The Sleeping City (1950)

The Sleeping City (1950) is an undercover cop murder metropolitan hospital criminal nurse film noir starring Richard Conte and Coleen Gray, and directed by George Sherman.

Less well known than many inferior film noirs, The Sleeping City does offer a disturbing vision of one of the world's most famous hospitals — Bellevue in New York — in which black market drugs are smuggled out of the hospital in a sting and scam gambling operation.

Richard Conte is the cop who goes undercover, after some suitable screening, and his investigations bring him into contact with a rugged elderly elevator operator, a tormented roommate, and a mysteriously criminal nurse. an authority figure — here the actor Richard Conte — offers some message of public authority and often warning.

The Secret Of The Whistler (1946)

The Secret Of The Whistler (1946) is an infidelity lousy husband greed and murder noir tale from The Whistler series, starring Richard Dix and Leslie Brooks, directed by George Sherman.

A wealthy wife suspects her artist husband's affair with his model. He poisons his wife for inheritance but faces unexpected consequences after her death. A thriller exploring greed, betrayal, and the consequences of criminal actions.

Of all the serial movie concepts, icons, characters and themes, from the earliest moments of serialisation through the incredible eras of the 1930s and 1940s which developed the serial movie, the absolute prototypes of the infinite tankerloads of television shows we have created since 1960, through what are now generations of streaming services, the absolute origin of these is the movie serial, and of those serials none is no more noir than The Whistler.

Johnny Dark (1954)

Johnny Dark (1954) is not a film noir title, despite Johnny Dark being a provocatively film noir style title.

Instead Johnny Dark is a rather pleasant and fairly swift drama film about a motor car engineer who builds a super-efficient sports car, but finds himself sanctioned by the owner of the firm he works for, who is so stuck in his ways that he only wants to make super chunky American family cars that take six people —  a man who sees the sports car as a sign of corruption and decline in civic standards.

There is surprisingly little else to the story of Johnny Dark. The men are test racers and engineers and they used to be USAF pilots.

The owner of the company is fighting with a group of investors, each trying to gain control and this causes him to back the project, and kill it once the proxy vote is over.

Larceny (1948)

Larceny (1948) is a con-man swindler romance drama film noir starring John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Shelley Winters and Dan Duryea.

Directed by George Sherman, this high period noir is a lot of fun — if it's not Dan Duryea's paranoia about his gal Tory being around the other members of his all male gang — and if it's not Tory's own fast-cracking dangerous barbed wire one liners — or John Payne's noir-like descent from hangdog swindler to deadbeat romantic lover, unable to fulfil any heroic role at all, either as good guy or villain — neither suit this bird.

The sacrifice of trust is at the heart of the con, as is the false identity of a man whom it appears does not even know who he is to begin with — who he loves — or even which side he might be on. The essence of film noir perhaps lies within in the short journey there is between dreams and disillusionment. 

The Raging Tide (1951)

The Raging Tide (1951) is a terrific and raging and calming and reflective and stormy crime and adventure movie, that likes to think it's a film noir, but actually spends too much time having too much wholesome fun in the traditional business of fishing to earn some fulsome bleak city noir chops.

Still there is enough here for The Raging Tide to get some slices off those chops. 

Those bleak city noir chops! And it mixes them up with some salty salt-of-the-earth sea-chops. 

Richard Conte and Charles Bickford do in fact get soaked by props men spraying them and tossing buckets of water at them. It is that kinda milieu.

And The Raging Tide starts with a murder, a no-nonsense affair in the dark.

Then the murderer is on the run, through that film noir city, bright lights and shadows, raging through the streets. That's perfect, and exactly what you'd want to see of Richard Conte. On the run, in the city, in the dark. C'est noir . . . even if it does end up at sea.