Film Noir: Not Noir But Relevant

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City For Conquest (1940)

City for Conquest (1940) is an epic Warner Bros. stories-of-the-city style prestige picture with a few filings of film noir placed within its frames, which tend to sprawling grandeur rather than intimate psychological portrayal.

Manhattan melodrama is the pure-bred genre this humanistic tale of immigrant struggles in New York City, does not fare high in noir, but is still a part of the story of the style, above all in the efforts of Warner Bros. to depict James Cagney as something more than a criminal, a boxer on the rise and fall, a story paralleled by the story of his young love Peg Nash, played by Ann Sheridan.

Manpower (1941)

Manpower (1941) starring George Raft, Marlene Dietrich and Edward G. Robinson is deserving of an honourable mention on classic film noir, for the habits it portrays and social directions it takes.

While likely classifiable as a dramatic film with comic elements, Manpower still has something to relate to noir audiences.

The story is about two friends and their supportive relationship, and essentially portrays the bonds between working men and their women.

The slapstick jollity of the era is well captured and has certainly, as comedy usually does, aged poorly. Edward G. Robinson's character in hospital is styled as an 'octopus' because of the way his hands grab the nurses. And this is the least of it.

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.

The curious late-cycle film noir gangster-spy picture A Bullet for Joey (1955) unites the two stars Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, who had previously been paired in Raoul Walsh's Manpower (1941).

Edward G. Robinson was at ease in film noir, and able to play good guy roles, which he often did with pipe-wielding authority, and out and out villains.

George Raft in A Bullet For Joey plays the hoodlum figure, working here to kidnap a nuclear scientist, with Peter van Eyck as the true ring-leader.

Comparing it to Illegal (1955), also with Robinson and by director Lewis Allen, there is slightly less in terms of dark city noir qualities, paranoia, and psychological damage.

In Montreal, a police inspector (Edward G. Robinson) uncovers piece by piece a plan to kidnap a nuclear physicist. American mobsters, foreign spies and a blonde seductress are all involved in this rather staid caper.

Shout out, however, to monkeys in film noir.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) may be considered one of the few blessings the patriarchy has offered us.

We may add the disclaimer too, that The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is not really in its entirety a film noir, although there are significant noir style, chops, attitudes and participants to make it as essential a viewing experience as any noir fiend might ever seek.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre isn't here on the Classic Film Noir website by sufferance however, and as a Humphrey Bogart film it can be enjoyed on these merits alone, and although it's an adventure tale, there is plenty paranoia and deceit on offer.

One observation from the off, and something that seems to jar somehow, is that it’s hard to read about this film without the word ‘great’ being used and overused, and then used again, and overused some more, on account of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre being a great film.

You know.