House of Strangers (1949)

House of Strangers (1951) is a corporate crime Italian-American family drama revenge and rags to riches corruption film noir with fragments of boxing noir and courtroom noir included, which stars Edward G. Robinson as a patriarch in a family of boys who can't sort their succession planning.

Richard Conte is the star of the show and its his story we follow as he smoothly and suavely negotiates this house of would-be strangers, acting as his own father's attorney in the courtroom and beyond, convinced that his rich and domineering banker of a dad is innocent of making his fortune on the backs of the misery of others.

This misery is present as usury, played out by character actor Tito Vuolo, the man who became the stand-by Italian American in many a film noir.

The Miami Story (1954)

The Miami Story (1954) is a Kefauver hearings inspired city-titled Florida noir tale of mobsters, massive hidden television cameras, an informant and murder suspect who come out of hiding to boss the police about, and roving cameras which film the streets of Miami as automobiles carry mooks, thugs and suspects from location to location.

The Miami Story (1954) is a delight of cheap and effective film noir from the most unconvincing period of the style, when black and white denoted cost-savings and often meant that the stock and trade shadows of noir were consigned to the cutting room floor, in order to create a brighter and whiter screen of action, better suited to the television.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) is a bitch-and-towel slappin violent anti-social criminal psychopath flashback murder courtroom film noir with the king of the noir loons himself James Cagney as a no nonsense violent career criminal en route to hell.

Ralph Cotter, a hardened criminal with a penchant for violence, embarks on a harrowing journey of deceit and betrayal after a daring prison escape turns deadly. 

The death of his escape partner, Carleton, at his own hands sets the stage for a twisted game of manipulation and obsession. Is the love between brother and sister greater than that between gangster and long-suffering moll?

As Cotter insinuates himself into the life of Carleton's unsuspecting sister, Holiday, a dark and disturbing dynamic emerges — a typical web of desire and domination, where passion and pain collide in a volatile mix of emotion. 

Their sadomasochistic bond is laid bare in a chilling scene where Cotter's brutality is met with Holiday's fervent embrace — a stark portrayal of the depths of their depravity. They are American. They are you.

Hoodlum Empire (1952)

Hoodlum Empire (1952) is a semi-documentary corporate noir managerial Kefevaur hearing inspired film noir starring Luther Adler as a managerial darklord of gambling facing up to a Senate hearing.

Solid film noir technique and actors including a star turn from Claire Trevor and the normative mustachoed noirisms of Brian Donlevy.

For a film that fix to flips flashbacks like flying filmic tales there is epic wobbly fades and wipes to indicate the passage of time, back to World War 2, offering a creditable treasure trove of tropes for all to look and learn.

M (1951)

M (1951) is remake of Fritz Lang's 1931 classic of the same name, and does not disappoint as it condenses and updates the drama, taking it to the streets of Los Angeles, and offering up some great visuals of the Victorian area of Bunker Hill.

A significant amount had happened in the world and in cinema in the twenty years between the two films, and while the story is in essence exactly the same, the two worlds, that of Berlin in 1931 and Los Angeles in 1951, have little in common.

While Fritz Lang presented public and personal paranoia to the max in his 1931 masterpiece, neither are edged deep into the drama of the 1951 M, but it is otherwise an effective film.

There are stabs at public paranoia and criminal psychology, although both seem to be token efforts at times. The police procedural which returns an otherwise constantly roving camera to the quite corner of a soundstage on a fairly regular basis, is handled by Howard Da Silva, who plays the carefree cop, chewing his way from meeting to meeting, first with the city's mayor, and then with various psychologists, colleagues and villains.

Cornered (1945)

Cornered (1945) brings Dick Powell back to the film noir screen, and opens with him being refused a passport between London and France.

Undeterred, Powell slams his hands in his pockets, storms out of the passport office, and promptly swims the English Channel.

It’s that spirit that dominates Cornered (1945, Edward Dmytryk starring Dick Powell, Walter Slezak, Micheline Cheirel and Nina Vale.) 

The war had only been over for a matter of minutes before the film noir canon kicked off a whole new epoch in cinema — a time of uncertainty, deceit and men whose identities were always up for grabs.

Generally these guys were suckered by deceitful women, but often they didn’t know which way to wear their pants to begin with.

Either way, the post-war male was wholly bruised and confused.

Who exactly was he fighting?