Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Bullets or Ballots (1935) is a Warner Bros. corporate crime police detective gang infiltration classic from the pre-film noir years.

Starring the star of the show Edward G. Robinson, star of many Warner Bros. and other gangster films over three decades, perfectly paired with Humphrey Bogart, very much the rising star, in the first of five films the pair made together over the next twelve years.

That film noir charts multiple social, criminal, political, psychological trends in American society is one of its fascinations and why we're here.

The Little Giant (1933)

The Little Giant (1933) is a Pre-code proto-noir gangster-comedy romance story starring Edward G. Robinson and Mary Astor.

The comedy is given legs by a real life conundrum in the form of the question regarding what bootleggers and racketeers can now do, since Prohibition has ended and they are now in competition with the government for the production and distribution of liquor.

Bugs Alhern ― Edward G. Robinson ― is comically ahead of the game ―and his plan is to take his millions to Santa Barbara and start living the life of a socialite, living swell with the swanks, and appreciating culture ― usually expressed in this caper through the medium of polo.

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) is a fun Pre-Code horror pre-Noir classic from Michael Curtiz, starring Glenda Farrell and Fay Wray.

This is a horror picture from the filmic age of innocence when in theory anything went before the Film Production Code cracked down on everybody and made morality great again, probably and incidentally creating the film noir of the 1940s and 1950s as it did so.

When sculptor Ivan Igor's London wax museum is burned down by his treacherous partner, he is left devastated. 

Ten years later in the then-present day New York, Igor opens a new museum, with more lifelike statues than ever before. Something mysterious and evil is behind his genius for wax likeness, but what could it be!

Horror films of the 1930s are an interesting prospect. Horror films of this time don't really lay bare the cultural zeitgeist, but usually looked at how science, crime and the supernatural intersected.

You and Me (1938)

You and Me (1938) starring George Raft and Silvia Sidney is an early film noir from Fritz Lang, set in a department store which is staffed by criminals on parole.

Delightful within You and Me is the German expressionist sensibility which is quite apparent in the photographic style, but which the American audiences may not have been quite ready for. 

Most especially in the scenes where the large criminal gang are together, there is a certain flavour of the director's earlier film M (1931), stylised at times by the actors facing directly into the camera to achieve an arresting effect — as well as powerful and small touches which carry great weight.

Likely the most memorable of these describes the relationship between the two young lovers George Raft and Sylvia Sidney, whose hands touch as they pass on an escalator. The way this shot is managed speaks volumes, and in the midst of a chaotic crime caper, which to be fair has as many romantic and screwball aspects to it as it does full film noir flavour, it's among the most powerful of moments.

The Petrified Forest (1936)

The Petrified Forest is a 1936 gem of a proto-noir, starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard and a first major star turn from this young cat, Humphrey Bogart.

While we style The Petrified Forest as a proto-noir, its real roots are on the stage, and it is in fact a typical-for-its-day stage-to-screen adaptation. Typical in the performances which seem verbose for the silver screen. and its rather static setting.

Even four or five years later, when the forties were unrolling and film noir was a staple style at the cinema house, much more emphasis was being spent on mis-en-scene and a more visual style. Back in the day - - when the day was the 1930s - - there was a temptation to simply film what appear to us today, to be quite long exchanges of dialogue.

The dialogue between Bette Davis and Leslie Howard which takes up a large chunk of the opening acts is only really saved by the ultra-urbane delivery and the sheer fascination both actors inspire. A variety of carefully curated camera angles keep this moving along, along with a well evoked setting, which is a remote gas station in the Arizona wilds.

Invisible Stripes (1939)

Invisible Stripes is (1939) starring George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Jane Bryan and William Holden, is one of those great 1930s movies that lays down some of the rails upon which film noir would soon enough run.

If it's a crime film, if it's a prison film, or if it's a heist film, the chances are that in the Golden Age of the silver screen, this movie may be presented with all the tropes, style and wisdom of film noir.

It's often true, but it also ain't necessarily so. Nobody rushes to call the Falcon films, or the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films film noir ... and yet they deal in crime, conspiracy, and often in the shadows and fog.

The prefiguring of film noir is still quite evident in 1930s cinema. To find it, one can trace the morality of the crimes, cops, robbers, murderers and increasingly, the psychopaths and the teenage tearaways.

Film noir prefiguring aside, Invisible Stripes, directed by Lloyd Bacon is a lot of fun, and acts out that fine 1930s theme of the kids on the street battling with the urge to turn to crime. It's in this environment, that director Lloyd Bacon brings home a few new ideas, including that of the teenage tearaway.

And that tearaway, is committing a certain form of crime, against both the combined moral wealth of the family, and society itself.