Winchester '73 (1950)

Winchester '73 (1950) is a weapon worshippin road movie adventure mortal peril survival on the range revenge western film noir picture following the journey of a prized brand new state of the art lever action rifle the Winchester 1873 a formidable weapon on the range, from one ill-fated owner to another, as well as a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive, and plenty side swipes at native American victims and dispossessed savages, a la Hollywood.

Winchester '73 (1950), directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, is widely regarded as a milestone in the development of the Western genre. It is a film that transcends the conventions of its time, bringing a darker, more psychologically complex approach to the genre, while still maintaining the essential elements that define a great Western. Those elements are not as varied as you might like ti imagine, it's a tight set of tropes on the range. Here though and in western noir, psychological western film noir, the cultural impact of Winchester '73 as a transformative film in Hollywood's portrayal of the American frontier should be manifest as much as it's a manifesto.

Call Northside 777 (1948)

Call Northside 777 (1948) is a 20th Century Fox journalism and media documentary style innocent man accused prison and investigation crusading reporter classic polygraph classic prison pantechnicon classic film noir, directed by Henry Hathaway and starring James Stewart as the man looking for Wanda Skutnik.

The sub brand of noir known as documentary style film noir is a useful something of a vague category descriptor, although it refers in real terms to the removal of production from sound stages to in many cases the streets and buildings in which events real or based on actuality came to be filmed.

Rear Window (1954)

Rear Window (1954) is a classic Alfred Hitchcock suspense and murder mystery voyeur noir film cineaste's dream romantic drama about marriage, and one man's ability to face the prospect, while weirding a large camera at a window, from which he sees people, and yet no person appears to see him.

The dream of murder commences as James Stewart's character photographer Jeff appears to piece together something far too gruesome to be shown on screen, including the hack sawing of a woman's body.

Vertigo (1958)

Vertigo (1958) one of the greatest and best known of Alfred Hitchcock's films is also at its heart in the classic film noir tradition.

This psychological fantasy in full colour is probably one of the greatest and more ravishing Technicolor films ever produced, and so it does not perhaps fit the full film noir bill with its vibrant shades of rose and green.

The paranoia is real as is the preposterous fantasy elements, which if anything work against Vertigo because full-on colour like this, and most especially in its many splendid exteriors, are suggestive of a more real milieu.

The story is one of murder and madness, of weakness and psychological manipulation, and as often with Hitchcock, the ongoing manipulation and cruelty to women, who are judged poorly by men - - and it is all wrapped up in suspenseful storytelling and mystery.

The full whack of the psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock has become immortal in this picture.