The Uninvited (1944)

The Ray Milland Season Advances at a Crawl

The Uninvited (1944) is a supernatural clifftop haunted house, Cornish clifftop haunted house paranoid woman writer as hero portraits in noir gothic horror ghost chiller love and romance drama with a dog shot by Lewis Allen and starring Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Alan Napier, and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

Few films of the 1940s reach the uncanny stillness and dignified unease as well as the fantastic silliness and dignified quease of The Uninvited (1944). 

The Lawless (1950)

The Lawless (1950) is a racially charged journalism and media civil rights and leftist crusading journalist film gris film noir concerned about the plight of California state's fruit pickers, mostly immigrants from Mexico who are disparagingly referred to as "fruit tramps".

Film gris, in a world of micro classification, most especially among the classification of mid century noir, in defining film noir, the leading cultural and most defining of all that lost century's art forms, gris is most certainly a thing to behold, a useful methodology, and this is a terrific movie, super enjoyable, racing with fun and aggression, and containing multitudes of great moments, cementing a heartful place in the fact of film noir's place in the civil rights story of the times.

The Unseen (1945)

The Unseen (1945) is an old dark house children and governess paranoid woman lousy husband old homeless woman murder mystery mansion house genuine thrillodrama film noir, from mid the paranoia period of women in crazy marriages era of the Golden Age of the Silver Screen

Watching The Unseen (1945) you will be upset into a derisory frame of mind when you hear how often the prettiness of Gail Russell's character is referred to. 

I am sure this might have contributed to her drinking herself to death, being called pretty in so many scenes.

The Tattered Dress (1957)

The Tattered Dress (1957) is a small town courtroom corruption drama film noir which pits a supposedly corrupt New York lawyer against the definitely corrupt Sherriff of a small town California resort.

A mixture of commentary and caper, sexual molestation and revenge, domesticity versus barbarism and big city manners versus straight-talking small town mentality, The Tattered Dress (1957) is a combination of tropes, all of which are settled in courtroom scenes dark alleys and in the luxury homes of the wealthy resort dwellers.

A slick and effective tale of violence, corruption, foul play, conspiracy, lies and relentless vengefulness, The Tattered Dress evokes late film noir style. Not the obfuscous and stygian shadowy affair that might be typical of 1940s film noir, the evolved style fits the wider screen and the greater amount of light, almost anticipating the later life the movies would have on television, there are longish courtroom scenes which rely on light and not the indistinct flavours of light which make up classic noir.