Yellow Sky (1949)

Yellow Sky (1949) is a dark and noiresque based-on-The Tempest-by-William Shakespeare salt flats ghost town band of robbers no honour among thieves atmospheric ensemble cast film noir western pistol-packin tomboy cinematic presentation of many common noir and western themes.

Super fine composition work complements Gregory Peck's desire to do good and right which compromises his loyalty to his gang of evil-doers and is driven by his growing love for the tomboy in question, played by Anne Baxter, inexplicably living on the edge with her old grandpops on an abandoned movie set.

His love is more than forceful, and not just because this is the 1940s, but rape is more than suggested in their first sexual encounter in which Peck angrily forces himself upon Baxter. She resists but later relents.

The Gunfighter (1950)

The Gunfighter (1950) is a lone gun-fighter facing early celebrity in the nascent wild west western revenge chase and showdown saloon and range estranged child and wife thriller starring Gregory Peck, Karl Malden, Helen Westcott and directed by Henry King. 

In the noirlands of the wild west and in the imaginations of the film makers and narrative makers of the high era of American creativity, a film such as The Gunfighter (1950) carries many a surprise.

Mirage (1965)

Mirage (1965) is an amnesia corporate crime nuclear threat hunted man paranoia thriller film noir, usually called a neo noir by the time we have come to examine the 1960s and its use of the style.

Yes, even though Mirage (1965) was made by Edward Dmytryk in the 1960s it rolls with the full flavour of all iconic and classic film noir, from the paranoiac lost in the city, to the hats and hoods of a mysterious underworld. Great motor cars and docu-noir style street action, a dream-like quality, and mystery intimate quick flashback visions as Gregory Peck pieces the cliches together, with the unique addition of Walther Matthau.

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.