Mirage (1965)

Mirage (1965) is an amnesia corporate crime nuclear threat hunted man paranoia thriller film noir, usually called a neo noir by the time we have come to examine the 1960s and its use of the style.

Yes, even though Mirage (1965) was made by Edward Dmytryk in the 1960s it rolls with the full flavour of all iconic and classic film noir, from the paranoiac lost in the city, to the hats and hoods of a mysterious underworld. Great motor cars and docu-noir style street action, a dream-like quality, and mystery intimate quick flashback visions as Gregory Peck pieces the cliches together, with the unique addition of Walther Matthau.

Death of a Salesman (1951)

Death of a Salesman (1951) is the first based on a play film adaptation of the Arthur Miller 1949 stage drama of the same name, starring Frederc March as the iconic and iconological Willy Loman, the American neveryman, the existential nothing of the coming decades in one staring suicidal staring contest with death.

Just before the film was about to be released, Arthur Miller threatened to sue Columbia Studios over the short that was to appear before Death of a Salesman. This short film, Career of a Salesman, showed what the producers believed was a more typical American salesman, and was an attempt to defuse possible accusations that Death of a Salesman was an anti-American film. Eventually, Columbia agreed to remove the 10-minute short from the film's theatrical run.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956) is a classic science fiction classic film noir classic horror classic paranoia thriller, from the crested tip of the wave of domestic American paranoia, a period which produced some of the zaniest and most intense fabulous fear fests of all time.

An early masterwork from one of the most unsung heroes of film noir and cop cinema, Don Siegel, the man who gave us the best run of post-noir cop movies in the entirety of cinema, the (largely) Clint Eastwood-based sixties-to-seventies quintet of  Coogan's Bluff (1968), Madigan (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971).

With all the talent and experience of the noir era, a man who in fact began his cinematic trade a properly in 1941 performing montage in Now, Voyager (1941), and Casablanca (1942), Siegel is as essential to the film noir journey as a director can be, even if his youth at the time meant he was veritable child alongside the better known noir masters such as Fritz Lang, et al.

Nightmare (1956)

Nightmare (1956) is a tortured male lead psychological thriller mystery film noir directed by Maxwell Shane and starring Edward G. Robinson, Kevin McCarthy and Connie Russell.

It's such a mystery indeed to relate how a man can dream a nightmare and find a key and wash blood off his hands and not know what he has done, such a mystery that the story is told twice in the great film noir era because this same story was told in the film Fear In The Night (1943), also a great example of the style and its obsessions.

Essentially Nightmare (1956) is a tale of paranoia, murder and psychology, making of it noir mania in a deluxe package. Cracking weird action drives our hero played by Kevin McCarthy, doing a bit of what he was to later perfect in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. 

Drive A Crooked Road (1954)

Drive a Crooked Road (1954) is a sap-for-a-sucker lonely guy motor car film noir starring Mickey Rooney as a jingle-brained mark who is beguiled into driving the getaway car in a heist.

Mechanic and race car driver Eddie Shannon is the sap in question, played by Mickey Rooney. He's great with cars, and can think about little else, and is a proficient driver — although in top-drawer film noir fashion, he lives his lonely life on a single bed, next to a chest of drawers covered in trophies, the only one of which we can read being inscribed with the award of having come Second Place.

At work Eddie is bullied, both for his height — this is Mickey Rooney after all, and everyone in the film, even his super-attractive girlfriend played by Diane Foster, is taller than him.