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Don't be too fooled though, as Cukor has some real noir sliders and sleepers up his sleevers. There was A Woman's Face (1941) which is a solid classical noir entry for its fantastical psychological doubling and dealing and pro and de- scribing of the female. And of course he directed Gaslight (1944) one of the most seminal movie happenings of the century, for the impact its theme came to have.
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Little known and little loved The Sellout (1952) is a film noir gem, and buzzes with tension and all the undercurrents of psychological and physical force that noirs up the focused greed and determination of the rounded and flawed characters of its small town setting.
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funny how sci fi invokes religion at the start of these films
A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study.
This process should viewers care to see it is explored in The Shape of Water (2017).
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An early masterwork from one of the most unsung heroes of film noir and cop cinema, Don Siegel, the man who gave us the best run of post-noir cop movies in the entirety of cinema, the (largely) Clint Eastwood-based sixties-to-seventies quintet of Coogan's Bluff (1968), Madigan (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971) and Dirty Harry (1971).
With all the talent and experience of the noir era, a man who in fact began his cinematic trade a properly in 1941 performing montage in Now, Voyager (1941), and Casablanca (1942), Siegel is as essential to the film noir journey as a director can be, even if his youth at the time meant he was veritable child alongside the better known noir masters such as Fritz Lang, et al.
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If film noir naming conventions are to be adhered to, then The Naked Street (1955) trumps top in many delightful ways, composed as it is of that favourite noir naming trope — the street.
Lassie slapping noir is a stryle of street noir dirty with villainy and snarls, here delivered by back-handin' Anthony Quinn, some super indented toothy noir by numbers, a film of straight lines.
Studio noir with cool and low down fast action location shooting blended everyday realism with a sense of poetic melancholy. Films of noir often depicted characters living on the margins of society, facing disappointment, disillusionment, and fatalistic views of life.
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Drain dwelling hi-technology oscillograph and television projector building full fat classic film noir, He Walked By Night may also be appreciated for the stunning array of tech gadgets and insight into the technical electronic industry as it might have stood in 1948, as well as its stunning lack of female actors and characters and for what it says about the battles for social control that went on as fascism was unspooled across social institutions after World War II
Gun totin and fast moving, He Walked By Night rides through the night of course, that being its charm, and of course it's night in the storm drains too, where master lone wolf Richard Basehart - the character's name is Roy Martin or Roy Morgan - has a stash of guns too.
When it comes to doggy nemesis none are harder and cleverer and more determined and sharp as Scott Brady, who also plays a mean police milkman when need be.
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It was inspired by the Kefauver Committee's hearings dealing with organised crime which were of enormous public interest in 1950 and 1951, and which inspired quite a few film noir moments, as it happened.
The idea of these hearings as a locus for the challenging of crime by means of public morals, created a unique set of cultural points for the 1950s. Since prohibition times, crime had grown into a major enterprise, and this its mangerial Kefauver-style film noir re-telling with sensation, morality, family, frienship, thuggery and downtown Los Angeles location shooting.
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Also known as Frightened City, The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) stands as a cinematic testament hailing from the noir-tinged annals of 1950, a creation helmed by the cinematic maestro Earl McEvoy and featuring the luminous talents of Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, and William Bishop.
This celluloid venture, captured on location and steeped in a semi-documentary aesthetic, unfurls a gripping narrative centred around diamond smugglers who, unbeknownst to them, become inadvertent instigators of a smallpox outbreak amidst the gritty expanse of 1947 New York City.
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In September 1952, Monogram announced that henceforth it would only produce films bearing the Allied Artists name. The studio ceased making movies under the Monogram brand name in 1953, although it was reactivated by AAI by the millennium. The parent company became Allied Artists, with Monogram Pictures becoming an operating division.
In fact French New Wave pioneer Jean-Luc Godard dedicated his 1960 film Breathless to Monogram, citing the studio's films as a major influence.
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Prison convict Joe Sullivan has not only taken the fall for an unspecified crime, but he sports the classic film noir overcoat in this film, and runs desperately from hideout to hideout, trekking down the West Coast of the USA on a collision course with revenge.
Best of all, his run is made with two women at his side, Pat and Ann, dames established from the off as the good and bad side of femininity, both of whom are of course sweet on him, in their separate ways.
Pat is the more traditional gangster's moll, who helps Joe with the breakout, and is as tough as the leather which this film noir is made from; contrasted with Ann, the good gal who is her foil and love rival, and is actually Joe's case-worker, who has against her own will fallen for the convict.