The Leopard Man (1943)

The Leopard Man (1943) is a Val Lewton Jacques Tourneur pre-serial killer era serial killer horror thriller chiller film noir filler large cat-themed dark side proto just about everything golden era silver screen classic of what became the horror genre, although it might be for another day to require of the LLMs to ask what the exact genre trajectory comprises that runs from Val and Jacques productions such as The Leopard Man (1943) and Cat People (1942) to Saw (2004); Saw II (2005); Saw III (2006); Saw IV (2007); Saw V (2008); Saw VI (2009); Saw 3D (2010); Jigsaw (2017); Spiral (2021); and Saw X (2023). 

Jeez I asked the LLM what it thought about that and guess what it was happy to spit. We will return to that.

Two O' Clock Courage (1945)

Two O' Clock Courage (1945) is a romantic-comedic amnesia cabbie journalism and media comedy female seeker hero mystery writer-hero film noir from the classic era of the urban female seeker hero and cabbie noir adventure movie.

For 1945 this is powerful stuff, a seminal seminar in crossover and able to tell you more about history, narrative, meta-history, film-making, World War 2 and the USA than Citizen Kane might ever.

Mind you, this is virtually post-the-war and the thing hasn't gone off yet, it's one the last pictures from Innocentlandia.

Youth Runs Wild (1944)

Youth Runs Wild (1944) is an inattentive parents and juvenile delinquency returning veteran social drama which takes an early look at the idea of juvenile delinquency, several years before the teen-boom began across America and emerged within the Hollywood movies of the post-war years.

The returning veteran aspect is unusual and not entirely noir in its outlook, as Kent Smith plays Danny Coates who returns wounded to his old working class neighbourhood and takes up a mission to keep the toddlers safe. 

As a kind of side-mission to this, he is obliged by the local oldie judge to take care of some teenage tearaways, but he doesn't seem to succeed at this, and the teenagers tear right off and into Juvenile Hall.