New Orleans Uncensored (1955)

New Orleans Uncensored (1955) is a dockside labor-relations boxing mob corruption romance drifter narrative film noir set in America's second largest port, after New York, as the film makers and their voiceovers remind us de temps en temps.

New Orleans Uncensored is a dismal and entertaining noir waterfront drama set in the French Quarter and docks of New Orleans. This low-budget film punches above its balance sheet, as all such films must do, offering viewers an engrossing experience from the opening sequence. 

The plot revolves around freight theft on the docks, with several suspects in play. However, rather than keeping the audience guessing about the perpetrators, the film takes a unique approach by revealing the culprits early on and focusing on the systematic destruction of a criminal network.

The Mark of The Whistler (1946)

The Mark of The Whistler (1946) is a The Whistler series drifter narrative film noir tale of deceit and false identity, revenge and corruption, and the impossible allure of abandoned dormant bank accounts.

If ever the fringe world of American noir was bottled up in hour bags and bands this were it. The essence of the style, the resonant espirit de noir.

A deeper consciousness of film noir, a ritual of film noir, a primal series of events that say noir and noir only in their connection and passing.

Greed, deceit, double identity, broken men, guilt and deception, and a cash lump sum of thousands.

Say are you scared of something?

Banking on a fraud and engrossing within its capacity for amazing coincidences, as true noir maybe need be, this is a subtle masterpiece guised as a universally plain style of cheapo noir, but there are resonances galore for the student of the style.

Voice of The Whistler (1945)

Voice of The Whistler (1945) is a gold digger and dying man mystery thriller lighthouse dwelling oddity of a narrative with many shenanigans around trying to throw a body out of a window and dummies being clubbed in beds, and is the fourth of the mystery noir thriller series known as The Whistler, which presented an invisible hand of fate style noir character who appears as a shadow to taunt and haunt noir's leading and often weakened male leads, usually in fact Richard Dix.

Richard Dix returns as another noir loner and heel, unable to relax, pacing and worrying, a strained body and mind, a staring figure of splendid doubt, faced with the spectre of The Whistler, a noir non-being from the mid-century, a shadow, the shadow of paranoia, doubt, persecution, emasculation, and other fearful fantasy.

Mysterious Intruder (1946)

Mysterious Intruder (1946) is a private-eye secret fortune mystery film noir based on the radio drama The Whistler. Directed by William Castle, the production features Richard Dix, Barton MacLane and Nina Vale. 

It is the fifth of Columbia Pictures' eight The Whistler films produced in the 1940s, the first seven starring Dix.

Dix plays the film noir private eye which is set up to tip top perfection complete with the flashing neon sign working the urban evening outwith and casting a technogothic glow across the office.

As a theme, sanatorium noir has never been fully proposed despite their being some decent sanatorium cinema from the 1940s in particular. Mysterious Intruder (1946) is fun and loose, not always convincing, but yet features a strong noir cast, relative to the budget and production values.

The Whistler (1944)

The Whistler (1944) is a murder-suicide hitman noir and the first of the The Whistler film noir film serial series, and is directed by William Castle and stars Richard Dix.

If there were ever a serial with a film noir theme or a film noir touch and style, and one of course from the Golden Age of movie serial adventures, it was The Whistler.

The Whistler is great because we never see The Whistler themselves, but we see their shadow, which is a most film noir manner of appearance, and this character, invisible and present, does speak to the noir losers and saps that are the heroes of these films, always and with one exception played by Richard Dix. 

Hollywood Story (1951)

Hollywood Story (1951) is a motion picture industry noir killer thriller historic Hollywood mystery drama starring Richard Conte and Julie Adams, Richard Egan, Henry Hull, Fred Clark and Jim Backus, a high host of noir talent.

The murder in Hollywood trope usually takes a film noir twist and usually with a bit of fun. If it ain't In a Lonely Place it will be elsewhere.

Directed by William Castle, Hollywood Story (1951) takes us on a captivating journey through the glitz and shadows of old Hollywood. In a kind of film noir style, with curiosity and nostalgic tableau. Starring Richard Conte and Julie Adams, this American mystery film weaves a tale of ambition, murder, and intrigue.

The Houston Story (1956)

The Houston Story (1956) is a corporate managerial Texas-based oil-boosting racket noir from the high era of corporate and racket noir.

It's a tough tale of industrial scale mob dodging oil thievery from the slick black beating heart of the Texas oil industry.

Seedy and pulpy and violent and silly, with a streak of cabbie noir and a lot of dirty oil scenery as well as some sordid poolside lechery, The Houston Story is a rewarding noir of parts.

Undertow (1949)

Undertow (1949) is a frame-up crime and romance film starring Scott Brady, Dorothy Hart and Peggy Dow.

The idea of the innocent being caught in a conspiracy of guilt is huge in the movies, but oddly not so common in real life. 

The paranoia of the golden age era was expressed in its purest form in many films, not in the least those by Alfred Hitchcock, of a person — always a man — accused of a crime they did not commit.

These fantastical tales make up a large part of noir cinema, whether it be the innocent man dragged by coincidence into a plot of which he knows nothing — to the ex-con unable to go straight, either due to circumstance, a frame-up, or the general ill-will of society which seems to dictate that once a man's a con — he's always a con.