Deception (1946)

Deception (1946) is an operatic gothic jealousy classical music elite queer coded grandly-themed and doomatically scored outre and artistic Bette Davis, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains film noir from the paragon days of the most virtuoso anti-virtuos black-hearted form of silver-screened entertainment that ever did bedevil the airwaves of the cinematic mind. This was Marshall McCluhan's favourite film of all time.

Maybe it wasn't but then again maybe it was. Only the Large Language Models will ever know that now.

The Big Shot (1942)

The Big Shot (1942) is a Warner Bros. three-time-loser prison break couple-on-the-run innocent-man-convicted heist and gangland crime film noir thriller with Humphrey Bogart as the sympathetic gangster mob boss hero and Irene Manning as the woman he loves.

As any canon of work relies on trope and recognition, trope and repetition, all of which should be traceable back into the originating myths of its society, here is an archetypal late 1930s tale of motor madness, criminal expression, and the determination to go straight.

The latter is one of the greatest themes of the era. There were men who were innocent caught up in crime, there were veterans returning from the moral order of war to the confused criminal urban environments, and there were the charismatic guilty, who try as they might, could not avoid crime.

Dark Passage (1947)

Dark Passage (1947) is a face-lift ex-con innocent hunted man on the run POV prison break cabbie sexual chemistry classic Warner Bros. mystery picture starring the Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, who are all over this marvel of a chemistry set of a classic film noir.

The mythology of the face-lift is deeply rooted in cultural narratives and societal expectations, particularly regarding beauty and aging. In many stories, women undergo face-lifts to retain their partners, highlighting the societal pressure for women to remain beautiful. 

This contrasts with men, who are often depicted as seeking new partners rather than maintaining their current relationships. The perceived ugliness of aging women is seen as natural and biological, though it is heavily influenced by cultural standards that do not apply equally to men.

This Woman is Dangerous (1952)

This Woman is Dangerous (1952) is a screen-scorching lady gangster dilemma woman-based crime drama with a timely titular suggestion concerning the moral and health and safety proclivities of a gender-based social entity played by Joan Crawford.

A slightly peculiar air of crime fantasy permeates this oddly composed domesticated film noir.

This Woman Is Dangerous is a classic 1952 film noir and crime drama produced by Warner Bros. The movie features Joan Crawford, David Brian, and Dennis Morgan, and tells the story of a woman involved with the criminal underworld who faces the challenge of losing her sight. 

The screenplay, crafted by Geoffrey Homes and George Worthing Yates, draws from a narrative by Bernard Girard. Felix E. Feist directed the film, with Robert Sisk serving as producer.

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.

The Damned Don't Cry (1950)

The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is a flashback rags-to-riches-lousy husband woman in the workplace corporate gangland crime kingpin's moll film noir, with Joan Crawford and David Brian, as well as a career highlight from noir superstar Steve Cochran

With Joan Crawford and an incredible four husbands in one movie, there are questions galore in the damned darkness of The Damned Don't Cry (1950).

Joan Crawford's character starts with a husband that she does not rate, even though it is Richard Egan. But he's too controlling and penny-pinching for her, and she is a film noir hero for whom enough is not enough.

Rephrasing that, this is a common enough film noir lesson: you are not satisfied with your mediocre and quotidian suburban working life, or as in this case, a rather blue collar existence on an oilfield.

Key Largo (1948)

Key Largo (1948) is a classic film noir home invasion criminal versus returning war veteran drama thriller directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson.

A full noir cast however awaits within the reels of Key Largo (1948), revealed with the standard credit sequence and a short aerial introduction and voiceover, explaining where we are, embedding the physical in what turns out to be high impact environment, both human and meteorological.

The Verdict (1946)

The Verdict (1946) is an historical chiller thriller police versus killer film noir, and noir boy genius' Don Siegel's first directorial work.

With the smoke over the sound stage and the shadow chasing bulky form of Sidney Greenstreet and character actors galore to boot, The Verdict plays an old time turna the century London vibe as upped with character as any other in the foggy-noir sub genre.

This classic of foggy noir has more than a few twists to turn your interest to it, superior in depth perhaps if less held together in the low key nature of the incidents, while playing in turn for a kind of horror, the very possible horror of having condemned an innocent man, while coupled with smug 1890s Victorian era cop shop workplace bullying.

I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

I Died a Thousand Times (1955) is colour rural film noir one-last-job heist movie remake of High Sierra (1941).

Filmed in CinemaScope and Warnercolor this color film noir was directed by Stuart Heisler and features Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, with Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Lon Chaney Jr.

The stereotypical, comedy-relief character played by black actor Willie Best in the original film was replaced by a Mexican stereotype played by Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. The film marks the second motion picture appearance of Dennis Hopper's six-decade career, and Nick Adams makes an uncredited appearance as a bellhop.

Johnny Trouble (1957)

Johnny Trouble (1957) is not a film noir despite its posturing title and potential eagerness to be classed as such using the classic Johnny ― Noir naming motif.

Instead Johnny Trouble is a softly presented teen tearaway inter-generational whimsical drama about one elderly lady's grief and her longing for a society and a family in which everything will turn out all right.

The elderly lady in this matter is none other than Ethel Barrymore and this was her final film role which does lead to some interesting places including a fond fade to farewell when she bows out as well as 

Larceny, Inc (1942)

Larceny, Inc (1942) is a super-fun madcap comedy crime caper starring Edward G. Robinson, Broderick Crawford, Jane Wyman and Jack Carson, among several other golden age heroes of the screen.

Not your regular film noir fare, it's still important to patrol the edge of the style and find valuable curiosities such as this, a comedy to be sure, and a bold stab at comedy and crime collided. It's a lot of fun.

That said Larceny, Inc. is indeed a a swell 1942 flick, hitting the big screen on May 2, 1942, care of Warner Bros. Picture this. 

It's a mix-up of comedy and gangster shenanigans, cooked up by director Lloyd Bacon. Starring heavyweights like Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford, and Jack Carson, and spiced up with Anthony Quinn and Edward Brophy.

Nobody Lives Forever (1946)

Nobody Lives Forever (1946) is a returning veteran swindler confidence-man romance drama film noir which like many prime examples of the style from the 1940s discusses the impossibility of going straight and escaping one's past in post-WWII American society that is noir as hell and a constant fateful threat, never to be reconciled with the American Dream.

Nick Blake (played by John Garfield) is a charming and roguish ex-con artist who has just been released from prison. He decides to go straight and live an honest life. However, he is approached by his former partner-in-crime, Doc, with an opportunity for a lucrative con job. The target is a wealthy widow, Gladys Halvorsen (played by Geraldine Fitzgerald), who is seeking companionship and may be susceptible to Nick's charms.

Nick reluctantly agrees to participate in the scheme, but as he spends more time with Gladys, he begins to genuinely fall for her. The two develop a romantic connection, complicating Nick's plans to deceive her. As the con unfolds, Nick faces internal conflicts between his desire for a new, honest life and the pressures of his criminal past.

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.

Them! (1954)

Them! (1954) is a science-fiction nuclear monster red scare big bug monster film, which was a huge and surprise hit in its day.

The film is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates, which was then developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and adaptation by Russell Hughes.

Directed by Gordon Douglas, and starring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James Arness, Them! (1954) was one of the first of the 1950s nuclear monster films, and the first big bug feature film to use insects as the monster.

A small girl is found wandering alone in the New Mexican desert, the only survivor of an unknown calamity that befell her family. When roused from her catatonia, she can only scream: "Theeeem!"

Bullets or Ballots (1936)

Bullets or Ballots (1935) is a Warner Bros. corporate crime police detective gang infiltration classic from the pre-film noir years.

Starring the star of the show Edward G. Robinson, star of many Warner Bros. and other gangster films over three decades, perfectly paired with Humphrey Bogart, very much the rising star, in the first of five films the pair made together over the next twelve years.

That film noir charts multiple social, criminal, political, psychological trends in American society is one of its fascinations and why we're here.

Cloak and Dagger (1946)

Cloak and Dagger (1946) is a Nazi nuclear secrets behind enemy lines espionage thriller made partially in the film noir style by Fritz Lang, starring Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer.

One of a handful of major Hollywood stars of the Golden Age who remained a virtual stranger to film noir, Gary Cooper plays a bachelor nuclear physicist named Alvah Jesper who is working in the United States on the Manhattan Project to build a nuclear bomb. 

Recruited into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) his mission is to make contact with a Hungarian nuclear physicist, Katerin Lodor, who has been working on the German project to make a nuclear bomb and has escaped into neutral Switzerland. 

Conflict (1945)

Conflict (1945) is a wife-murder mystery paranoia and psychiatry film noir from the classic noir period, starring Humphrey Bogart, Alexis Smith and Sydney Greenstreet.

Conflict broadcasts its wicked and paranoiac storyline directly from one of the key centres of film noir existence — the middle class suburban marriage. 

These marriages are often writ unhappily across noir, and featured weakened males, bothered by lust for another woman, as in this example, or other forms of unhappy greed.

Conflict opens with such a marriage on display —  a couple who appear to be happily married but in fact are not. And on their fifth wedding anniversary, wife Kathryn (played by Rose Hobart) accuses husband Richard (played by Humphrey Bogart) of having fallen in love with her younger sister, Evelyn.

World weary and as super cynical as ever, Bogart as Richard does not deny it, even though he has resigned himself to leaving things as they are, since Kathryn certainly would not give him a divorce.

Brother Orchid (1940)

Brother Orchid (1940) is a Warner Bros. comedy gangster caper which while not a part of the classic film noir cycle, is an interesting stop on the route.

One of five films to star both Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, Brother Orchid is a  shenanigan-based production which manages to eke out comedy from gangsterism — never truly easy in the era — while combing a spiritual and moral aspect, which doesn't quite pull the criminality from crime, but refashions it for social purpose.

The story kicks off with crime boss Little John Sarto (played by Edward G. Robinson) retiring suddenly, giving leadership of his gang to Jack Buck (played by Humphrey Bogart) while he leaves for a tour of Europe to acquire 'class'. However, Sarto is repeatedly swindled and finally loses all his money in a series of daft newspaper headlines.

Picture Snatcher (1933)

Picture Snatcher (1933) is a pre-code proto-noir ex-con-goes-straight journalism and media drama come farce starring James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis and Ralf Harrolde.

The movie runs to many things in its farcical and dramatic and comic qualities, and this includes being a portrait of contemporary big-city journalism, in which various metropolitan dailies and evening papers would compete hard to scoop each other. 

In a cinematic take on a tabloid journalist sneaking a camera into the Ruth Snyder execution in 1928, James Cagney does the same and a chaotic chase follows. The electrocution of housewife Ruth Snyder at Sing Sing on the evening of January 12, 1928, for the March 1927 murder of her husband was made famous when news photographer Tom Howard, working for the New York Daily News, smuggled a hidden camera into the death chamber and photographed her in the electric chair as the current was turned on. 

Beyond the Forest (1949)

Beyond the Forest (1949) is a vicious bored housewife rural murder film noir starring Bette Davis, Joseph Cotten, David Brian and Ruth Roman as lumber town citizens wrapped up in more iniquity than should be tolerable within such an idyll.

Bette Davis vamps up as the housewife who just wants more. Dissatisfied with her life in the rural Wisconsin logging town of Loyalton where she finds herself — and unable to cope with the boredom and the satisfaction of a modest family life, she not only has an affair with a Chicago businessman, she cruelly schemes up a murder to keep her secret safe.

For Rosa Moline (Bette Davis) Chicago is a dream, and represents all things fine, and all things glamourous. For Rosa Chicago is a byword for the sophistication she craves, where expensive items await her along with interesting people.