The Turning Point (1952)

The Turning Point (1952) is a corporate crime prosecution crooked cop journalism and media managerial film noir starring Edmond O'Brien and Joseph Cotten, as a special prosecutor and a journalist — respectively — breaking a crime syndicate in downtown Los Angeles. 

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.

Union Station (1950)

Union Station (1950) is a kidnap and ransom police thriller set in and around Chicago's Union Station, and starring William Holden and Nancy Olsen.

The film was based on Nightmare in Manhattan, an Edgar-winning novel by Thomas Walsh. 

Sydney Boehm's script for the film version was nominated for an Edgar in the screenplay category.

Aside from changing the setting from New York City's Grand Central Station to Chicago's Union Station (though the Los Angeles Union Station was the actual filming location), and changing the kidnap victim from a little boy to a blind, teen-aged girl, the script was quite faithful to its source material.

Union Station is a realistic 1950 film noir police and public nuisance kidnap movie starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Jan Sterling and Barry Fitzgerald. It was released after Sunset Boulevard so by the time it came out, Holden had actually moved up another level of stardom. William Holden and Nancy Olson also appeared in Sunset Boulevard the same year.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

The best Golden Age film noir movies such as Sunset Boulevard (1950) rank among the favourites of all movies lovers.

The best examples of the film noir style remain as the greatest examples of cinema as a whole, and the most popular. 

Given that as the Golden Age of Hollywood closed, nobody was specifically aware as such of there being a style or a genre called 'noir', it is surprising how cohesive the style was. Film noir really was a thing, and Sunset Boulevard is a classic example, of classic film noir.

That 'Golden Age' is usually said to be from 1930 until 1945, but it's hard to pin these things down.

Consistent to movie storytelling is time. Time in classical Hollywood is continuous, linear, and uniform, since non-linearity calls attention to the illusory workings of the medium. The only permissible manipulation of time in this format is the flashback, which is a staple of film noir, and comprises the entirety of Sunset Boulevard.

What's fascinating is that we can perhaps ask what it was that the makers of classic film noir era thought they were making? What were the workmanlike film noir cycle movies of the era aimed at; and what were the common reference points that allowed the style to develop?

The Dark Past (1948)

The Dark Past (1948) is one of several films noir which opens with the aerial shot of the city, and an earnest voice over describing the existential experience of the urban life, the technological alienation which is suggestive of an architectural emptiness, a nihilism even, akin to crime in its freedom.

As Side Street seems to open with the message that any one of us may be the day's murder victim as much as they may be that murder's suspect.

The Dark Past takes the more traditional Mark Hellinger informed attitude that this is the naked city, and that it's like a jungle sometimes, and this is our framing, the real life city.

William Holden plays mean as hell psychopath and killer Al Walker, a film noir apogee and the defining casting action of a style which elevated to central protagonist the idea of villain as narrative prime mover.

Invisible Stripes (1939)

Invisible Stripes is (1939) starring George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Jane Bryan and William Holden, is one of those great 1930s movies that lays down some of the rails upon which film noir would soon enough run.

If it's a crime film, if it's a prison film, or if it's a heist film, the chances are that in the Golden Age of the silver screen, this movie may be presented with all the tropes, style and wisdom of film noir.

It's often true, but it also ain't necessarily so. Nobody rushes to call the Falcon films, or the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films film noir ... and yet they deal in crime, conspiracy, and often in the shadows and fog.

The prefiguring of film noir is still quite evident in 1930s cinema. To find it, one can trace the morality of the crimes, cops, robbers, murderers and increasingly, the psychopaths and the teenage tearaways.

Film noir prefiguring aside, Invisible Stripes, directed by Lloyd Bacon is a lot of fun, and acts out that fine 1930s theme of the kids on the street battling with the urge to turn to crime. It's in this environment, that director Lloyd Bacon brings home a few new ideas, including that of the teenage tearaway.

And that tearaway, is committing a certain form of crime, against both the combined moral wealth of the family, and society itself.