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These two visionaries of the mid-century were brought together by Alexander Korda to make this World War I spy thriller novel of the same title by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film.
Powell and Pressburger eventually made over 20 films during the course of their partnership.
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The frightening and exciting weakness of sex was never better shown than in the encounters between Fred MacMurray and a to-begin-with naked Barbara Stanwyck, whom as equals it seems, concoct a murder for the existential fact of morality take over and trip them both up.
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As in the mode of any high grade film noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) speaks of the past and its characters' inability to escape it.
In fact the characters in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) seems to exist around one moment in the past, a fateful once when Martha Ivers committed a murder as young girl.
Everything else in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is about what this murder brings about, creating a drama of many parts, fixedly rooted in one fateful and distant moment.
Moreover, it's a complex film — not a classic love triangle story, but something more akin to a love parallelogram.
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In some senses an outlier in the body of Alfred Hitchcock's own work, and not entirely styled in the mode of a more traditional or acceptable example of film noir, Spellbound does carry with it key noir themes of amnesia and psychoanalysis, and is as much a thriller as it is a psychological mystery.
Most of Spellbound's power comes as a romance story — always a strength with Alfred Hitchcock, who was as much a master of amour as he was of suspense.
Spellbound follows a psychoanalyst who falls in love with the new head of the Vermont hospital in which she works, only to find that he is an imposter suffering dissociative amnesia, and potentially, a murderer.
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It's a film of socialites and infidelity, one of these glimpse-into-the-lives of the rich and popular, and a look at their habits, drinks, dresses, affairs, apartments, moeurs and murders.
In this world it's always a beautiful morning, and the jewels and the dresses sparkle, and platonic relationships spring up, as does the rekindling of old flames. There is a club where they hang out, and a friendly barman called Bill — and it's always time for a straight Scotch.
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This Best Picture Oscar was a deserved win for many reasons, and that included morality which always plays a part in this decision, each year, no matter what the style of picture.
It was a deserved win for the modernity and humanity of The Lost Weekend, which is a film that does not dazzle so much as invite the viewer on a slow and focused ride to the bottom. There is no complexity other than in the acting, and even the script does not veer, even when it surprises with its hidden bottles of rye and constant feeling of domestic and internal desperation.
The Lost Weekend is still a film noir however. Even though there is no murder, there is above all else a psychological horror which in cinematic terms could only find its feet in film noir in the 1940s.
First it drives him to drink ― anything to try and forget.
Then there's his uncontrolled violence down the pub.
Finally, a trip to the zoo, can be entirely triggering for him.
Bill Saunders should never have come to London. It's certainly not the world's film noir capital either.
But here he is with Joan Fontaine, in a fascinating, compelling, melodramatic and slightly strange concoction called Kiss the Blood off My Hands.
The story of the post-war male is a film noir staple. The
rescuing female belongs to a much older tradition ― but even knowing that he’s
a killer, doesn’t stop Joan Fontaine from a heart breaking attempt at rescue.
Kiss The Blood Off My Hands (1948) is one of those great film noirs in which the entirely story is told in the title. The hero is a murderer ― he has blood on his hands. The female lead is going to rescue him ― with love ― as symbolised in a kiss.
The aim thereafter is redemption. Can she wash away his sins with her love? And is World War 2 excuse enough for a man when it comes to drunken violence?
Find out the answers in Kiss The Blood Off My Hands.
There’s a fight at a night club ― or is it a fight? There’s
a panicky couple of lovers ― Burt Lancaster and the incredible and much loved
Yvonne De Carlo ― and there is a sizeable team of men, who have clearly come
together with larceny in mind.
One long flashback and many moments of indecision from
Lancaster’s character ‘Steve Thompson’ later, and the movie concludes with its
high-octane combination of heist-gone-wrong meets triple-cross.
In Criss Cross, Robert Siodmak made a restless film noir,
giving the story an exciting structure that raises the drama higher than it
might otherwise be. The art here is in complicating something that might
under other circumstances be quite straightforward.
One way this is achieved is through some regular film noir
favourite tropes, moves and signals.
The first of these is the idea of returning. This isn’t just a favourite theme in film noir, and it is the start of many a good story. But film noir does use this to a great extent. Thus the flashback commences with Burt Lancaster’s character returning to Bunker Hill ― full of melancholy ― full of wisdom ― full of questions ― replete with memories ― weighed down with experience ― and looking for a lost love.
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