The Ghost Ship (1943)

The Ghost Ship (1943) is a low key Val Lewton maritime murder psychological thriller suspense film noir melodrama of high seas horror mania and psychopathy and serial killer highly focused mania, with homicidal homoerotics on the deadly foggy misty waters of the evil portions of the silver screen's fantasies of what it might mean to be on the ocean, in a kind of Conradian high modern mixup of steamer mythos at its zenith worst, its best and most deadly. The insane Captain Stone.

It isn't what you think. There are no ghosts.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943)

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) is a dense anti-Nazi World War 2 returning veteran film noir of paranoia, trauma, and espionage, with John Garfield as a Spanish Civil War veteran in possession of a priceless keepsake, who returns home to find out who murdered his friend. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) directed by Richard Wallace is a convoluted, politically charged spy thriller steeped in noir sensibilities. Starring John Garfield as the psychologically fractured Kit McKittrick and Maureen O’Hara as the enigmatic Toni Donne, the film operates within a framework of paranoia and trauma. 

Deadline At Dawn (1946)

Deadline At Dawn (1946) is a classic era classic female seeker hero hardboiled amnesia film noir, and a classic film noir which is also a great example of several other film noir sub-styles including cabbie noir, and outre noir.

Full of fun, mystery and menace and with an almost unique script, quipped with an unequaled touch by Clifford Odets, not known for his cinematic writing, and directed by 

The history and definition of film noir remain complex, filled with contradictions and shifting interpretations. Though often described as an American invention emerging from a synthesis of hard-boiled fiction and German expressionism, noir's roots and reach are far broader.

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

The Spiral Staircase (1946) is a stalking terrorisation paranoia psychological historical film noir thriller with all the trimmings of the mystery style and elements of the apprehensive female domestic victim movie.

In the dimly lit streets of the city, a killer stalked the shadows, preying upon women with imperfections. His eyes, cold and calculating, sought out vulnerability—the slightest flaw that marked his victims. The town whispered of his deeds, and fear hung heavy in the air.

Helen, the mute caregiver for a wealthy old woman, was next on everyone’s list. Her silence made her an easy target, her inability to scream for help a cruel twist of fate. The old woman’s mansion loomed like a fortress, its walls hiding secrets and shadows.

Where Danger Lives (1950)

Where Danger Lives (1950) is a disturbed wife psycho murder couple on the run film noir with Robert Mitchum as the hell in love with Faith Domergue, one deranged half of a supremely dysfucntional marriage — the other half being Claude Rains.

A severe combinations of noir elements give the story of Where Danger Lives (1950) a bizarre enough edge to classify it as several types of crazy, largely derived from the mad and maddening behaviour of the suicide patient played by Faith Domergue.

The relationship with her husband which is abusive and very much a front for her to get access to money and for him (the husband played by Claude Rains) to have ownership of a young woman , and as such a marriage doomed to fail.

Split Second (1953)

Split Second (1953) is a nuclear threat hostage film noir — a nuclear noir if you will — that pits some habitual noir lowlife against the atom bomb.

The story follows two convicts, Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally) and Bart (Paul Kelly), who escape from prison with Bart having been shot. They're picked up by their getaway driver Dummy (Frank De Kova) and then hit a gas station, where the foul-tempered Sam kills the attendant (John Cliff). 

The men then hijack a car driven by Kay (Alexis Smith) and her boyfriend (Robert Paige) and set off into a nuclear testing ground where they pick up another two cast members, an attractive drifter called  Dottie (Jan Sterling), who is travelling with a journalist called Larry (Keith Andes).

The Locket (1946)

The Locket (1946) is a noir of nested narratives — a kleptomaniac paranoid psychoanalytic flashback within a flashback film noir which unravels one woman's secret life and haunted past. 

This psychological thriller  directed by John Brahm stars Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum, and Gene Raymond, and was released by RKO Pictures. 

The film is based on a screenplay by Sheridan Gibney and adapted from "What Nancy Wanted" by Norma Barzman, wife of later-blacklisted writer Ben Barzman. 

The set up is an interrupted wedding, the stuff of nightmares. John Willis (Gene Raymond) is about to marry bride to be Nancy (Laraine Day), but a man named Harry Blair (Brian Aherne) crashes the wedding. 

The Woman on Pier 13 (1949)

The Woman on Pier 13 (1949) is the ultimate anti-Communist paranoid thriller mash-up Red Scare classic film noir.

With a large cast and yet larger reputation for more back-room witch-hunting and Communist panic than any other movie in the film noir style, The Woman on Pier 13 (1949) tells of a powerful Communist cell in the docklands of San Francisco Bay.

As a blunt noir thematic descant The Woman on Pier 13 is also a fast-assed attack on any and all Hollywood radicals who defended their party membership on the grounds of a youthful indiscretion.

I Married a Communist must also be read as Hollywood’s version of its own internal politics. Someone got to the moguls and infected them with the idea that Communists had infiltrated and infected and otherwise corrupted showbusiness at every level from the theater door to the scripts and properties departments.

Clash By Night (1952)

Clash By Night (1952) is a romantic-unromantic dockside drama destructive love drifter-comes-home film noir by Fritz Lang, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Douglas and Robert Ryan.

For a film noir there are few of the elements we normally might expect to see from the form, and yet with the addition of a fairly noirish cast, and some dark and unpleasant behaviour and characterisation from Robert Ryan, Clash By Night (1952) squeezes into the fold because of anguished performances, again largely delivered by the alienated woman hater played by Robert Ryan.

Barbara Stanwyck plays Mae Doyle, a woman who returns to her hometown, the fishing town of Monterey, California, after 10 years on the East Coast. 

Cat People (1942)

Cat People (1942) by Jacques Tourneur, was the product of writers and producers putting their heads together at a time when horror was in its infancy, and coming up with what they considered to be a new concept. 

This is because even then, they had seen that horror was already focused on a few supernatural and historic themes ― the ghost ― the vampire ― the Frankenstein monster  ― the Mummy ― there Werewolf ― and they'd already seen that there were not too many more in the blockbuster canon; maybe.

Hence the decision to see if the cat could be developed into a truly lasting horror theme. The vision of Cat People is not one of lycanthropy ― although it is similar. And it is not quite one of demonic possession, although again there is plenty in  common.

Blood on the Moon (1948)

Blood on the Moon (1948) is a wild Western with film noir credentials. Those credentials are sounder than may first appear, and are real.

Robert Wise, the director of Blood on the Moon brought the urban, psychological, shadowy, violent and complex aspects of film noir to this movie, making it very likely the greatest admixture of the Western genre with the film noir style.

It begs the question as to what film noir and Western have in common, and it's likely the fact that both of them ultimately deal with morality.

The lead elements of film noir are first and foremost visible. These are a difficult to follow and relatively layered plot of crosses, triple crosses and identities.

These typically complex stories are also played out in the shadows where possible. Blood on the Moon not only opens with an epic and miserable rain storm, and in that storm is the figure of the drifter, stoically on the wander, the forever hired hand, here played by Robert Mitchum.

Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)

Eddie Robson, who is one of the world’s most thorough-going experts on film noir, is determined that Stranger on the Third Floor is the world’s first film noir. 

Not that one should spend a lot of time on this debate, but still it’s discussed. And he might even be right!

Despite being heavy on the expressionist shadows and the hapless hero, Stranger on the Third Floor lacks a few key noir elements, notably the femme fatale or bad girl — of which there is none.

But Stranger more than makes up for that in shadows and the psychological blurring of dream and reality.