Forbidden (1953)

Forbidden (1953) is a gangster abroad illicit love affair mobster's widow exotica romance film noir set in Macao, directed by Rudolph Mate and starring Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger.

Echoing the heights of 1940s noir theme atmosphere and exciting the dark brew with the sunlight of the 1950s Forbidden bothers itself into existence as a low-subsistence noir which is recognisable as the cinema of ideas that have come before. 

Romantic complications are the order of the day as are snippy twists and the constant colliding of three actors, often crammed into one shot — Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger. 

The idea of dreaming the noir city into being when the city is Macao, and your film is shot on the lot — it is a big ask. Without much scenery to lean on, the actors look even closer together. The main set is a night club, the Lisbon Club, which is rather nice, but the noir city may not be entirely evident.

Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)

Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) is a satisfying colour flick set in and around the fishing wharf areas of San Francisco Bay. 

The picture opens as ex-cop Steve Rollins, played by Alan Ladd, is paroled and leaves San Quentin Prison in order to search San Francisco for the mobsters who framed him for manslaughter.

It's a pretty exciting opening few scenes, and it doesn't look like the gates of the prison have changed at all in the last seventy years. Of Steve Rollins prison years, we learn little, although they may likely have amounted to their own hell on Frisco Bay. Because of course, cops in stir are not usually that popular.

There at the gate of San Quentin, waiting for him, is his wife and former police partner. As his wife has been unfaithful to him while he was banged up, it appears, Steve Rollins rejects her and opts to take the bus to town. 

In this decision, his partner joins him, leaving the wife alone; the first of many casually handled scenes involving women on Frisco Bay.

711 Ocean Drive (1950)

Vintage Columbia Pictures 1950 crime film noir 711 Ocean Drive, starring Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru and Otto Kruger, tells the story of how an ambitious and happy go lucky expert in telephony becomes a mean and vicious gang-land leader.

It's a wandering tale of crime, bookmaking and the perils of making a fast and succesful rise in the world of gangsterism.

It leads us from the small bookies of coastal California, through the high lives and low lives of its gangster antagonists, to wind up on and within the Boulder Dam in Arizona, where the gangster meets his inevitable end.

Edmond O'Brien is known from other contemporary film noirs such as The Killers, A Double Life and The Web (all 1947), to D.O.A.and Backfire in 1950.

And he does good guys just he does bad guys, and here we see him doing both.

Sure, he starts off as the wisecracking and fun telephone engineer, who likes nothing more than to bet in the horses.

But when he has the bookmaking system explained to him, and the importance of telephony, he is offered a job that he can't refuse.