Judex (1963)

Judex (1963) is a French language crime remake revenge-noir swinging mirror camera action mystery, capture, intrigue and oddity P.I. historical noir melodrama which is delightfully static, wild of avian headgear, and other subtly surreal touches of oddity and exciting curio.

It's soft and gentle, a film on tip toes, an acoustic film like no other, without doubt a film of birdsong, and otehr ambience, but eh music when it is musical is absolutely choice, the ambient quiet drone and deep distant trills during he good versus evil white body suit versus black body suit combat mani a manin on the dark French provincial rooftop is unmissable film chic. You know this film has some heavy dark chords too, beneath the word FIN au fin they clang in death march time baby.

Lured (1947)

Lured (1947) is a moody mystery female seeker hero investigatory London-set serial killer thriller outré film noir, made by Douglas Sirk and perhaps as far as the Sirk toes get into the fascinating dark and complicated world of noir drama.

In its way, Douglas Sirk’s lurid Lured (1947), an example of the lurid noir, reimagines hard enough upon Robert Siodmak’s 1939 film Pièges, that it must surely be classed as a remake, capturing the essence of a film noir thriller with an impressive cast and smoke machine moddiness and soundstage London-effect cinematography. 

The plot follows and does trail the female seeker hero type Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball), a sassy American dancer in London who is roped into a police investigation as a decoy for a serial killer targeting women through newspaper ads. 

The Girl Hunters (1963)

The Girl Hunters (1963) is a barely coherent lost classic Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer curiosity P.I. outré grilled steak big city hard nosed hard boiled  hard sidewalk and newsstand pounding snogga neo film noir blandishment from the 1960s, the non-standard issue cereal-box-reciting acting style creation of the entire all American Hammer oeuvre.

Infamous as the moment when Mickey was Mike, The Girl Hunters (1963) rocks the city and ransacks the style, tuning into the weirdness of the new era of the 1960s, rooted in habits that resonate from the vaudeville years even before the Depression.

Hold Back Tomorrow (1955)

Hold Back Tomorrow (1955) is a serious but strange outré death row doomed couple fantasy film noir about two lost romantic souls converging in the darkest of circumstances.

In a dramatic move so odd it could only materialise in the liberally weird machination fantasies of the Hollywood machine in the death-of-film-noir period, which ranges across the five years between 1955 and 1960, a condemned man is offered the chance to have whatever he so desires, under the law, offering a crazed film premise that only a bluff and wild film noir producer in the 1950s could never refuse.

I Was A Shoplifter (1950)

I Was A Shoplifter (1950) is a docu-noir gangland outré procedural blackmail paranoid shoplifter exploitation film noir starring Mona Freeman as a middle class lady gone awry, slipping into a ridiculous but nonetheless dangerous noir world of slippery conspiracy and dangerous wrong-side-of-the-tracks-style lessons in life.

In 1950s California, the police force tries to infiltrate and neutralize a shoplifting crime ring operating in major department stores.

I Was a Shoplifter (1950) stars Mona Freeman as Faye Burton, a judge’s daughter turned kleptomaniac, in this gripping crime drama. Scott Brady plays undercover cop Jeff Andrews, who shadows Faye as she’s forced to join a shoplifting ring led by the merciless pawnbroker Ina Perdue, portrayed by Andrea King.

The Beat Generation (1959)

The Beat Generation (1959) is an outré exploitation rapist versus cop beatnik beat thriller which manages to deal with the worst social topics imaginable and do so in a madly unorthodox and spoof manner, while working hard to retain narrative dignity.

Featuring an array of daft and hip beats, beat songs, beat drinks, a beat with a rat, a beat who goes scuba diving and is a kind of harpoon beat, a wrestling beat which is hard to beat, Louis Armstrong, one of the greatest musicians of all time who is playing with some tuneless white dropout cats and a noisy mime, some straight ladies who are not beats, and some other squares who are raped.

Then there is a serious discussion of abortion wedged in between the acting of Fay Spain and Steve Cochran, Cochran playing the cop who is thrown into the world of the beats while tracing a rapist beat.

Shack Out On 101 (1955)

Shack Out on 101 (1955) is a  roadside-diner anti-Communist espionage film noir with goofball elements set in a crummy but funny roadside diner and on a low-budget, and made by Allied Artists.

Indeed, you could call the joint a shack.

Down at the shack, Lee Marvin plays Slob a lecherous and bullying short-order cook who ain't good for much, other than sniping with his war veteran boss played by Keenan Wynn, whose life is a mixture of sarcasm and PTSD.

In September 1952, Monogram announced that henceforth it would only produce films bearing the Allied Artists name. The studio ceased making movies under the Monogram brand name in 1953, although it was reactivated by AAI by the millennium. The parent company became Allied Artists, with Monogram Pictures becoming an operating division.

In fact French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard dedicated his 1960 film Breathless to Monogram, citing the studio's films as a major influence.