The Killers (1964)

The Killers (1964) is a television-style flashback color Hemingway remake sports motor racing and murder femme fatal and gangster heist fallout and violence against a blind woman Don Siegel almost un- or non-credible cool brutal crime action film noir that is barely a film noir insofar as the noir is far from the habitual armoire of typical style motifs, but is called a film noir nonetheless, with oddly no night time scenes at all, not that excludes it from the film noir category, it is in the style that this nonnoirness nor nihilist nemesis, nor nausea-inducing net of failed morality, but it's crass instead, normal narrative, neatly non-noir, and with the star Lee Marvin and the stars Angie Dickinson, John Cassavettes, and President Ronlad Reagan.

Diplomatic Courier (1952)

Diplomatic Courier (1952) is a Henry Hathaway Cold War espionage in post-war Europe screwball-adjacent drama romance chase military police procedural thriller, with Tyrone Power, Patricia Neal, Hildegard Knef, Stephen McNally, Karl Malden and special spot appearances from Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, and a further dynamic and fun extra cross dress appearance

As for screwball, there is a certain sure pedigree of connecting dramatic matter which links the screw of the ball and its previous decades of filmatics and is indicated in Diplomatic Courier (1952), highlighted and brought to our attention when Tyrone Power describes Patricia Neal across a Trieste café bar table as 'screwey'. 

The Wild One (1953)

The Wild One (1953) is a classic teenage rebellion social commentary biker movie, renowned for its impact and shock, and featuring Marlon Brando as the iconic Johhny Strabler. The Wild One (1953) is in fact none other than the final word in being the classic teenage rebellion social commentary biker movie, presenting ideas for the breakaway generation to come post World War 2, a Boomer cohort that will create a division in liberal suburban democratic and generational politics and lifestyles, a splice of the 'cickle across America's brow, never to be repaired.

They boom. The bikes boom and as long as our society keeps hearing those bikes . . .

The movie captures 1950s youth rebellion and the generation gap, blending raw emotion and social commentary. Brando’s iconic performance, along with the movie's gritty portrayal of outlaw culture, cements it as a seminal work in motorcycle cinema.

I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

I Died a Thousand Times (1955) is colour rural film noir one-last-job heist movie remake of High Sierra (1941).

Filmed in CinemaScope and Warnercolor this color film noir was directed by Stuart Heisler and features Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, with Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Lon Chaney Jr.

The stereotypical, comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film was replaced by a Mexican stereotype played by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. The film marks the second motion picture appearance of Dennis Hopper's six-decade career, and Nick Adams makes an uncredited appearance as a bellhop.

Shack Out On 101 (1955)

Shack Out on 101 (1955) is a  roadside-diner anti-Communist espionage film noir with goofball elements set in a crummy but funny roadside diner and on a low-budget, and made by Allied Artists.

Indeed, you could call the joint a shack.

Down at the shack, Lee Marvin plays Slob a lecherous and bullying short-order cook who ain't good for much, other than sniping with his war veteran boss played by Keenan Wynn, whose life is a mixture of sarcasm and PTSD.

In September 1952, Monogram announced that henceforth it would only produce films bearing the Allied Artists name. The studio ceased making movies under the Monogram brand name in 1953, although it was reactivated by AAI by the millennium. The parent company became Allied Artists, with Monogram Pictures becoming an operating division.

In fact French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard dedicated his 1960 film Breathless to Monogram, citing the studio's films as a major influence.

Pete Kelly's Blues (1955)

Pete Kelly's Blues (1955) is a music drama film starring and directed by Jack Webb which has film noir overtones.

It's the movie of the radio series of the same name - - the motion picture event no less! Taken to the screen by its creator Jack Webb.

Instead of firing up the tropes and tiring displays of middle of the road standard-as-you-go methods of storytelling, Pete Kelly's Blues delivers the tropes cold and plays them by the book, making for a strange and slight story that is easy in the telling, but doesn't deliver big on surprise, despite there being a bundle of muscle gunplay and murder throughout.

Jack Webb as Pete Kelly barely smiles as this colourful crime drama unfolds, although there is not much to smile about, aside from when he is rejecting Janet Leigh's frolicking advances.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) is a color film noir classic with a neo-Western setting, offering a thrilling paranoiac small-town murder story in which Spencer Tracy roughs up against some brilliantly played rough and tough local talent in a desert town.

Directed by John Sturges and starring Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, Bad Day at Black Rock is the sure-fire best deepest and most entertaining colour film noir of the era — if indeed we are classifying it as such!

The film was based on a short story called Bad Time at Honda by Howard Breslin, published by The American Magazine in January 1947. Filming began in July 1954 and the movie went on national release in January 1955. It was a box office success and was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1956. In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"

The bad-ass desert town-dwellers, led by film noir's own Robert Ryan are as immortal immoral crew as cinema ever created. They would be great with their own mini-series, Thugs of Black Rock, or similar.

The Big Heat (1953)

The Big Heat is a 1954 film noir by Fritz Lang, starring Gloria Grahame, Glenn Ford and Lee Marvin. 

The many themes of cop life and criminal life are present, but the script of William P. McGivern's 1953 book called for some family life too; which is always a foreign presence in film noir.

Usually, if a Mr and Mrs are sitting down to a home cooked steak, and the baby girl is playing nearby, something may be afoot. The family is the unseen locus of much of film noir.

Here, Mr and Mrs Cop are seen at home perhaps a little too much; and its a signal that bad things are a-coming.

Although there are spoilers all across this website, a special SPOILER ALERT need be issued for Fritz Lang's 1953 noir, The Big Heat.

It isn't so much around the ending or the way things work out, its just that the likely most significant thing which takes this almost lackadaisical Langian noir out of the realms of the mere crime film en passant, is what happens at home, and the tragedy that befalls that home.  

Violent Saturday (1955)

Violent Saturday (1955) is a blast of colour at the end of the film noir cycle. 

Cultures rural and urban, religious and criminal, collide in a film that promises violence, and delivers; and which promises thrills in the disruption of our regular programme of Americana.

This Americana may be well delivered under the banner of 'Saturday', as this allows us normality at its most normal.

It's an odd ride, with a heist and some well-sketched small-town life, with the local pervert as randomly drawn as the local religious farmers, in this case captured in a one-off performance for all the ages, by Ernest Borgnine, playing Mr Stadt, the Amish farmer.