The Lady Gambles (1949)

The Lady Gambles (1949) is a gambling addiction, social and moral descent romance women's film noir starring Barbara Stanwyck, turning in a stunning and brutal performance as a woman who is overcome with addiction, so as to the point of ruination.

As the film opens prepare to see Barbara Stanwyck punched 11 or 12 times in the face by three mooks in an alley, each bruising face-breaking blow leaving a great ouch across the style. It has to be one of the more terrifying noir beatings.

This leads to a hospital managed by a cynical hard smoking medical stoic played by John Hoyt, and the whole flashback, fading screen, voiceover here-is-how-it happened commences, and Double Indemnity style, the story unravels, although it ain't such a hot story.

His Kind of Woman (1951)

His Kind of Woman (1951) is a Howard Hughes produced adventure comedy face transplant gambler noir with both light and heavy touches and an array of almost spoofily delivered scenes and lines which might have been suggestive of noir satire were it not for Howard Hughes failing movie policies, which always created slightly aberrant Hollywoodish features.

The story of His Kind of Woman (1951) tells of how a deported gangster's plan to re-enter the USA involves skulduggery at a Mexican resort, and gambler Dan Milner is caught in the middle. The end goal is a rather unspecified face transplant operation a variety of post-Nazi science that blends into the Hollywood fantasies of the day, unspoken and feared.

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.

Walk A Crooked Mile (1948)

Walk A Crooked Mile (1948) is a red scare domestic espionage thriller paranoia film noir which presents in an exciting and effective manner, the values and festivities pertaining to the rise of anti-Communist sentiment in post-war America.

This iteration of the hunt for the devil's doctrine itself and was presented around the first time that the widespread corrupting influences of socialism and its violent social counterparts became a public concern via the medium of public discussion.

Depending on where you are in noir the communists can be anything at all, from plain criminal mooks to dark bearded Victorian villains, or even the person next to you on the bus, the most innocent looking citizens of all. There are also the corporate types, the communists of ideology and those who have infiltrated our organisations and even our government. All of it is here, and made up for the screen.