Union Station (1950)

Union Station (1950) is a kidnap and ransom police thriller set in and around Chicago's Union Station, and starring William Holden and Nancy Olsen.

The film was based on Nightmare in Manhattan, an Edgar-winning novel by Thomas Walsh. 

Sydney Boehm's script for the film version was nominated for an Edgar in the screenplay category.

Aside from changing the setting from New York City's Grand Central Station to Chicago's Union Station (though the Los Angeles Union Station was the actual filming location), and changing the kidnap victim from a little boy to a blind, teen-aged girl, the script was quite faithful to its source material.

Union Station is a realistic 1950 film noir police and public nuisance kidnap movie starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Jan Sterling and Barry Fitzgerald. It was released after Sunset Boulevard so by the time it came out, Holden had actually moved up another level of stardom. William Holden and Nancy Olson also appeared in Sunset Boulevard the same year.

Detective Story (1951)

Detective Story (1951) is a classic stage play brought top screen film noir psychological police drama directed by William Wyler and starring Kirk Douglas and Eleanor Parker, among many more.

It's not the most obvious film noir but makes up for that in a mighty cast, with a mighty punch, based on a play by Sidney Kingsley. This picture also brings up the tricky subject of police brutality — something that should have been against the Production Code of the time — and yet which still forms the central moral aspect of this piece.

Detetcive Story is a brilliant cop-on-the-edge narrative, a form familiar to film noir. Kirk Douglas is that cop, every bit as tense and nervous as Robert Ryan in On Dangerous Ground (1951); or maybe Sterling Hayden in Crime Wave (1953).

On Dangerous Ground (1951)

On Dangerous Ground (1951) is a classic Nicholas Ray urban rural violent cop film noir starring Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino in a tale of loneliness and duality combining the full and contrasting forces of both the wildscapes of the north and the urban environments on the individual.

Robert Ryan plays Jim Wilson a brutalised city cop, in danger of losing his job due to his lack of control when it comes to managing violence in his job. 

Ida Lupino plays Mary Malden, a blind woman who characteristic of blindness in the movies at the time — is symbolically set to allow the hero to finally 'see'.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Where the sidewalk ends, morality falls away, darkness prevails and in the black folds of the night, nobody can see who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.

Where the sidewalk ends, you’re on your own, making your own moral choices, with no guidance other than your past, and your own spur of the moment errors — your own dry, cold and helpless anger, your vendettas.

In this devilish and dangerous land, film noir lives and breathes — and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) is an epic film noir, one of the greats. It's a film that drives the cynicism home, before kicking it to death in the garage.

Directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Gary Merrill.