The Damned Don't Cry (1950)

The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is a flashback rags-to-riches-lousy husband woman in the workplace corporate gangland crime kingpin's moll film noir, with Joan Crawford and David Brian, as well as a career highlight from noir superstar Steve Cochran

With Joan Crawford and an incredible four husbands in one movie, there are questions galore in the damned darkness of The Damned Don't Cry (1950).

Joan Crawford's character starts with a husband that she does not rate, even though it is Richard Egan. But he's too controlling and penny-pinching for her, and she is a film noir hero for whom enough is not enough.

Rephrasing that, this is a common enough film noir lesson: you are not satisfied with your mediocre and quotidian suburban working life, or as in this case, a rather blue collar existence on an oilfield.

Hollywood Story (1951)

Hollywood Story (1951) is a motion picture industry noir killer thriller historic Hollywood mystery drama starring Richard Conte and Julie Adams, Richard Egan, Henry Hull, Fred Clark and Jim Backus, a high host of noir talent.

The murder in Hollywood trope usually takes a film noir twist and usually with a bit of fun. If it ain't In a Lonely Place it will be elsewhere.

Directed by William Castle, Hollywood Story (1951) takes us on a captivating journey through the glitz and shadows of old Hollywood. In a kind of film noir style, with curiosity and nostalgic tableau. Starring Richard Conte and Julie Adams, this American mystery film weaves a tale of ambition, murder, and intrigue.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) is a race-against-time paranoia thriller film noir made in the semi-documentary style in which doctors politicians and police struggle to find small-pox infected female smuggler.

Also known as Frightened City, The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) stands as a cinematic testament hailing from the noir-tinged annals of 1950, a creation helmed by the cinematic maestro Earl McEvoy and featuring the luminous talents of Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, and William Bishop. 

This celluloid venture, captured on location and steeped in a semi-documentary aesthetic, unfurls a gripping narrative centred around diamond smugglers who, unbeknownst to them, become inadvertent instigators of a smallpox outbreak amidst the gritty expanse of 1947 New York City. 

Undercover Girl (1950)

Undercover Girl (1950) is a female undercover cop film noir in which all of femininity suffers the indignities of the history of the world up to 1950, and since 1950 too in some workplaces.

Definitely the target of workplace bullying as well as workplace sexual harassment from  smug mug himself Scott Brady, undercover girl Alexis Smith is also a good cop in an embarrassingly male world, only a few years out of wartime and no years into the 1950s, it is going to be a place where a woman is going to be muscled into the film noir environment of the home, this is going to happen.

She's on the range but they want her in apron, and it takes a touch cookie like Alexis Smith to break this patriarchy right open.

Split Second (1953)

Split Second (1953) is a nuclear threat hostage film noir — a nuclear noir if you will — that pits some habitual noir lowlife against the atom bomb.

The story follows two convicts, Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally) and Bart (Paul Kelly), who escape from prison with Bart having been shot. They're picked up by their getaway driver Dummy (Frank De Kova) and then hit a gas station, where the foul-tempered Sam kills the attendant (John Cliff). 

The men then hijack a car driven by Kay (Alexis Smith) and her boyfriend (Robert Paige) and set off into a nuclear testing ground where they pick up another two cast members, an attractive drifter called  Dottie (Jan Sterling), who is travelling with a journalist called Larry (Keith Andes).