The Black Sleep (1956)

The Black Sleep (1956) is a mad scientist body horror induced coma uneven but effective talky but entertaining veteran actor overlooked house of crazies Lugosi, Chaney and Carradine in a final reunion matters of the brain throwback marquee exploitation influential monstrous experiments independent horror film with the American reissue title Dr. Cadman's Secret produced by Bel Air Productions, directed by Reginald LeBorg, and written by John C. Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams. It stars Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, and Akim Tamiroff. Tor Johnson appears in a supporting role, produced by Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, as part of a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists, and assembling human wreckage, failed patients, mutilated minds, and ruined legends.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is a classic Universal Monsters monster classic James Whale camp horror mad scientist angry torch-wielding mob driven queer coded Breen-positive historic recreational fantasy monster horror feature film sequel from the earliest most nascent era of screen creations both bestial in demeanour and possessed of a quasi-mythic savagery, marked by both vaudeville and a brutal, subhuman force, a movie which like its creatures, groans under the weight of its own deformity and beauty, respectively, with pile-driving feminist angst clashing misogynist tropery galore. 

Bluebeard (1944)

Bluebeard (1944) is a historical woman-killer misogynist murder mystery artist and psychopath film noir from the Producers Releasing Corporation directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring John Carradine.

Edgar G. Ulmer's Bluebeard (1944) exists as an eerie artefact of Poverty Row filmmaking, elevated by its German Expressionist cinematography and the morbid charisma of John Carradine. The film, produced by the minuscule PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), manages to overcome the material limitations of its budget through a meticulously cultivated atmosphere of gloom and psychological torment. 

Man Hunt (1941)

Man Hunt (1941) is a hunted man World War II anti-Nazi political romance drama thriller made by the master of plastering the paranoia far and wide and dep into and out of the cinematic shadows, yes it is Fritz Lang, the plasterer of these shadows, the far and beyond the pale of the scale past maestro of so many of the defining motions of film noir.

Man Hunt is one of Fritz Lang's most compelling films, showcasing his mastery in creating action-packed, humorous, and emotionally gripping thrillers. With the collaboration of superior scenarist Dudley Nichols, Lang crafted a literate and imaginatively photographed film that, despite occasional implausibility, captivates the audience from the start.

Swamp Water (1941)

Swamp Water (1941) is a moody southern innocent-man-accused rural-backwater pelter manhunt film noir, which was Jean Renoir's first American movie.

A surprise treat from 1941, Renoir brings some poetic magic to the early years of the Golden Age, by taking time to develop characters and also developing the fact and fiction of the swamp itself, bringing on the sticky everglades as a peril as lousy as the urban jungles of more familiar film noir.

More complex and sad also, than the more common fare of the day, Swamp Water (1941) teases out feeling and emotional pain from the cast in the small town jealousies of its actors, and even a scene of torture in which Dana Andrews' character is drowned for information on the whereabouts of Walter Brennan's character.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) is not just a classic but is likely the classic, classic Sherlock Holmes movie.

It is the debut movie of the most iconic Holmes on screen of them all, being Basil Rathbone. That is to say the greatest of all time, and its place in the classic film noir story.

Historical and faithful, wonderful and trend-setting, and with a noir-themed foggy soundstage, in an era just before World War, expressing the accumulated sophistication of the movie making of the 1930s, with more to commend it than simply its being a pure and fun expression of the Holmes story, as well as being the first of 14 films, which came to type a legend into the annals of cinema, drama, and noir.

Out on Fox's enormous back lots, the landscapes of Devonshire came to life  and notably there was no hint at all with any participating artist, producer nor technician, no suggestion that there would be any more Sherlock Holmes films after this one.

After landing the role, Basil Rathbone said:

"I think that Holmes is one of the greatest characters in fiction. With all the thousands of detective and mystery stories that have been written since, the name of Sherlock Holmes still stands at the head of the roster of famous sleuths. It is synonymous with the very word 'detective'. To play such a character means as much to me as ten Hamlets."

Fallen Angel (1945)

"Hey you — I’ve seen the sleeping act before. You know your ticket ran out the last stop!"

With these words a sassy ass bus driver drops off the world’s next noir victim on the outskirts of Walton, and in the middle of the night.

It’s Fallen Angel, a film noir starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell, director Otto Preminger.

Stuck in Walton, 150 miles short of his destination, our anti-hero Dana Andrews wanders into the local diner, where the locals are up to a decent amount of skulduggery, worried about a missing girl called Stella.

It isn’t long before the said floozy breezes in, her legs at a dangerous angle.

She swipes the hero’s hamburger and he exits to wander the streets alone.