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.

Borderline (1950)

Borderline (1950) is an undercover female cop narcotic smuggling romantic copper couple on the run chase caper noir starring Fred MacMurray and Claire Trevor as undercover narcotic cops on the job in Mexico, unaware that each of the other is an undercover narcotic cop on the job in Mexico.

A gentle noir, with no profound moments of existential threat, anxiety, peril nor paranoia, Borderline (1950) is an undecided film noir, capering with the caper format at times and nudging on occasion into comedy, especially as it adopts and parades a standard series of idle Mexicana, example in the made up typecast stereo of the bumbling sombrero and the old "Si senor" routine, which blocks out the light at every turn in this cheapish escapade.

Chicago Deadline (1949)

Chicago Deadline (1949) is a journalism and media murder conspiracy film noir with Alan Ladd as the laddish reporter with the jump on the police, as a deadly chase takes place in unravelling the mystery of a murdered lass played by Donna Reed.

In the shadowed alleys of the alleys shadowed by the shadows of Chicago's seedy alley Alan Ladd-based underbelly, reporter Alan Ladd stumbles upon the lifeless form of a mysterious woman, her tragic demise shrouded in the haze of what is surely a noir boarding house murder mystery.

Yet, within the pages of her address book lies a tantalizing glimpse into a world of intrigue and decadence—a world that beckons Ladd into a labyrinthine quest for truth.

As Ladd delves deeper into the enigmatic past of the deceased, guided by the alluring June Havoc, a society dame with secrets of her own, he becomes ensnared in a web of deceit and danger. 

Force of Evil (1948)

Force of Evil (1948) is a classic New York numbers racket conflicted brothers pre-HUAC and voiced-over film noir with many biblical allusions (Cain and Abel, Judas's betrayal, stigmata) which pits a rising Wall Street lawyer against the modernising principles of post-war capitalism and the fascinating blue-collar practise of playing the numbers game.

Film noir is darkness, film noir is crime and film noir is human folly . . . writ large and personal, as a force of evil.  Film noir renders a cinema of weakness, deceit, lust-inspired crime, greed and mid-century urban survival.  

In the film noir city disasters are acted out in bars, cars and street corners, or in cheerless apartments, suggestive of a kind of homelessness.