Classic Film Noir exposes the myths by which we fulfil our desires — sex — murder — and the suburban dream — 1940 to 1960 — FEATURING: amnesia, lousy husbands, paranoia, red scare and HUAC, boxing, drifter narratives, crooked cops, docu-style noir, returning veterans, cowboy noir, outré noir — and more.
Appointment With Crime (1946)
Temptation Harbour (1947)
The title of Temptation Harbour (1947) is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, lifting of wet suitcases full of money from the harbour, the harbour wherein the temptation lies, floating, and so nobody gave much thought to letting the old tale roll with such an oddly unflattering production designation for this now triple-remaker Simenon bobbing by the shore watery crab hunting classic of noir.
Is decency real? is the question of the day and the coal burning in this hard working and effective tale of temptation, and morality, and doing the right thing, which of course has been presented before, and is still presented yet, and as has been said, miraculously presented three times in the case of the suitcase belonging to the man from London.
Hell Drivers (1957)
Stanley Baker as per the script of this still popular tale of truckery does the ex-con going straight routine with heavy nods and grave expressions from start to finish, indicating that he has been 'away' and that he has been living 'here and there' and doing 'this and that' while being from 'around' and having lived at 'around' for several years.
It isn't really full explained what this ex-con with an upright galvanised steel morality did to wind up in prison, but we know that because of his escapade he did one year of time, although more meaningfully, it seems that his younger — brother played by the mysterious Klae Corporation's very own invisible man David McCallum — seems to have been permanently injured during the crime, and reduced to working in his mother's Welsh corner shop for life.
Brighton Rock (1948)
And this in a classic Graham Greene pre-war tale, a combination of multiple efforts of genius to create a quite uniquely British noir experience.
One will be warned that entire books have been written about the film of Brighton Rock (1948) and even about Richard Attenborough’s ran-sackingly riveting portrayal of Pinkie Brown.