Baker and Michelene Presle, with extra Gordon Jackson for the hardy Brit fan that likes a bit of the Scotch roughage in uniform.

In 1959, amid the twilight of post-war certainties and the emergent undercurrents of cultural upheaval in Britain, Joseph Losey released Blind Date (retitled Chance Meeting for its American audience). 

On The Beach (1959)

On The Beach (1959) is a metaphenomenal post apocalyptic novel adaptation dark and empty gaze at the emptiness of post-nuclear life and the actual point of any kind of human existence, phrased beautifully in a Hollywood void of expression, most appropriate to the winding close of the existential age brought about by the cold Cold War reality of a life that is either radioactively poisonous, or sub marine.

On the Beach, written by Nevil Shute and adapted into a film by Stanley Kramer, stands as one of the most controversial and widely read books of its time. Both the book and the film are credited with significantly influencing the anti-nuclear weapons movement of the 1960s and contributing to the end of the nuclear arms race.

The Scarface Mob (1959)

The Scarface Mob (1959) is an early TV movie historical Al Capone and The Untouchables Eliot Ness-based film edit of the television pilots into an end of the cycle movie noir type of affair which has virtually no film noir elements to speak of, as such stylistic gems and nuggets are smoothed out to make way for the televisual plainety of the new mass media era of the 1960s.

The late 1950s brought black-and-white television to new heights, with The Untouchables exemplifying the era’s gritty appeal and plunge into endless tropery, some of which started right here. Known for its violence, the show stirred controversy in its day, with its portrayal of mob brutality and intense confrontations between law enforcement and the Chicago crime syndicates. 

The Beat Generation (1959)

The Beat Generation (1959) is an outré exploitation rapist versus cop beatnik beat thriller which manages to deal with the worst social topics imaginable and do so in a madly unorthodox and spoof manner, while working hard to retain narrative dignity.

Featuring an array of daft and hip beats, beat songs, beat drinks, a beat with a rat, a beat who goes scuba diving and is a kind of harpoon beat, a wrestling beat which is hard to beat, Louis Armstrong, one of the greatest musicians of all time who is playing with some tuneless white dropout cats and a noisy mime, some straight ladies who are not beats, and some other squares who are raped.

Then there is a serious discussion of abortion wedged in between the acting of Fay Spain and Steve Cochran, Cochran playing the cop who is thrown into the world of the beats while tracing a rapist beat.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

The Crimson Kimono (1959) is a brave bold and swingin Samuel Fuller race relations cop buddy noir with James Shigeta, Glenn Corbett and Victoria Shaw talkin and walkin the truth of Japanese American living on the West Coast in the late 1950s.

Amid a racial tolerance plea and a complicated love story that blossoms and battles its truthful way to a happy and promising conclusion, there is amid this and lurking there somewhere to be found a murder melodrama too. 

In one mouthful cheap and cheerful buddy noir when buddy noir was not really a thing — nobody should trust anybody in film noir — least of all your partner.

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) is a late noir cycle race-relations civil-rights and jazz-fuelled minor heist film noir movie produced and directed by Robert Wise, starring Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Ed Begley, Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame. 

Odds Against Tomorrow is one of the last films to appear in the classic noir cycle, and is notable for a plot which features a serious commentary on racism.

If there were to be such a sub-genre as arthouse-noir from the late 1950s, Odds Against Tomorrow would qualify. The score is by The Modern Jazz Quartet, so it would be hard to groove harder than that in the late-noir groove-yard of arthouse heist noir.

As well as the most solid of noir tropes, such as the ex-soldier turned to crime, and the massive dose of 'one last job' which everybody seems to be on, there are also dramatic shots of birds in flight, city landscapes and children at play, all set to that arty jazz soundtrack by John Lewis —  and even some experimental infra-red photography.