Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) is an autobiographical Tennesse Williams psychosurgery paranoid woman benevolent aunt madness or truth thinly veiled story about the unspeakable, homosexuality, Southern aristocracy and madness unsung surreal masterpiece of intriguing and twsited based on a play theatricals around a mad sister and a dead son, and a proposed lobotomy, and a pscyhoanalytico-religio-sacrificial erotomania suppression of women symbolic Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed film noir psycho-melodrama starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Count the Hours (1953)

Count the Hours (1953) is a small town innocent man accused of murder courtroom crusading lawyer death row psychopath home invasion theramin scored Don Siegel rural paranoia and persecution film noir with Macdonald Carey, Teresa Wright, John Craven, Dolores Moran and wow — they got Jack Elam.

Ruby Gentry (1952)

Ruby Gentry (1952) is a King Vidor southern gothic jealousy and revenge social climbing voiceover and flashback and religious damnation triple lousy husband and abuse of women despite rags to riches story melodramatic unfortunate accident focusing sex, lust and love with a side story of American entrepreneurship scathing and furious trashy Duel In The Swamp style melodrama film noir with a famous harmonica theme tune and starring Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden and Barney Philips, with Tom Tully, Phyliss Avery, Frank Wilcox and Bill Walker. All true so far.

Cape Fear (1962)

Cape Fear (1962) is a classic film noir revenge and violence against women southern suburban disturbin psychopathic ex con on the loose police, lawyer and detective censorship-barrier-breaking intimidation-genre child exploitation and &ape-heavy terrifying thriller violence against women and girls movie with one of Robert Mitchum's most heavyweight performances of all time, and one of Bernard Hermann's most heavyweight scores of all times — and directed as it is by J. Lee Thompson, Cape Fear is in deed and in the opinion of many noireaux — and this is a biggie — the very last and final ultimate late in the day, last blast of heroic pure and timeless formula-based all in actual full on 100% qualified film noir — the terminal articulation of the studio-era noir idiom — the concluding flourish of Hollywood’s original noir cycle — the last film noir.

All The Kings Men (1949)

All The Kings Men (1949) is a realpolitik rise and fall with alcohol courtroom and firebrand wielding mob Southern corruption and fidelity, local and state influence peddling kickback and malfeasance drama with more film noir chops than may be immediately evident, and starring Broderick Crawford, Mercedes McCambridge, John Ireland and Joanne Dru.

There’s a long tradition of films about ambitious nobodies clawing their way to fame and power, only to reveal themselves as fakes. Citizen Kane and All About Eve are often held up as the gold standard — stylish, intelligent dissections of ambition, ego, and betrayal. Hey No Kings LOL!

King Creole (1958)

King Creole (1958) is an Elvis Presley Michael Curtiz rock n roll noir juvenile tearaway love and crime street tough southern violent young love tale of parental and filial failure in the homes and streets and schools of 1950s America.

If there should be a place, a note on celluloid, where Elvis and film noir should meet, then King Creole will be that. It was always your favourite Elvis film and while it is good for an Elvis film, nay in fact a veritable Citizen Kane of Elvislry compared to most of the mush he filmed, and despite hosting Michael Curtiz in the master's chair, it is still not so great a movie. We may force a noir pairing with Jailhouse Rock (1957). The film that took youth culture to prison.

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932) is a proto-noir pre-Code prison and prison break film noir classic of American penal servitude and injustice, laying the ground work for many noir movies which followed, thematically 

The 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a remarkable example of pre-Code Hollywood’s capacity to blend searing social critique with gripping drama. Adapted from Robert Elliott Burns' memoir, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, the film portrays the systemic brutality of the Southern penal system during the 1920s. 

The Strange One (1957)

The Strange One (1957) is a homosexuality Southern military bullying barely suppressed gay love film noir rough and ready with handsome recruits and serious acting styles, alongside ubercruel supersoldiers of the military south, at ease in the wilds of the barracks, boy on boy on boy.

An interesting look at gay themes from the 1950s, The Strange One is a film that reflects the era's attitudes towards homosexuality. At the time of its release, homosexuality was still criminalized in most states and considered a mental illness until much later. 

Walk On The Wild Side (1962)

Walk On The Wild Side (1962) is a drifter narrative historical film noir tale of corrupt and tragic and exploitative brothel living starring Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey, with Capucine and Barbara Stanwyck providing support and at times violent melodrama.

More than that, Walk On The Wild Side (1962) does provide a f & m buddy movie vibe, kicking off with a wandering tale of two drifters, drifting together, the young and wild and immoral Twist played by Jane Fonda, and the cool calm cowpoke character played by Laurence Harvey. 

Flamingo Road (1949)

Flamingo Road (1949) is a woman against the world Southern local bully class-status drama hostess-at-a-roadhouse film noir of complicated romances, and double crosses.

Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, and David Brian, the screenplay for Flamingo Road (1949) was written by Robert Wilder. It was based on a 1946 play written by Wilder and his wife, Sally, which in turn was based on Robert Wilder’s 1942 novel of the same name.

The plot follows an ex-carnival dancer who marries a local businessman to seek revenge on a corrupt political boss who had her railroaded into prison. Some of the more salacious aspects of the novel were downplayed in the film due to the Hollywood Production Code.

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.

Storm Warning (1950)

Storm Warning (1950) is an investigative journalist Ku Klux Klan murder thriller film noir starring Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, and Steve Cochran. 

Directed by Stuart Heisler, it follows a fashion model (Ginger Rogers) traveling to a small Southern town to visit her sister (Doris Day), who witnesses the brutal murder of an investigative journalist by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). 

The cop hard on the case is Ronald Reagan and the unwilling and unstable weak link in the criminal chain is the erratic Steve Cochran — often appearing in a Stanley Kowalski-style white tee-shirt.

The original screenplay was written by Richard Brooks and Daniel Fuchs and is a curiosity in some respects, as it seems to demand interpretation.

Among The Living (1941)

Melodramatic and at times oddly crazed Southern Gothic meets film noir in the effective 69 minute suspense thriller Among The Living (1941).

Among The Living stars Albert Dekker in twin roles as John and Paul Raden, one of whom is a successfully sane and moral social actor, while the other is a dark half, locked away in a basement room of the family home for 25 years, confined to madness, solitude, and a perpetual infancy which sees him often landed in a straitjacket.

The set-up is as follows: twenty years ago, the town's founder discovered that one of his twin sons was insane. He has the doctor fake a death certificate, had an old servant from the house made to care for him, and then moved the other son and himself into the town's best hotel. 

Dark Waters (1944)

Dark Waters (directed by André De Toth, 1944) doesn't follow the obvious conventions we associate with the film noir style, such as the long shadows, the urban setting, the tough guy talk, the femme fatale and the cruelty of fate.  

But these weren't the only aspects of the movement, and although it's not overt in the more traditional noir crime stories of the 1940s and 1950s, Freudian psychology looms large in the cycle, and is pressed to the fore in such hits as The Woman in the Window.

Dark Waters also tips it hat to Freudian therapy, but that should be obvious from the title.  It follows patterns largely established in the hit film Rebecca, and is typical of the paranoid woman film of the time.