The Spider Woman (1943)

The Spider Woman (1943) is a Roy William Neill Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce 1940s era mid-war Sherlock Holmes serial movie series entry horror (?) film production and extremely rough adaptation serial killer and sleuthing light entertainment crime and detection film with various noirish aspects, and also starring as it does Gale Sondergaard and Dennis Hoey, may be one of the better items on the Holmes 1940s registry.

The Spider Woman (1943) occupies a curiously authoritative position within the Universal Studios Sherlock Holmes cycle, a position it did not reluctantly inherit but rather seized with a vigour that demands attention. So Holmes, so far. Curios and authoritative, we are fans and though this not be noir, it is still noir informed and noir informing, so give it credence.

Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)

Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) is a Sherlock Holmes wartime propaganda espionage crime and mystery thriller and adventure film noir-style which sees the nineteenth century and indeed, very early twentieth century private detective co-opted into the advocacy work of the Allies in the Second World War, as antiques-led mystery and match-book intrigue see Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Henry Daniell and George Zucco hamming up a storm in an effort to embarrass the Nazis into a ham-strung ham-based and confusing defeat.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) is a Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes wartime propaganda appropriated Conan Doyle characters Holmes serial movie classic about a wartime plot from Nazis to bugger up the British effort amid Eurowaldian English and East End smog shenanigan and cliché, and with mis en scene which is semi-noir while owing more to the espionage pictures adorably coming to represent conspiratorial reality as America takes a various angled dim view of the efforts of their soon-to-be allies against Hitlerism, still framed as anti-British and not yet anti-American.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) is a racing good time of frolicsome detective work in the new vein of Sherlock Holmes as presented on the big and silver screen, pre-war and pre-nuclear, and an honest film presentation of some post-vaudevillian ideas as they are newly filtered into the service of a good time, adapting and adopting notions of what this new canon might be and might look like, in a rather nonsensical but truly Hollywood gothic-comic matter.

The year 1939 is remembered as quite an apogeeic moment of classical Hollywood cinema. It was the season of Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and many others that are routinely catalogued as monuments of an industrial art form at its height. Within that gallery, one also finds The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, released by 20th Century Fox as a continuation of the enormously successful The Hound of the Baskervilles. The two films form a diptych. 

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) is a propaganda spy crime mystery Nazi wartime suspense serial movie thriller partially composed in the film noir style and the first of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films to be updated to the mid 20th Century and made a crucial cinematic aspect of the war effort of the 1940s.

The Mark of The Whistler (1946)

The Mark of The Whistler (1946) is a The Whistler series drifter narrative film noir tale of deceit and false identity, revenge and corruption, and the impossible allure of abandoned dormant bank accounts.

If ever the fringe world of American noir was bottled up in hour bags and bands this were it. The essence of the style, the resonant espirit de noir.

A deeper consciousness of film noir, a ritual of film noir, a primal series of events that say noir and noir only in their connection and passing.

Greed, deceit, double identity, broken men, guilt and deception, and a cash lump sum of thousands.

Say are you scared of something?

Banking on a fraud and engrossing within its capacity for amazing coincidences, as true noir maybe need be, this is a subtle masterpiece guised as a universally plain style of cheapo noir, but there are resonances galore for the student of the style.

The Thirteenth Hour (1947)

The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is a haulage and hallucination diamond smuggling duplicity and mystery film noir story from the The Whistler series of the films, eight of which appeared in the 1940s.

Haulage heel Steve Reynolds, played by Richard Dix, is a trucker guy who falls foul of a scheme that he uncovers from what seems like a series of accidents, and may in fact just be that, a series of accidents. 

Indeed and for whatever reason, there are questions unanswered at the conclusion of this tale, possibly the greatest of these being why is this film called The Thirteenth Hour, and what is the thirteenth hour and what in fact is it the thirteenth hour of?

The Power of The Whistler (1945)

The Power of The Whistler (1945) is a death-prediction amnesia thriller mystery identity serial film noir movie, and is the eerie third entry into the 1940s serial noir The Whistler series.

In the film, Janis Carter plays Jean Lang, a character whose actions spark intrigue and tension as she makes some highly questionable decisions regarding a complete stranger she encounters. 

Jean, who is telling fortunes using cards, becomes concerned when her cards predict grave danger for a man she notices in a restaurant, played by Richard Dix, who is suffering from that most famous of every film noir malady available to the script writes, amnesia. 

The Whistler (1944)

The Whistler (1944) is a murder-suicide hitman noir and the first of the The Whistler film noir film serial series, and is directed by William Castle and stars Richard Dix.

If there were ever a serial with a film noir theme or a film noir touch and style, and one of course from the Golden Age of movie serial adventures, it was The Whistler.

The Whistler is great because we never see The Whistler themselves, but we see their shadow, which is a most film noir manner of appearance, and this character, invisible and present, does speak to the noir losers and saps that are the heroes of these films, always and with one exception played by Richard Dix. 

The Secret Of The Whistler (1946)

The Secret Of The Whistler (1946) is an infidelity lousy husband greed and murder noir tale from The Whistler series, starring Richard Dix and Leslie Brooks, directed by George Sherman.

A wealthy wife suspects her artist husband's affair with his model. He poisons his wife for inheritance but faces unexpected consequences after her death. A thriller exploring greed, betrayal, and the consequences of criminal actions.

Of all the serial movie concepts, icons, characters and themes, from the earliest moments of serialisation through the incredible eras of the 1930s and 1940s which developed the serial movie, the absolute prototypes of the infinite tankerloads of television shows we have created since 1960, through what are now generations of streaming services, the absolute origin of these is the movie serial, and of those serials none is no more noir than The Whistler.

Eyes In The Night (1942)

Eyes In The Night (1942) is a crime and detection sleuthing espionage spy noir directed by Fred Zinnemann which features Edward Arnold as blind detective Mac MacLain, and the dog Frida, as the dog Friday.

Oddball, unusual and earnest, Eyes in the Night (1942) doesn't suffer as many of its cheapo contemporaries do from dud scripting and the ill-effects of bum-row production values.

This celluloid endeavor, which inaugurated an ill-fated B-movie detective series, featured the venerable Edward Arnold in the role of a sightless sleuth, and although the public’s tepid reception precluded the realization of subsequent instalments, super oddity and noir make good companions and this blind sleuth endeavour has a lot to say.