Frieda (1947)

Zu Beginn der Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison hattest du noch nie von diesem kraftvollen, vom Holocaust inspirierten Anti-Nazi-Film-noir-Klassiker über einen heimkehrenden Veteranen gehört.

Frieda (1947) is a Basil Dearden British returning veteran World War Two anti-German sentiment in post war society and unrepentant Nazi brother stiff upper lip tension and xenophobia bucolic and Arcadian bar room punch up social issue romance and integration tear jerker film noir of longing and hope, of the holocaust itself rare and yet displayed in full X rated horror, displaying 1940s fig in a tale of national forgiveness and starring Glynis Johns, David Farrer and Mai Zetterling, and how terribly, terribly wrong it is to treat people as less than human.

The Man in the Net (1959)

The Man in the Net (1959) is a disappearing suburban wife lousy husband and beautiful young alcoholic missus versus artist versus conformity versus suburbia versus a nasty cop and an angry mob and crazy Connecticut manhunt for a framed and accused husband with assistance form children mystery thriller late late classic era film noir which makes a virtue of an avuncular, painterly but less engaged every year Alan Ladd, starring Carolyn Jones and Charles McGraw in a noir which has so many classic psychological tones that one would argue that had this script been filmed in 1949 or 1939, the resultant noir would have been prototypically excellent, as opposed what it is, a fully toned late period weirdismal reflection of of realism.

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.

Le Corbeau (1943)

Le Corbeau (The Raven) (1943) is a French poison pen letter rural moral paranoia classic film noir, and of all the classics of the French positioning in any canon, it's one beauty of a production that bears multiple readings, as well as offering mystery, character, love and violence.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1943 film Le Corbeau (The Raven) is a cornerstone of French cinema, notable for its controversial origins, dark narrative, and enduring legacy. Set in a small French town, the film unravels a sinister mystery involving anonymous poison pen letters accusing a local doctor, Rémy Germain, of performing illegal abortions and engaging in an affair. 

Pickup (1951)

Pickup (1951) is a tragic Hugo Haas femme fatale on the make tale of weak and devious minor characters planning murder in a rural backwater, starring Beverly Michaels as a bored and ambitious scheming woman, who attempts in the style of The Postman Always Rings Twice, to kill an older man for his dough.

With its scuzzy setting, between the old railway shack where Hugo Haas' vulnerable old widower lives, the nearby fairground, and the rails themselves, it is a simple an exploitative tale, assuming the worst of the wicked female lead, and the worst of her husband, the sap, the mark in this matter, the man she marries for money.

Swamp Water (1941)

Swamp Water (1941) is a moody southern innocent-man-accused rural-backwater pelter manhunt film noir, which was Jean Renoir's first American movie.

A surprise treat from 1941, Renoir brings some poetic magic to the early years of the Golden Age, by taking time to develop characters and also developing the fact and fiction of the swamp itself, bringing on the sticky everglades as a peril as lousy as the urban jungles of more familiar film noir.

More complex and sad also, than the more common fare of the day, Swamp Water (1941) teases out feeling and emotional pain from the cast in the small town jealousies of its actors, and even a scene of torture in which Dana Andrews' character is drowned for information on the whereabouts of Walter Brennan's character.

I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

I Died a Thousand Times (1955) is colour rural film noir one-last-job heist movie remake of High Sierra (1941).

Filmed in CinemaScope and Warnercolor this color film noir was directed by Stuart Heisler and features Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, with Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Lon Chaney Jr.

The stereotypical, comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film was replaced by a Mexican stereotype played by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. The film marks the second motion picture appearance of Dennis Hopper's six-decade career, and Nick Adams makes an uncredited appearance as a bellhop.

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Ace in the Hole (1951) is the ultimate journalism and media noir with the most vile connivance going down between Kirk Douglas as a manically ambitious and revenge-fuelled journalist and a local sheriff in a life or death rescue situation.

Ace in the Hole, which also known as The Big Carnival is directed by Billy Wilder and stars Kirk Douglas as a disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper. The film co-stars Jan Sterling and features Robert Arthur and Porter Hall.

Kirk Douglas plays "Chuck" Tatum, a frustrated former big-city journalist stranded working for a small  Albuquerque newspaper. Because of his megalo-manic ways and urge to revenge himself he exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to restart his career, but the situation fast escalates into an out-of-control circus which will end in death, and more death.

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.

Beyond the Forest (1949)

Beyond the Forest (1949) is a vicious bored housewife rural murder film noir starring Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian and Ruth Roman as lumber town citizens wrapped up in more iniquity than should be tolerable within such an idyll.

Bette Davis vamps up as the housewife who just wants more. Dissatisfied with her life in the rural Wisconsin logging town of Loyalton where she finds herself — and unable to cope with the boredom and the satisfaction of a modest family life, she not only has an affair with a Chicago businessman, she cruelly schemes up a murder to keep her secret safe.

For Rosa Moline (Bette Davis) Chicago is a dream, and represents all things fine, and all things glamourous. For Rosa Chicago is a byword for the sophistication she craves, where expensive items await her along with interesting people.

On Dangerous Ground (1951)

On Dangerous Ground (1951) is a classic Nicholas Ray urban rural violent cop film noir starring Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino in a tale of loneliness and duality combining the full and contrasting forces of both the wildscapes of the north and the urban environments on the individual.

Robert Ryan plays Jim Wilson a brutalised city cop, in danger of losing his job due to his lack of control when it comes to managing violence in his job. 

Ida Lupino plays Mary Malden, a blind woman who characteristic of blindness in the movies at the time — is symbolically set to allow the hero to finally 'see'.

Moonrise (1948)

Moonrise (1948) is a rural redemption murder and forgiveness film noir crime film directed by Frank Borzage starring Dane Clark, Gail Russell and Ethel Barrymore.

Atypical in the classic film noir canon, Moonrise is a small-town story of bullying and fate — of how the sins of one man reflect upon his son, and ruin and determine his son's life. 

What is remarkable about Moonrise is how true it is to some regular film nor themes —  most surely of all those of fate and paranoia, and the haunting effect of the past — combined with a story that presses hard into notions of redemption and transcendence.

The Dark Past (1948)

The Dark Past (1948) is one of several films noir which opens with the aerial shot of the city, and an earnest voice over describing the existential experience of the urban life, the technological alienation which is suggestive of an architectural emptiness, a nihilism even, akin to crime in its freedom.

As Side Street seems to open with the message that any one of us may be the day's murder victim as much as they may be that murder's suspect.

The Dark Past takes the more traditional Mark Hellinger informed attitude that this is the naked city, and that it's like a jungle sometimes, and this is our framing, the real life city.

William Holden plays mean as hell psychopath and killer Al Walker, a film noir apogee and the defining casting action of a style which elevated to central protagonist the idea of villain as narrative prime mover.

They Live by Night (1948)

They Live by Night is a 1948 an essential stop on the American film noir tour. 

Not just directed by Nicholas Ray, but his directorial debut, and starring Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger, is a tale of young love on the run; another film noir staple.

The story is psychologically bound to emergent teenage culture: after an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.

First to note here is how and why the trope of the young lovers on the run was created and developed; because the idea sprang into being on the doorstep of film noir. It is no accident that Nicholas Ray, responsible for many of the finest and most intelligent items in the film noir cycle, went on to direct Rebel Without A Cause.

The similarities between They Live By Night and Rebel Without a Cause are many. The driver in both cases, is young love, certainly doomed love, and the puzzle as to why two such young and innocent people should fail to find the happiness that they believe can be achieved. The happiness in question is something of a myth in itself, and ironically is part created by the cinema itself.