Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) is a science fiction horror creature feature monster movie of the most classic stamp,

funny how sci fi invokes religion at the start of these films

A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.

This process should viewers care to see it is explored in The Shape of Water (2017).

Appointment with a Shadow (1957)

Appointment with a Shadow (1957) is an alcoholic journalist switcheroo murder pursuit battle with the booze film noir from the far end of the noir style.

As well as a searing enough tale of conflict between man and bottle, Appointment with a Shadow (1957) tells a strange criminal face-lift noir, back from when face changes as plot device were as firm a fantasy as film could enjoy, and so in this instance it seems credible that a criminal mastermind has only to put it about that he has had his face changed, and confusion reigns.

The Maze (1953)

The Maze (1953) is not film noir but an odd offbeat horror from the era, shot in 3-DIMENSIONS by William Cameron Menzies, and starring Richard Carlson, Veronica Hurst and Hillary Brooke. 

Despite its intentions and odd style at times, those times being when you forget you may or should be watching a three-dimensional movie, The Maze  (1953) does amply demonstrate what classic film noir began to offer horror.

Horror films in the film noir era certainly began to use the techniques of darkness, shadows and psychological suspense in ways that had worked well for film noir.

The Sound of Fury (1950)

The Sound of Fury (1950) is a hard hittin' tale of narcissism, sensational journalism, criminality and mob violence from the very heart of film noir and a classic of its kind.

It's a film that fires on all cylinders and one of the few from the era that still has the power to shock — the full on shocks coming in the final scenes, when a mob gathers to hit a jailhouse. 

In the long build up to this however, there is a full film noir panoply of crime, saps, weak males, money-minded females, a brutal murder that is just as gratuitous and frightening as the justice it inspires, and classic spiral-into-alcoholism that is every bit the quintessential sign of public failure — wrapped up in a hard hittin' tale of crime, punishment and yellow journalism.

The dramatic set up for The Sound of Fury (also known as Try and Get Me!) is a classic of its kind. Frank Lovejoy is the honest family man who is out of work and getting dissed like a jerk wherever he goes. Back home he's got an honest family life in the form of a wife and kid to support  — but there is still a sense there that he is going to crack.

The Amazing Mr. X (1948)

The Amazing Mr. X (1948) is a 1948 American horror thriller film noir directed by Bernard Vorhaus with cinematography by John Alton. It is also known as The Spiritualist, which is just as well, because nobody in it is called Mr X, or referred top as Mr X, although it's true that it does make a fairly sensational title.

The film tells the story of a phony spiritualist racket, which is rather excellently described with the various tricks of the trade merrily on display, much as they are in fairground noir Nightmare Alley (1947), which also reveals some of the tricks of the trickster's trade in all their shabby glory. 

The film is prominently featured in Alton's book on cinematography Painting with Light (1949) and , the photography does certainly have a full-on film noir feel, with its massive plays of dark and light around doorways and stairways and other architectural corners — including an interesting and repeated shot of the spiritualists at work via the crystal ball — shot from below. Some of the most memorably and recognisable film noir photography on the block.

Another of the stranger angles places the viewer inside a sink.