Flesh And Fury (1952)

Flesh And Fury (1952) is a rise and fall glamour and gloves biting the dust deaf and mute boxing exploitation film noir with Tony Curtis, Jan Sterling, Joseph Pevney, Mona Freeman and Wallace Ford.

It is almost in a way a new and undiscovered media, what might be called simpleton noir. Joseph Pevney’s Flesh and Fury occupies a fascinating position within the boxing genre, offering a melodramatic yet compelling exploration of identity, class, and vulnerability. 

Iron Man (1951)

Iron Man (1951) is a violent rivalry blue collar remake boxing film noir sport action movie, making it to the film noir canon for its portrayal of a man's inability to control his fists.

Of all the miserable movie mugs, hats off to Jeff Chandler who pulls the stiffest and hangedest doggest looks, spitting noir at times and flat out desperate to have his cheeks raised in a smile that will never come.

Better still is the coal mining back ground form which these tough mugs emerged, solid mining milieu not so much Zola as Zoloft as a man goes mad with coal dusts and mania.

Not just coaly but a gritty, hard-hitting noir that'll knock you flat on your back albeit in a beautifully photographed ring, and for fans of boxing noir and boxing movies, this must simply be an underrated and overlooked gem, or lump of coal, whichever way you want to look at it. 

Undercover Girl (1950)

Undercover Girl (1950) is a female undercover cop film noir in which all of femininity suffers the indignities of the history of the world up to 1950, and since 1950 too in some workplaces.

Definitely the target of workplace bullying as well as workplace sexual harassment from  smug mug himself Scott Brady, undercover girl Alexis Smith is also a good cop in an embarrassingly male world, only a few years out of wartime and no years into the 1950s, it is going to be a place where a woman is going to be muscled into the film noir environment of the home, this is going to happen.

She's on the range but they want her in apron, and it takes a touch cookie like Alexis Smith to break this patriarchy right open.

Outside The Wall (1950)

Outside The Wall (1950) is an ex-con sap in the city thriller from the height of the classic film noir era, starring Richard Basehart as an innocent abroad, released from prison never having seen a woman, and at large and trying to remain crime-free in Philly.

However this is film noir and fate comes a-calling as do three women at once for hapless sap in a cap Richard Basehart as he negotiates his way into peril and romance.

Outside The Wall (1950) performs as a fairly standard film noir with its story of a man going straight being dragged by the heels back into the world of crime.

However there is something fantastical about the story as well, which offers a darkened fairy tale aspect contained within the innocent-abroad-style adventures of Richard Basehart's character, Larry Nelson.

Shakedown (1950)

Shakedown (1950) is a slick and high speed journalism and media film noir crime and blackmail film about one young photographer's ambition to be the richest, best and most romantically involved snapper in the entirety of the great noir city.

Directed by Joseph Pevney and starring Howard Duff, Brian Donlevy, Peggy Dow, Lawrence Tierney, Bruce Bennett and Anne Vernon, Shakedown manages to blur the lines between crime and reportage.

With its hero to heel ending Shakedown (1950) is a lot more than a thrilling item of media noir, with its twin villains and twin romance stories, and with a central character about whom we shouldn't but do sympathise with.