Classic Film Noir exposes the myths by which we fulfil our desires and lays flat the means by which we created the audiovisual dispositif — sex — murder — and the suburban dream — 1940 to 1960 — FEATURING: amnesia, paranoid women, lousy husbands, red scare and HUAC, boxing, drifter narratives, crooked cops, home invasion noir, docu-style noir, returning veterans, #KEFAUVER! cowboy noir, vacuum cleaners in film noir, outré noir, espionage noir — and more.
The Glass Wall (1953)
I Want To Live! (1958)
Suddenly (1954)
Yeah this is a town in which the lil boys want to be police officers when they grow up. The truth was break America fairly soon, but for the time this suburban aspic is a gelatinous capturing of some of the best known American dream-style tropes, characters and idiomes en scene.
The Case Against Brooklyn (1958)
The 1958 noir film The Case Against Brooklyn offers a semi-gripping portrayal of systemic corruption within the police force and the criminal underworld. Directed by Paul Wendkos and based on a real-life article by investigative journalist Ed Reid, the film is a film noir sensational guarantee that Hollywood will pretend to offer a reminder of the ethical dilemmas and personal sacrifices involved in exposing organized crime.
World in My Corner (1956)
Man Afraid (1957)
Hoodlum Empire (1952)
Solid film noir technique and actors including a star turn from Claire Trevor and the normative mustachoed noirisms of Brian Donlevy.
For a film that fix to flips flashbacks like flying filmic tales there is epic wobbly fades and wipes to indicate the passage of time, back to World War 2, offering a creditable treasure trove of tropes for all to look and learn.
The Glass Web (1953)
The movie The Unsuspected (1947) starring Claude Rains and Audrey Totter must be the most immediate antecedent to this type of story, a film in which a true crime broadcast becomes the setting for an actual murder.
There is a great open gulf of questions spanning the hundreds of films that weer made across theses six years however, and The Unsuspected and The Glass Web are different prospects entirely.
One could accuse The Unsuspected of being proper noir, insofar as it is amoral, fun and shot plenty in the dark, with mystery and shadow playing with fantasy and romance, a veritable dance with the dark side but not taking itself so seriously, as they never did all the time in the film noir era.
Dial 1119 (1950)
The telephone number "1119" is the police emergency number used in the film, which could be classed as one of several prominent telephone noirs from the golden age of Hollywood cinema.
Delusional mental patient Gunther Wyckoff (Marshall Thompson) escapes from a mental institution, intent on locating psychiatrist Dr. John Faron (Sam Levene), whose testimony sent him to the asylum.
Wyckoff arrives by bus in the rather interestingly named Terminal City, and as he disembarks, he is confronted by the bus driver for stealing his Colt pistol. Wyckoff uses it to kill the driver.
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