The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) is a Universal horror Frankenstein-franchise 'Monster Factory' resurrected monster horror drama villager thriller starring Lon Chaney Jr, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers and Lionel Atwill. 

An otherwise tale of perpetual and repeated and universal rejection, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) is a class-act movie yarn of mob activity, superstition in the imaginary Eurowald of Hollywood, and possibly one of the finer expressions of the villager mob experience in all of the Golden Age horror cycling, while also undertaking some monster streamlining as the franchises developed, and as they simultaneously migrated into an increasingly cheaper sound stage reproduction of the monster infected olde worlde which appears increasingly foggy-floored and foggily-lored.

The Wolfman (1941)

The Wolfman (1941) is a Universal horror cycle classic lycanthrope thriller adventure amalgamation of Gothic ambience and psychological film making which juxtaposes the primal and the civilized within a tragically cursed protagonist who goes on to play in a variety of non-threatening carnival of monsters-style of movies, while cycling into the larger culture notions of monsterism coded with what in film noir terms could be a kind of gothic Überwald mis en scene.

Exploring the fragility of human identity through lycanthropic metamorphosis, The Wolfman (1941) has become one of the more indelible stopping points in the narratives of horror lore, not so much creating horror as such, but forming a solid concrete base upon which to build the identity of this genre.

Guest In The House (1944)

Guest in the House (1944) is a psychological film noir melodrama in which a young manipulative woman moves in with her fiancé's family and turns a happy household against itself.

Guest in the House — which was later re-released under the salacious, demeaning and slightly orgiastic title of Satan in Skirts — was directed by John Brahm and stars Anne Baxter and Ralph Bellamy, with support from Marie McDonald 

In this sensual and somewhat slow-burning domestic film noir fable, the character of Evelyn Heath (Anne Baxter) arrives in the home of the extended family of her smitten fiancé, Dan Proctor (played by Scott McKay) somewhere on the New England coast, hoping for a recuperative summer.

The scenery is reminiscent of many a woman's picture of the era, with high cliffs and crashing waves, the first being suggestive of suicide, and the later suggestive of emotional turmoil.

Blind Alley (1939)

Blind Alley (1939) is a psychoanalytic home invasion psychopath on the run crime film noir directed by Charles Vidor and stars Chester Morris, Ralph Bellamy and Ann Dvorak. The film was adapted from the Broadway play of the same name by James Warwick.

Blind Alley may well be a fairly unique prospect — it appears to be a fully-enough formed film noir production — produced at a time before the film noir style and approach was fully formed.

In terms of solid film noir elements we do have a few firm foundations in place which must classify Blind Alley as a film noir.

Firstly, Blind Alley features psychoanalysis as the tool which solves the crime, and gets to the bottom of the psychopathic criminal's dilemma.

Brother Orchid (1940)

Brother Orchid (1940) is a Warner Bros. comedy gangster caper which while not a part of the classic film noir cycle, is an interesting stop on the route.

One of five films to star both Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, Brother Orchid is a  shenanigan-based production which manages to eke out comedy from gangsterism — never truly easy in the era — while combing a spiritual and moral aspect, which doesn't quite pull the criminality from crime, but refashions it for social purpose.

The story kicks off with crime boss Little John Sarto (played by Edward G. Robinson) retiring suddenly, giving leadership of his gang to Jack Buck (played by Humphrey Bogart) while he leaves for a tour of Europe to acquire 'class'. However, Sarto is repeatedly swindled and finally loses all his money in a series of daft newspaper headlines.

Picture Snatcher (1933)

Picture Snatcher (1933) is a pre-code proto-noir ex-con-goes-straight journalism and media drama come farce starring James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis and Ralf Harrolde.

The movie runs to many things in its farcical and dramatic and comic qualities, and this includes being a portrait of contemporary big-city journalism, in which various metropolitan dailies and evening papers would compete hard to scoop each other. 

In a cinematic take on a tabloid journalist sneaking a camera into the Ruth Snyder execution in 1928, James Cagney does the same and a chaotic chase follows. The electrocution of housewife Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer Tom Howard, working for the New York Daily News, smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on.