49th Parallel (1941)

49th Parallel (1941) is a wartime hunted-man-narrative adventure road movie-style Nazi espionage chase propaganda thriller, in which a World War II U-boat crew are stranded in northern Canada, and to avoid internment, they must make their way to the border and get into the still-neutral U.S

While not under any circumstance a film noir and containing nothing within its narratives nor stylings which might help classify it or tend it towards discussing in the film noir for a of our own reflective times, 49th Parallel (1941) does depend on themes of espionage and manhunting , while also and most curiously profiling Nazis as the protagonists.

This is an effective narrative route, for the large part because Powell and Pressburger did not make films which heavily patronised, satirised, demonised and ridiculed the Third Reichers of the early 1940s. 

The Petrified Forest (1936)

The Petrified Forest is a 1936 gem of a proto-noir, starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard and a first major star turn from this young cat, Humphrey Bogart.

While we style The Petrified Forest as a proto-noir, its real roots are on the stage, and it is in fact a typical-for-its-day stage-to-screen adaptation. Typical in the performances which seem verbose for the silver screen. and its rather static setting.

Even four or five years later, when the forties were unrolling and film noir was a staple style at the cinema house, much more emphasis was being spent on mis-en-scene and a more visual style. Back in the day - - when the day was the 1930s - - there was a temptation to simply film what appear to us today, to be quite long exchanges of dialogue.

The dialogue between Bette Davis and Leslie Howard which takes up a large chunk of the opening acts is only really saved by the ultra-urbane delivery and the sheer fascination both actors inspire. A variety of carefully curated camera angles keep this moving along, along with a well evoked setting, which is a remote gas station in the Arizona wilds.