The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952)

The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952) is a claustrophobic snowbound cabin of fear and paranoia home invasion moral siege frontier angry local mob western film noir directed by Joseph M. Newman and starring Anne Baxter and Dale Robertson with a screenplay based on a short story of the same name by Bret Harte, a story indeed which and that in fact has indeed been brought to film at least five times, including in 1919 with Harry Carey and in 1937 with Preston Foster, oh yeah, snow noir, western noir.

The Badlanders (1958)

The Badlanders (1958) is a Metrocolor western caper-style heist and western action romance and crime and camaraderie thriller remake directed by Delmer Daves and starring Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Caruso, Kent Smith, Katy Jurado and Claire Kelly, highlighting Mexican immigration issues and general western greed, local bullying  and cruelty. It is the second film adaptation of the novel following 1950's The Asphalt Jungle. Anthony Caruso was also in the original version of the film, playing the safecracker, Ciavelli.

Peking Express (1951)

Cotten remains our guide, the Joseph Cotten season drifting forward with an air of gentle fulfilment.

Peking Express (1951) is a William Dieterle anti-communist yellowface post-war returning veteran trains in noir remake thriller action adventure starring Jospeh Cotten, Corrine Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Benson Fong, Marvin Miller and Soo Yong.

What follows is a deliberately confrontational act of reinterpretation, an academic recomposition that refuses both ideological timidity and critical fashion. I write not to soothe but to correct, and as I have already declared elsewhere, « la neutralité est la posture préférée de ceux qui n’ont rien à perdre », a statement I repeat here not as ornament but as methodological principle.

Colorado Territory (1949)

Colorado Territory (1949) is a Raoul Walsh train-heist noir western remake of the director's own class act 1941 film noir High Sierra.

Colorado Territory is a fun-laced trawl through the mental badlands of the noirish west making live action commitment to many facets of the styles beloved of the era, both the noir, and the west, the male staples of the period.

Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory (1949) is, yes here we are to say it for once and for all, my God it doth do stand as a testament to the director's ability to transmute his earlier noir creations into the stark, rugged aesthetic of the Western genre. 

Two O' Clock Courage (1945)

Two O' Clock Courage (1945) is a romantic-comedic amnesia cabbie journalism and media comedy female seeker hero mystery writer-hero film noir from the classic era of the urban female seeker hero and cabbie noir adventure movie.

For 1945 this is powerful stuff, a seminal seminar in crossover and able to tell you more about history, narrative, meta-history, film-making, World War 2 and the USA than Citizen Kane might ever.

Mind you, this is virtually post-the-war and the thing hasn't gone off yet, it's one the last pictures from Innocentlandia.

Judex (1963)

Judex (1963) is a French language crime remake revenge-noir swinging mirror camera action mystery, capture, intrigue and oddity P.I. historical noir melodrama which is delightfully static, wild of avian headgear, and other subtly surreal touches of oddity and exciting curio.

It's soft and gentle, a film on tip toes, an acoustic film like no other, without doubt a film of birdsong, and otehr ambience, but eh music when it is musical is absolutely choice, the ambient quiet drone and deep distant trills during he good versus evil white body suit versus black body suit combat mani a manin on the dark French provincial rooftop is unmissable film chic. You know this film has some heavy dark chords too, beneath the word FIN au fin they clang in death march time baby.

Lured (1947)

Lured (1947) is a moody mystery female seeker hero investigatory London-set serial killer thriller outré film noir, made by Douglas Sirk and perhaps as far as the Sirk toes get into the fascinating dark and complicated world of noir drama.

In its way, Douglas Sirk’s lurid Lured (1947), an example of the lurid noir, reimagines hard enough upon Robert Siodmak’s 1939 film Pièges, that it must surely be classed as a remake, capturing the essence of a film noir thriller with an impressive cast and smoke machine moddiness and soundstage London-effect cinematography. 

The plot follows and does trail the female seeker hero type Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball), a sassy American dancer in London who is roped into a police investigation as a decoy for a serial killer targeting women through newspaper ads. 

Temptation Harbour (1947)

Temptation Harbour (1947) is a sympathetic British morally complex period piece post-war Limey noir suitcase full of money gangster versus civilian poverty versus temptation melodrama romance film noir, with Robert Newton and Simon Simon struggling on the south coast of England. 

The title of Temptation Harbour (1947) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, lifting of wet suitcases full of money from the harbour, the harbour wherein the temptation lies, floating, and so nobody gave much thought to letting the old tale roll with such an oddly unflattering production designation for this now triple-remaker Simenon bobbing by the shore watery crab hunting classic of noir.

Is decency real? is the question of the day and the coal burning in this hard working and effective tale of temptation, and morality, and doing the right thing, which of course has been presented before, and is still presented yet, and as has been said, miraculously presented three times in the case of the suitcase belonging to the man from London.

Vicki (1953)

Vicki (1953) is a modelling-business murder mystery flashback violent cop remake of the earlier classic film noir I Wake Up Screaming (1941).

Richard Boone is terrific as the violent cop with a terrific hunch, found peeping, creeping, never sleeping, punching and shouting and best of all, and in the most aggravating urban New York big city cop style of noir, just deciding that a person is guilty - in this case merely from a photograph - and then simply beating them and shouting at them and others too if that's what ti takes, beating and shouting repeatedly until the case is closed.

Vicki is the ambitious young model making her way, and somehow not forgiven for her pushiness and willingness to mould the truth to her amorality, from time to time. She pays for this upfront, and is murdered, a murdered glamour girl in an uncaring city. 

House of Wax (1953)

House of Wax (1953) is a 3D remake historic horror chiller thriller non film noir blockbuster movie from the gold age of 3D cinema.

House of Wax, filmed under the working title The Wax Works, was Warner Bros.' response to the unexpected success of the 3D film Bwana Devil, which premiered in November 1952. 

Recognizing the potential of 3D technology, Warner Bros. adopted Julian and Milton Gunzburg's Natural Vision 3D system, the same system used in Bwana Devil.

 They chose to remake their 1933 Technicolor thriller, Mystery of the Wax Museum, originally based on Charles S. Belden's play The Wax Works. 

While Mystery included a newspaper subplot and was set in its release year, House of Wax, set around 1902, retained much of the original's plot and dialogue.