Cape Fear (1962)

Cape Fear (1962) is a classic film noir revenge and violence against women southern suburban disturbin psychopathic ex con on the loose police, lawyer and detective censorship-barrier-breaking intimidation-genre child exploitation and &ape-heavy terrifying thriller violence against women and girls movie with one of Robert Mitchum's most heavyweight performances of all time, and one of Bernard Hermann's most heavyweight scores of all times — and directed as it is by J. Lee Thompson, Cape Fear is in deed and in the opinion of many noireaux — and this is a biggie — the very last and final ultimate late in the day, last blast of heroic pure and timeless formula-based all in actual full on 100% qualified film noir — the terminal articulation of the studio-era noir idiom — the concluding flourish of Hollywood’s original noir cycle — the last film noir.

Cast A Dark Shadow (1955)

Cast A Dark Shadow (1955) is a psychopath targeting elderly widows black widower greed and murder English film noir suspenser tale of polished homicide with English cuppa tea undertones and dark shadows of psycho-style fifties persecution and cunning styled as a Limey film noir tale of manipulation and Freudian hang-ups drawing room crime thriller, directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, Kay Walsh and Robert Flemyng.

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) is a post war British limey spivving and drug dealing film noir classic psychopath action adventure returning veteran misty London rooftop and scabby old boozer thriller prison break police procedural fist-fighting exploitation violence-against-women crime movie by Alberto Cavalcanti and with all the mystery of any Alberto Cavalcanti production, it races onwards with Trevor Howard at his handsome hero best, and Sally Gray, Maurice Dunham — and Griffith Jones as a class act noir psychopath, complete with hanky mannerisms and a funeral business to cover his narcotics dealing, which is pretty hep for '47.

Jeopardy (1953)

Jeopardy (1953) is a super fast road John Sturges adventure psycho on wheels thriller woman chasing mad murderer chaser through Mexico car smash and trapped old man family adventure film noir from the earnest era of the early fifties and starring noir empress and all round actor supremo of the style Barbara Stanwyck, as well as a got getter outdoor Barry Sullivan, with none other than Ralph Meeker, a noir lover's actor as the murderous escapee of swagger and menace.

Jeopardy (1953) is a lean, 69-minute exercise in cinematic claustrophobia and moral ambiguity.

The Ghost Ship (1943)

The Ghost Ship (1943) is a low key Val Lewton maritime murder psychological thriller suspense film noir melodrama of high seas horror mania and psychopathy and serial killer highly focused mania, with homicidal homoerotics on the deadly foggy misty waters of the evil portions of the silver screen's fantasies of what it might mean to be on the ocean, in a kind of Conradian high modern mixup of steamer mythos at its zenith worst, its best and most deadly. The insane Captain Stone.

It isn't what you think. There are no ghosts.

The Leopard Man (1943)

The Leopard Man (1943) is a Val Lewton Jacques Tourneur pre-serial killer era serial killer horror thriller chiller film noir filler large cat-themed dark side proto just about everything golden era silver screen classic of what became the horror genre, although it might be for another day to require of the LLMs to ask what the exact genre trajectory comprises that runs from Val and Jacques productions such as The Leopard Man (1943) and Cat People (1942) to Saw (2004); Saw II (2005); Saw III (2006); Saw IV (2007); Saw V (2008); Saw VI (2009); Saw 3D (2010); Jigsaw (2017); Spiral (2021); and Saw X (2023). 

Jeez I asked the LLM what it thought about that and guess what it was happy to spit. We will return to that.

No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948)

No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948) is a scandalous British psychopath crime thriller film noir in which Limey actors adopt fake American accents as the Brits attempt to create a mock film noir styled thriller based on the most widely read British novel of World War Two.

St John Clowe’s 1948 adaptation of No Orchids for Miss Blandish is and does remain and is the remains of what was once a pivotal yet polarising entry in British cinematic history of film noir, that Limey Noir history we all crave, from the 1940s and 1950s. Based on James Hadley Chase’s sensational novel, the film was a bold attempt to replicate American-style gangster noir within the constraints of British cinema. 

Dillinger (1945)

Dillinger (1945) is a cheapo-epic biopic crime heist, robbery, murder, prison and prison-break film noir which was the breakthrough role for tough guy villainous noir actor Lawrence Tierney, directed by Max Nosseck and co-starring Anne Jeffreys, Edmund Lowe, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cooke Jnr and Eduardo Cianelli. 

Packed with fun, action and menace, and oddly replete with cinematic meta-mechanics, Dillinger (1945) cannot be flawed for anything other than historical accuracy. 

Historical accuracy might have gone against the grain, too. The minute makers of 1945, fresh off the tracks of the great crime film experiments of the 1930s, which incidentally probably amount to the greatest body of work of 1930s cinema, were imminently to collide with state forces and the Production Code was in fullest sway, and so accuracy might have been well sacrificed.

The Power of The Whistler (1945)

The Power of The Whistler (1945) is a death-prediction amnesia thriller mystery identity serial film noir movie, and is the eerie third entry into the 1940s serial noir The Whistler series.

In the film, Janis Carter plays Jean Lang, a character whose actions spark intrigue and tension as she makes some highly questionable decisions regarding a complete stranger she encounters. 

Jean, who is telling fortunes using cards, becomes concerned when her cards predict grave danger for a man she notices in a restaurant, played by Richard Dix, who is suffering from that most famous of every film noir malady available to the script writes, amnesia. 

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) is an early film noir era Alfred Hitchcock charming uncle  prototypical mainstreet serial killer psychopath philosophical murder mystery shocker oncle-noir suspense thriller drama, which is a also a classic film noir, and surely indicative of Hitchcock's effect on and contribution to the style.

It is noted in these chaumers that Alfred Hitchcock is a genre unto himself, and there is a lot of truth in that. So distinct becomes his work, from its earliest to its latest, and undoubtedly it is the same, and uses motifs and styles that only he seemed to be able to excel within. 

His to-camera photography is unique in that it never breaks the fourth wall, but looks through the fourth wall to place his target character within the mind of the audience. Compelling.

Women's Prison (1955)

Women's Prison (1955) is a high period women's prison drama film noir, with a wealth of noir talent and an outré head of steam as it tackles psychopathically sublimated sexual suppression in the form of a violent warder played by Ida Lupino.

Jan Sterling, Audrey Totter, Juanita Moore, Cleo Moore make a cell block of sass and noir dialogue, while outlandish banter and bravado make stir seem fun, although not for the mortally bullied cracked up manslaughter case of a gentle woman cast into hellish chokey, played by Phyllis Thaxter.

Howard Duff plays a pipe pokin heart throbbin prison doctor, who is deeply concerned for the welfare of in particular Phyliss Thaxter's broken form, as she is strait-jacketed, broken, and psychologically torn apart.

Brighton Rock (1948)

Brighton Rock (1948) is a classic limey gangland early youth violence exploitation and murder film noir, and a classic of the style, a classic of British cinema, a classic of the cinema of Graham Greene, and a ground-breaking and block-rocking belter of its day, offering some of the purest cinema of the post-war British age.

And this in a classic Graham Greene pre-war tale, a combination of multiple efforts of genius to create a quite uniquely British noir experience.

One will be warned that entire books have been written about the film of Brighton Rock (1948) and even about Richard Attenborough’s ran-sackingly riveting portrayal of Pinkie Brown. 

My Six Convicts (1952)

My Six Convicts (1952) is an earnest prison reform noir drama movie from the very high water mark of the classic film noir era.

Yet maybe just floating upon that watermark does not mean your every film production is a classic, and most certainly of all, unlikely to be a classic of the film noir style.

What My Six Convicts (1952) does manage is a sympathetic-psychopathic portmanteau of movie moodiness with the nascent form of the movie madman being treated of as seriously as it could have been after just having undergone a fantastical 1940s of fun and fear, in which cod-psychoanalytic crime detection became 

The film kicks off with John Beal's arrival at the prison, tasked with trialing a psychological rehabilitation system for convicts. However, progress is slow until Millard Mitchell's seasoned safe-cracker takes a chance on the new doc.

The Killer Is Loose (1956)

The Killer Is Loose (1956) is a cat and mouse revenge killer on the run suburban family man cop film noir from the cul de sac end of the great mid century American noir cycle.

The Killer Is Loose (1956) is a film noir thriller with modern echoes, although the 1950s had already seen the death of modernism. We may well come back to that.

Yet the cinema has to be the ultimate of all modern artforms. The modern period, insofar as it relates to art, literature and most importantly of all, politics, can really be said to take place between 1880 and 1950.

It is curiously enough during this period also that cinema rises, develops, achieves its potential, and then enters the same decline as all else in post modern period.

Black Tuesday (1954)

Black Tuesday (1954) is a violent death row prison break journalism and media gang on the run sociopathic killer film noir.

Shot on sparing sets and more intense and violent than your average 1954 thriller, Black Tuesday with Edward G. Robinson is one of those noir gems that you hear about.

More than the sum of its parts, Black Tuesday (1954) pulls an epic violent bad guy sociopath role from G. Robinson and does so across some of the most unique set scenery of the day.

The two sets largely used are a set of prison sets, including a shoot out exterior, and plenty high angles looking down staircases and across yards. The electric chair scenes are probably the best across the whole style.

He Walked By Night (1948)

He Walked By Night (1948) is a procedural lone psychopath hunter killer thriller semi-documentary police technical adviser film noir starring Richard Basehart and directed by Alfred Werker.

Drain dwelling hi-technology oscillograph and television projector building full fat classic film noir, He Walked By Night may also be appreciated for the stunning array of tech gadgets and insight into the technical electronic industry as it might have stood in 1948, as well as its stunning lack of female actors and characters and for what it says about the battles for social control that went on as fascism was unspooled across social institutions after World War II

Gun totin and fast moving, He Walked By Night rides through the night of course, that being its charm, and of course it's night in the storm drains too, where master lone wolf Richard Basehart - the character's name is Roy Martin or Roy Morgan - has a stash of guns too. 

When it comes to doggy nemesis none are harder and cleverer and more determined and sharp as Scott Brady, who also plays a mean police milkman when need be.

Born To Kill (1947)

Born To Kill (1947) is a savage psychopathic murder female seeker hero thriller noir, from the height of the classic film noir period, displaying virtually every noir vice and virtue in a brutal and thrilling tale of toxic male psychopathy and female resilience.

The opening minutes of Born To Kill are a quick and quiet succession of some of noir's best idiomatic themes and settings. All taking place in Reno, these scenes kick off with first the independent women, and then the suburban setting. Within that setting are more independent women, and plenty alcohol. 

The next scene is in a casino, not a likely setting for an innocent divorcee perhaps, but a great place for Americana to wash up against itself - - and the scene right after that is back into perfect suburbia, where it's all iceboxes and radio sets, a friendly doggie and a double murder out of nowhere.

Beware, My Lovely (1952)

Beware, My Lovely (1952) is a home invasion amnesia Christmas-themed paranoid delusional maniac film noir starring Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan, two of noir's greatest acting talents.

Robert Ryan plays a strange kinda killer in this low-key film noir which takes something of a path of its own off of the main noir highway, and which yet complies with many of film noir's best tropes.

Most clearly of all, Beware, My Lovely (1952) is suburban noir and is the kind of noir that was becoming increasingly popular in the early 1950s — the type of noir which dealt the goods not on the streets and criminal dives of the 1940s, but directly within the super-vulnerable domestic bliss of the 1950s.

White Heat (1949)

White Heat (1949) is the ultimate white hot gangster semi-documentary heist prison movie in the entirety of the classic film noir canon.

Super hot action and direction from Raoul Walsh flings James Cagney, Edmond O'Brien and Virginia Mayo into some of the best acting of their lives, elegantly supported by Steve Cochran

This explosive exploitation noir comes in at a huge length of nearly two hours.

White Heat (1949) is a multiple set of movies, seeming to smash them together at high speed, very much like the train which kicks the picture off, emerging from the tunnel to be robbed by the gang.

Psycho (1960)

Psycho (1960) by Alfred Hitchcock is a noir-fuelled summation of thirty years of graphic and exploitative cinema, not just signalling the end of the classic film noir era, but bringing on many new types of film — the psycho-serial-killer horror film — the slasher —  the film that you see from beginning to end — the sight of a brassiere — jump scares shocks and a surprise ending. And a flushing toilet Code-lovers.

There is much to signal the changing of the era in Psycho, beginning with Hitchcock's inspired choice to make the film in black and white. For one Hollywood Golden Age fan at least, Psycho is the end of the line.

Psycho is not just the end of The Golden Age of Hollywood but for all its genius and for the sheer of its enjoyment and our never tiring of its technique and merits —  for all these things and more Psycho also heralds the opening of the age of disgust.