Abandoned (1949)

Abandoned (1949) is a journalism and media baby-adoption-ring female seeker hero film noir from high into the classic years of all out full fat noir, remaining a mean wittaw crime flick that slithers through the back alleys of corruption like a grifter on the lam. 

It’s got all the dirty fingerprints of a real noir—shadows thick as cigarette smoke, dames in trouble, and heels looking to make a fast buck off somebody else's misery.

It kicks off when Paula Considine (Gale Storm) hits Los Angeles looking for her missing sister. The cops? They don’t care. But a wisecracking newshound named Mark Sitko (Dennis O’Keefe) smells a rat, and soon they’re knee-deep in a baby-smuggling racket run by a smooth operator with ice in his veins, played by the ever-slick Raymond Burr. 

He’s got an adoption scam so tight it squeaks, selling newborns like hot merchandise, and anyone who gets in his way winds up floating face-down in the Los Angeles River.

Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)

Between Midnight and Dawn (1950) is a police procedural and revenge urban prowl car noir mob boss murder trial and violence against women film noir, starring Edmond O'Brien, Mark Stevens and Gale Storm.

The violence against women aspect of Between Midnight and Dawn (1950) is worth mentioning in this instance as it is called out and questioned. When Edmond O'Brien's no-nonsense beat cop bitch slaps up Gale Robbins' character he is challenged.

His response to this is not only that he kinda regrets losing it and beating up this woman, but that in his view, 'tramps like her ain't women', which becomes his justification for this cruelty.

The Underworld Story (1950)

The Underworld Story (1950) is a journalism and media murder family intrigue race relations noir starring Dan Duryea, and directed by Cy Endfield.

Also starring Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, Howard Da Silva and Michael O'Shea with Da Silva playing the loud-mouthed gangster Carl Durham, one of his last roles before becoming blacklisted.

The newspaperman played by Duryea in The Underworld Story is similar in attitude to that played by Kirk Douglas in Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole (1951) —  a reporter that does anything for publicity for himself regardless of ethics.

The Underworld Story is a strange name for a film that is largely about newspaper ethics, and which features little about the underworld, which albeit forms an occasional backdrop for the action.