Diplomatic Courier (1952)

Diplomatic Courier (1952) is a Henry Hathaway Cold War espionage in post-war Europe screwball-adjacent drama romance chase military police procedural thriller, with Tyrone Power, Patricia Neal, Hildegard Knef, Stephen McNally, Karl Malden and special spot appearances from Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, and a further dynamic and fun extra cross dress appearance

As for screwball, there is a certain sure pedigree of connecting dramatic matter which links the screw of the ball and its previous decades of filmatics and is indicated in Diplomatic Courier (1952), highlighted and brought to our attention when Tyrone Power describes Patricia Neal across a Trieste café bar table as 'screwey'. 

No Way Out (1950)

No Way Out (1950) is a medical crime and fraternal revenge and racist mob race war film noir starring Sydney Poitier, Linda Darnell, Richard Widmark and Stepehen McNally. It's a tense and immense pretence with a sense of offence and it's also a noir classic, for several reasons, the least of which are the serious and more fantastic civil rights, and mass race relations race riot.

In order to historicise the idea of Black activist communities and groups, a junk yard of creeping figures emerges, but it could be argued that the multi-****** quoting racist lead has its own cliched aspects, and the dual creation, while imbalanced as racist itself, is just that, and is a creation. There never was a junkyard fight, was there?

Dangerous Partners (1945)

Dangerous Partners (1945) is a mystery buddy cheapo Nazi Edward L. Cahn film noir of obscure narrative and displaying a certain laxitude of pacing and insecurity of continuity, acted as such, told as such an almost ideaful and adventuresome manner to make it a variety of multi-stranded and free form unboxed version of noir, created on the hoof out of inexpensive and still quite directionless cinematics.

The first frames of Edward L. Cahn’s Dangerous Partners are not introductions but disruptions. We enter not into a scene set up for comprehension but into a disarray of wreckage: a plane crash, bodies, survivors, and the peculiar urgency of strangers trying to force open a briefcase. 

Main Street After Dark (1945)

Main Street After Dark (1945) is a bunco-detail  criminal family crime drama pawn-brokered pistol packing mugging conspiracy Edward L. Cahn cheapso randomly told film noir thriller, etched into the back of the noir alley paper hoardings, seen only when you pull away from the possibility of sensible thriller cinematics, says The Noircades Project.

Winchester '73 (1950)

Winchester '73 (1950) is a weapon worshippin road movie adventure mortal peril survival on the range revenge western film noir picture following the journey of a prized brand new state of the art lever action rifle the Winchester 1873 a formidable weapon on the range, from one ill-fated owner to another, as well as a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive, and plenty side swipes at native American victims and dispossessed savages, a la Hollywood.

Winchester '73 (1950), directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, is widely regarded as a milestone in the development of the Western genre. It is a film that transcends the conventions of its time, bringing a darker, more psychologically complex approach to the genre, while still maintaining the essential elements that define a great Western. Those elements are not as varied as you might like ti imagine, it's a tight set of tropes on the range. Here though and in western noir, psychological western film noir, the cultural impact of Winchester '73 as a transformative film in Hollywood's portrayal of the American frontier should be manifest as much as it's a manifesto.

The Lady Gambles (1949)

The Lady Gambles (1949) is a gambling addiction, social and moral descent romance women's film noir starring Barbara Stanwyck, turning in a stunning and brutal performance as a woman who is overcome with addiction, so as to the point of ruination.

As the film opens prepare to see Barbara Stanwyck punched 11 or 12 times in the face by three mooks in an alley, each bruising face-breaking blow leaving a great ouch across the style. It has to be one of the more terrifying noir beatings.

This leads to a hospital managed by a cynical hard smoking medical stoic played by John Hoyt, and the whole flashback, fading screen, voiceover here-is-how-it happened commences, and Double Indemnity style, the story unravels, although it ain't such a hot story.

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.

Woman in Hiding (1950)

Woman in Hiding (1950) is a woman against the world lousy husband flashback murder and female seeker hero film noir, starring Ida Lupino as a wife on the run, escaping from a murderous marriage and finding love on the run in the form of lackadaisical magazine and cigar seller Howard Duff.

Corporate villainy also appears in this car smashin chase and hide thriller in the form of Stephen McNally playing an industry boss who is going to be appropriate screen material for the 1950s, straight outta war and into world domination, starting with mob behaviour in the boardroom.

I would seem from the Wikipedia entry on Woman in Hiding (1950) that not everybody agrees that this is a film noir. The works that are cited are the super-seminal and all-ruling guide to the subject of film noir,  Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton (2002). A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), and Ian Brookes Film Noir: A Critical Introduction. 

Iron Man (1951)

Iron Man (1951) is a violent rivalry blue collar remake boxing film noir sport action movie, making it to the film noir canon for its portrayal of a man's inability to control his fists.

Of all the miserable movie mugs, hats off to Jeff Chandler who pulls the stiffest and hangedest doggest looks, spitting noir at times and flat out desperate to have his cheeks raised in a smile that will never come.

Better still is the coal mining back ground form which these tough mugs emerged, solid mining milieu not so much Zola as Zoloft as a man goes mad with coal dusts and mania.

Not just coaly but a gritty, hard-hitting noir that'll knock you flat on your back albeit in a beautifully photographed ring, and for fans of boxing noir and boxing movies, this must simply be an underrated and overlooked gem, or lump of coal, whichever way you want to look at it. 

Johnny Belinda (1948)

Johnny Belinda (1948) is a drama which plays with noir and darkish overtones, dealing as it does with a subject matter that was new to the screen in 1948. 

Directed by Jean Negulesco, and based on the 1940 Broadway stage hit of the same name by Elmer Blaney Harris, Johnny Belinda was adapted for the screen by writers Allen Vincent and Irma von Cube.

The story is based on an incident that happened near Harris's summer residence in Fortune Bridge, Bay Fortune, Prince Edward Island. 

The title character is based on the real-life Lydia Dingwell (1852–1931), of Dingwells Mills, Prince Edward Island. The film dramatises the consequences of spreading lies and rumours, and the horror of rape. 

The latter subject had previously been prohibited by the Motion Picture Production Code. Johnny Belinda is therefore often considered to be the first Hollywood film for which the restriction was first relaxed since its implementation in 1934, and as such was controversial at the time of its initial release.

Split Second (1953)

Split Second (1953) is a nuclear threat hostage film noir — a nuclear noir if you will — that pits some habitual noir lowlife against the atom bomb.

The story follows two convicts, Sam Hurley (Stephen McNally) and Bart (Paul Kelly), who escape from prison with Bart having been shot. They're picked up by their getaway driver Dummy (Frank De Kova) and then hit a gas station, where the foul-tempered Sam kills the attendant (John Cliff). 

The men then hijack a car driven by Kay (Alexis Smith) and her boyfriend (Robert Paige) and set off into a nuclear testing ground where they pick up another two cast members, an attractive drifter called  Dottie (Jan Sterling), who is travelling with a journalist called Larry (Keith Andes).

Violent Saturday (1955)

Violent Saturday (1955) is a blast of colour at the end of the film noir cycle. 

Cultures rural and urban, religious and criminal, collide in a film that promises violence, and delivers; and which promises thrills in the disruption of our regular programme of Americana.

This Americana may be well delivered under the banner of 'Saturday', as this allows us normality at its most normal.

It's an odd ride, with a heist and some well-sketched small-town life, with the local pervert as randomly drawn as the local religious farmers, in this case captured in a one-off performance for all the ages, by Ernest Borgnine, playing Mr Stadt, the Amish farmer.

The Raging Tide (1951)

The Raging Tide (1951) is a terrific and raging and calming and reflective and stormy crime and adventure movie, that likes to think it's a film noir, but actually spends too much time having too much wholesome fun in the traditional business of fishing to earn some fulsome bleak city noir chops.

Still there is enough here for The Raging Tide to get some slices off those chops. 

Those bleak city noir chops! And it mixes them up with some salty salt-of-the-earth sea-chops. 

Richard Conte and Charles Bickford do in fact get soaked by props men spraying them and tossing buckets of water at them. It is that kinda milieu.

And The Raging Tide starts with a murder, a no-nonsense affair in the dark.

Then the murderer is on the run, through that film noir city, bright lights and shadows, raging through the streets. That's perfect, and exactly what you'd want to see of Richard Conte. On the run, in the city, in the dark. C'est noir . . . even if it does end up at sea.

Criss Cross (1949)

Hitting the grounds of Bunker Hill running, Criss Cross (1949) opens with great excitement in the midst of several dramas.

There’s a fight at a night club ― or is it a fight? There’s a panicky couple of lovers ― Burt Lancaster and the incredible and much loved Yvonne De Carlo ― and there is a sizeable team of men, who have clearly come together with larceny in mind.

One long flashback and many moments of indecision from Lancaster’s character ‘Steve Thompson’ later, and the movie concludes with its high-octane combination of heist-gone-wrong meets triple-cross.

In Criss Cross, Robert Siodmak made a restless film noir, giving the story an exciting structure that raises the drama higher than it might otherwise be. The art here is in complicating something that might under other circumstances be quite straightforward.

One way this is achieved is through some regular film noir favourite tropes, moves and signals.

The first of these is the idea of returning. This isn’t just a favourite theme in film noir, and it is the start of many a good story. But film noir does use this to a great extent. Thus the flashback commences with Burt Lancaster’s character returning to Bunker Hill ― full of melancholy ― full of wisdom ― full of questions ― replete with memories ― weighed down with experience ― and looking for a lost love.