The Accused (1949)

The Accused (1949) is a psychology sex-killer-thriller paranoid woman classic from the film noir era, starring Loretta Young as a psychology professor who asks he students to perform sexual-psychological experiments on each other. With disastrous consequences.

The Accused is as essential a film noir one would need as the most extreme example of the othering and socially oppressing of women. It's the ultimate in #metoo noir as well.

The Accused is directed by William Dieterle and adapted to screenplay by Ketti Frings from the novel Be Still, My Love written by June Truesdell. It stars Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey, Sam Jaffe and Douglas Dick. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography by Milton R. Krasner.

The Stranger (1946)

Depending on your point of view, Orson Welles is either peripheral to, or central to film noir; peripheral in that he didn’t make many films that are considered to be noir; central because of the influence of Citizen Kane, made when he was only 25 years old. 

While not a film noir, the chiaroscuro lighting of Citizen Kane, the low-angle photography and nonlinear structure had a great influence on film noir as it developed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Welles is considered to have made three ventures into noir territory with Lady From Shanghai, Touch of Evil and this overlooked gem — The Stranger — which remains his first, and maybe his only commercial success. 

The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles himself, has an excitement largely generated by Welles’ own performance, which is intense — to say the least. It’s a sweet addition to the noir barrel, with a great opening and an unbearably fine performance from Orson Welles.