The Scarface Mob (1959)

The Scarface Mob (1959) is an early TV movie historical Al Capone and The Untouchables Eliot Ness-based film edit of the television pilots into an end of the cycle movie noir type of affair which has virtually no film noir elements to speak of, as such stylistic gems and nuggets are smoothed out to make way for the televisual plainety of the new mass media era of the 1960s.

The late 1950s brought black-and-white television to new heights, with The Untouchables exemplifying the era’s gritty appeal and plunge into endless tropery, some of which started right here. Known for its violence, the show stirred controversy in its day, with its portrayal of mob brutality and intense confrontations between law enforcement and the Chicago crime syndicates. 

Storm Center (1956)

Storm Center (1956) is a book-burning Red Scare small-town film noir starring Bette Davis as a local librarian who is shunned after she refuses the City Council's request to remove a book on Communism from the shelves.

The picture which packs a certain punch for its ultimate lack of 1940s style chiaroscuro, hoods, slayings, femmes fatales — and other recognisable forms of film noir — is one of the more subversive of the later film noir era and bravely enough is thought to be the first overtly anti-McCarthyism film to be produced in Hollywood.

It is said that in the year of 1950, the United States' share of the entire world Gross Domestic Product was in the region of 50% — and this from a nation that contained only 4% of the world's population.