The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) is the quintessential high quality high concept high tension classic Hollywood 1950's science-fiction presentation.

The nascent and sudden re-invention of the science fiction film in the 1950s does inevitably draw on film noir style when need be.

And although the themes are of a universal and global nature, not quite the subjective and local tendency in film noir, there are still film techniques and themes aplenty which crossover between the film noir of its day and the science fiction.

Directed by Robert Wise The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) is spritely, earnest, playful, philosophical, funny, serious and has distinct Bernhard Hermann music, as well as the most irresistible use of the theremin in film history.

Rope of Sand (1944)

Rope of Sand is an action-adventure movie with film noir elements, featuring Burt Lancaster, who certainly was one of the film-noir kings of the 1940s.

Although it sometimes appears on lists of film noir titles, Rope of Sand isn’t urban, it isn’t psychological, it doesn’t feature much of those well-known shadowy cinematic elements, and its femme fatale turns on her heels fairly quickly, changing from a manipulative and greedy cheat, into a loving and caring amour, on the basis of a coup-de-foudre attack of love.

Corinne Calvet, who plays the femme fatale turned girl-next-door, Suzanne had an interesting, but rather unsatisfactory career. She made over thirty films, but the vast majority of people will have heard of none of them. 

And most actors who have worked for forty years in Hollywood will have been in at least one major production.

Corrine Calvet’s entrance in Rope of Sand is stunning, however. She vamps in and immediately attempts to abuse Claude Rains in the worst way possible ― tousling herself up after blagging her way into his hotel room, she announces that if he doesn’t give her money, she’ll say he raped her. 

When this doesn’t work, she reveals her true colours as a prostitute and then actually offers herself for money.