High School Hellcats (1958)

High School Hellcats (1958) is a teen rebellion bad-girl high school youth exploitation movie which is an integral part of the American International Pictures juvenile delinquent series of releases of the late 1950s, bridging the gap between late noir and the full blown counter-culture of the following decade.

For those curious about the bad behaviour of these high school hellcats, one need look no further than the prison movies of the film noir era, or some further back into the male rebellions of the 1930s, and 1940s, with sullen and cynical rebellious behaviour, it actually as if the teens did learn from the noirs how to tear it all down.

Ruthless (1948)

Ruthless (1948) is a flashback romance rags and riches family fortune and misfortune corporate crime melodrama film noir by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Martha Vickers, Zachary Scott, Louise Hayward, Sydney Greenstreet, Raymond Burr and Dennis Hoey.

Edgar G. Ulmer's Ruthless (1948) stands as a merciless anatomy of social ambition and spiritual bankruptcy, constructed with the formal ingenuity of a master denied the budgets and acclaim he deserved.

Hot Rod Rumble (1957)

Hot Rod Rumble (1957) is a teen exploitation road-racing juvenile delinquent post-noir kind of suburban shock low budget drag racing crime drama produced by Norman T. Herman and directed by Leslie H. Martinson. 

It stars Leigh Snowden and Richard Hartunian. The film tells the story of a clash within the Road Devils hot rod club when some of its members jump to a wrong conclusion following the accidental death of one of them in a car crash.

The Woman in White (1948)

The Woman in White (1948) is a historical film noir melodrama gothic Victoriana novel adaptation of the Wilkie Collins classic hypnotism ghostly creeper tale, offering up Gig Young, Sydney Greenstreet, Agnes Moorhead and no mouse inside of Count Fosco's waistcoat, much of a missing misery that was for us.

The comforting narrative of women in captivity, makes the writing so much clearer. There is noir sensibility, and feminist undercurrents, barely squeaking beneath the weight of the production, and adaptation as a moribund style of movie.

Black Hand (1950)

Black Hand (1950) is a violent Italian-American historical mobster and protection racket revenge social issue thriller film noir, packed with cliché and atmosphere, and which partakes of the Italian American immigrant experience, with no-holds-barred villainous violence and later nineteenth century criminal moeurs.

Starring Gene Kelly as a hero for the good of the new country, and an immigrant who much in the style of the later Michael Corleone, vows a vengeance on the Black Hand gang that killed his father.

The historical aspect is accurate as it goes, and most notably there are scenes of pubic speaking during which the existence of the Black Hand is denied completely, something that was common to the phenomenon.

No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948)

No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1948) is a scandalous British psychopath crime thriller film noir in which Limey actors adopt fake American accents as the Brits attempt to create a mock film noir styled thriller based on the most widely read British novel of World War Two.

St John Clowe’s 1948 adaptation of No Orchids for Miss Blandish is and does remain and is the remains of what was once a pivotal yet polarising entry in British cinematic history of film noir, that Limey Noir history we all crave, from the 1940s and 1950s. Based on James Hadley Chase’s sensational novel, the film was a bold attempt to replicate American-style gangster noir within the constraints of British cinema. 

Mirage (1965)

Mirage (1965) is an amnesia corporate crime nuclear threat hunted man paranoia thriller film noir, usually called a neo noir by the time we have come to examine the 1960s and its use of the style.

Yes, even though Mirage (1965) was made by Edward Dmytryk in the 1960s it rolls with the full flavour of all iconic and classic film noir, from the paranoiac lost in the city, to the hats and hoods of a mysterious underworld. Great motor cars and docu-noir style street action, a dream-like quality, and mystery intimate quick flashback visions as Gregory Peck pieces the cliches together, with the unique addition of Walther Matthau.

The Girl on the Bridge (1951)

The Girl on the Bridge (1951) is a Hugo Haas single-mother blackmail and suicide kindly old lousy husband and younger showgirl domestic film noir drama, with Beverly Michaels, in the kindlier and more homely of the Haas Michaels collabs of the day.

It's not the only time Haas plays the gentle and elderly immigrant hooking up with a young American girl, show girl or sass girl, we certainly get soem single mom showgirl favours for old watchmaker dudes in this on the face of it and yet in the depths of it also, innocent hass-time fun.

The Lawless (1950)

The Lawless (1950) is a racially charged journalism and media civil rights and leftist crusading journalist film gris film noir concerned about the plight of California state's fruit pickers, mostly immigrants from Mexico who are disparagingly referred to as "fruit tramps".

Film gris, in a world of micro classification, most especially among the classification of mid century noir, in defining film noir, the leading cultural and most defining of all that lost century's art forms, gris is most certainly a thing to behold, a useful methodology, and this is a terrific movie, super enjoyable, racing with fun and aggression, and containing multitudes of great moments, cementing a heartful place in the fact of film noir's place in the civil rights story of the times.

So Evil My Love (1948)

So Evil My Love (1948) is a gaslighting and bullying historical art-forgery and murder paranoid woman fog based faux-gothique period noir multi lousy-husband social and society mix of madness, poison, Caribbean cures, old time maritime malaria, and gaslight, was gaslight ever mentioned. Gaslight.

The women's movies of film noir, the overlapping themes of gaslighting men and paranoid women, and old houses and a stripped back gothic that retains none of the deep psychology but has everyone in the extremist of states all of the time, these women's movies are troped to the core with such material as is found in So Evil My Love (1948).

Two Smart People (1946)

Two Smart People (1946) is a goofy capersome madcap kinda screwball-styled film noir-ish buddy movie style road movie style (train would be more accurate) government bond smuggling romance adventure movie, although to call it either a thriller or a film noir might indeed be stretching the definitions of both, though it is an event-filled journey that Two Smart People follows.

Yet Two Smart People (1946) does find its way on to our radar screens, not in the least because it is directed by film noir scion Jules Dassin, making of it Grade-A material for our investigative teams of ardent noireaux.

Two O' Clock Courage (1945)

Two O' Clock Courage (1945) is a romantic-comedic amnesia cabbie journalism and media comedy female seeker hero mystery writer-hero film noir from the classic era of the urban female seeker hero and cabbie noir adventure movie.

For 1945 this is powerful stuff, a seminal seminar in crossover and able to tell you more about history, narrative, meta-history, film-making, World War 2 and the USA than Citizen Kane might ever.

Mind you, this is virtually post-the-war and the thing hasn't gone off yet, it's one the last pictures from Innocentlandia.

Germany, Year Zero (1948)

Germany, Year Zero (1948) is a Robert Rossellini episodic tragic Italian neo-realist Trümmerfilm in German, French and Italian, and could and shall be qualified as a film noir, not in the least for the fact that Trümmerfilm are in every capacity actual or virtual noir, by virtue of their subject fields, which comprise the tragedies of the mid to late 1940s with comment on the Second World War and its effects.

Third of what is trailed as a trilogy of stories of World War 2 Germany, Year Zero is Rossellini’s Meditation on Post-War Devastation and Neorealist Experimentation and is as a necessary counterpart to 1940s film makers attempts to present the unreal in as realistic a tone as possible, making the timing of the neo-realist movement excruciating in its combinations of tone.

Isle of the Dead (1942)

Isle of the Dead (1942) is an RKO Radio Pictures Val Lewton and Mark Robson Arnold Böcklin-inspired Boris Karloff historical Balkans War supernatural creeper mystery horror with Ellen Drew, Alan Napier, written by frequent Lewton collaborator Ardel Wray, it was the second of three films Lewton made with Karloff, and the fourth of five pictures Robson directed for Lewton.

The dead do not rest on Mark Robson's island. In Isle of the Dead (1945), what begins as a contemplation on the duties of command and the sanctity of reason unravels into a vision of mental collapse, buried trauma, and spiritual unease. 

The film, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robson, engages its viewers in a paradox: its imagery evokes stillness, isolation, stasis, and yet its emotional and thematic resonances never cease to convulse. 

23 Paces To Baker Street (1956)

23 Paces To Baker Street (1956) is a London-based slack-paced DeLuxe Color CinemaScope blindness writer hero murder mystery suspenser, based on the 1938 novel Warrant for X by Philip MacDonald.

Van Johnson’s sightless sleuth slides by the skin of ears into and out of and around the shadows of 50s suspense, as cinema overhears some conversation in a pub and the predictable aural showdown.

Invisible Agent (1942)

Invisible Agent (1942) is a Universal Monsters classic media franchise fake news erotic propaganda wartime horror comedy heroism anti-Axis adventure movie, charged with spookery, xenophobia, and not just a crazed fantasy of an invisible man behind enemy lines, but enemy lines behind which the Nazis and Japanese co-operate and compete as violent evil-doers.

The usual invisible man style of comedy is present and so of course he smokes a cigarette, as well as trying out some great new trick effects, such as changing out of his clothes mid air to land in 1942 Germany naked and invisible, as well as a cold cream application in order to reveal himself.

House of Strangers (1949)

House of Strangers (1951) is a corporate crime Italian-American family drama revenge and rags to riches corruption film noir with fragments of boxing noir and courtroom noir included, which stars Edward G. Robinson as a patriarch in a family of boys who can't sort their succession planning.

Richard Conte is the star of the show and its his story we follow as he smoothly and suavely negotiates this house of would-be strangers, acting as his own father's attorney in the courtroom and beyond, convinced that his rich and domineering banker of a dad is innocent of making his fortune on the backs of the misery of others.

This misery is present as usury, played out by character actor Tito Vuolo, the man who became the stand-by Italian American in many a film noir.

Bewitched (1945)

Bewitched (1945) is a paranoid woman psychological voice-in-her-head voiceover flashback assumed identity psychological terror supernatural schizophrenic medical insane woman fleeing marriage hypnotism flashback and voice over film noir from the dark height of the golden age of the silver screen's era.

The term classic film noir does doubtless evoke as it is intended to do, a series of high powered and famous high stakes noir dramas from the period, usually of eminent structure and production, and preserved by film registries and their buffs, citing such names as Double Indemnity and the rest of the well-trod shuffle of the mighty, while 1945 alone boasts the classics of Detour (1845), Scarlet Street (1945), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Lost Weekend (1945), yes it's the year that film noir won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards.

No Man of Her Own (1950)

No Man of Her Own (1950) is a railroad-crash victim assumed identity paranoia and single-mother vindictive ex blackmail murder weeper noir, styled as a woman's picture and ladled with paranoia, faux feminist discourse, oppressive attitudes and bizarre gender relational aspects which rather than diminish the role of women in the 1940s and 1950s golden age of Hollywood and film noir crossover period, go to show that gender roles while not conforming to post-feminist roles do play important aspect-features in the creation of the newly birthed global organisation that was the United States.

It is one of four films Barbara Stanwyck made in 1950, and she plays a pregnant woman mistaken for the person whose wedding ring she happens by the magic of storytelling to be wearing during a train crash. 

All Through The Night (1942)

All Through The Night (1942) is a comedic espionage hunted man anti-Nazi propaganda gambling and screwball influenced thriller directed by Vincent Sherman and starring an interestingly familiar film noir cast including Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorrie, Kaaren Verne, Barton MacLane and Conrad Veidt, who played many a Nazi across the course of the 1940s espionage noir cycles of film.

Made before the bombing of Pearl Harbour and released after it, All Through The Night (1942) plays upon ideas of a simpler sort, funning up the World War a little, and a little too late in the day for comfort.

Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

Quai des Orfèvres (1947) is a genial, talkative, vibrant dance hall and French film noir police procedural exploration of human frailty and crime.

Based on the book Légitime défense by Stanislas-Andre Steeman, 'Quai' was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot tand stars Suzy Delair as Jenny Lamour, Bernard Blier as Maurice Martineau, Louis Jouvet as Inspector Antoine and Simone Renant as Dora.

The film was Clouzot's third directorial work, and the first after the controversy of Le corbeau. Without having the novel on hand, Clouzot and Jean Ferry based the film on memory and deviated significantly from the original story.

A Foreign Affair (1948)

A Foreign Affair (1948) is a post-war light-hearted romantic comedy Trümmerfilm combining political commentary and goofy-style humour-infused look at the rebuilding of Berlin and the construction of Western narratives around the destruction and villainy of the World War of the 1940s. 

A Foreign Affair is a genuine American Trümmerfilm and cinematic exploration of life in post-World War II Berlin, occupied by the Allies during the early stages of the Cold War. Featuring an ensemble cast led by Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, and John Lund, the film is set against the complex backdrop of a city still reeling from the aftermath of the war. 

13 West Street (1962)

13 West Street (1962) is a teenage tearaway paranoia trouble in suburbia late noir Alan Laddaholic rocket scientist street-titled film noir filler which veers into a confused admixture of home invasion noir, vigilante noir, teenage rebellion and juvenile threat noir, paranoid noir, car smash noir and an early entry into the American vigilante canon.

is the film that marked Alan Ladd's swan song as a leading man. And honey, let me tell you, this was not the grand finale one might have hoped for. Sure, it’s a decent movie—for its time—but the truth is, it’s hard not to see the wear and tear of Ladd’s years of excessive drinking and hard living, splashed across his face like a tired canvas. 

Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a caress) (1949)

Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a caress) (1949) is a heart-breaking cold-hearted Norwegian lousy husband and motor car infidelity and murder shocker romance film noir, often cited as Norway's first film noir, and celebrated also for the fact that one of Norway's leading female directors shot it.

A wordy, pensive and petulant slow burner of sadness and emotional decline in the frank face of sex, Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a caress) (1949) runs many a risk of falling a foul of the lack of Americana and the singular lack of a national cinematic voice, in order to achieve its grim ends.

As a noir worthy of any nation, Døden er et kjærtegn (Death is a caress) (1949) is a story freed from World War 2 and shot in a recently occupied country, which might make cause for thought.

Stage Fright (1950)

Stage Fright (1950) is an Alfred Hitchcock British female seeker hero theatre-land murder mystery starring Jane Wyman, Richard Todd, Alistair Sim and wow yes fans, it is Marlene Dietrich.

After the triumphs of his American films, Alfred Hitchcock returned to his roots with Stage Fright (1950), set largely in the theatrical world of post-war London. Based on Selwyn Jepson’s novel Man Running, the project marked Hitchcock’s attempt to merge his fascination with the stage with his penchant for suspense. The screenplay, adapted by his wife Alma and playwright James Bridie, promised a compelling tale of murder, deception, and performance, but the resulting film revealed both creative successes and notable flaws.

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932) is a proto-noir pre-Code prison and prison break film noir classic of American penal servitude and injustice, laying the ground work for many noir movies which followed, thematically 

The 1932 film I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a remarkable example of pre-Code Hollywood’s capacity to blend searing social critique with gripping drama. Adapted from Robert Elliott Burns' memoir, I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, the film portrays the systemic brutality of the Southern penal system during the 1920s. 

The Blue Lamp (1950)

The Blue Lamp (1950) is a Limey crimey ensemble cast classic British police procedural and Ealing produced state of the nation values-led post-War copper drama, directed by Basil Dearden and starring Jack Warner, Dirk Bogarde, Bernard Lee, Peggy Evans, and is about as non-noir as it gets, while still being entirely relevant to the crime wave fevered press narratives of the day. 

its about the bonhomie and salt of the earth morality of the constables, all working men with values that we might like to interpret as British and are seen giving directions, and actually helping elderly women across the road. They even appear to have a separate division titled 'Women Police' (26:10).

Black Magic (1949)

Black Magic (1949) is an historical Orson Welles film noir hypnosis ham and history fest of magical and wildly entertaining crowd and close up, sumptuous set piece dark and magical fun-based frolics of the late forties, with some Dumas-based class projections as the piece adopts the narrative of the novel of the same by Alexander Pere.

For oddity and oddity alone the first scene of this spectacular cast of hundreds of extras spectacular festacular magicianical historical Francophile tale of society ambition and absolute Welles-ian pride of personality leading to a hubris-driven fall, has for no apparent reason other than the whimsie or the dandification of the reels, an entretemps between Dumas Snr played with bold waggery by Berry Kroeger, and Dumas Jnr, played with gentle ungruffery by the normally gruffed up Raymond Burr.

The Hustler (1961)

The Hustler (1961) is a poolroom gambling culture sports drama hubris film noir con movie tragedy, about one man's prideful journey through the underworld of his own wasted talent, and the alcoholic and suicidal woman he befriends, for his own ends of course.

It's a classic of many sorts, for many reasons, and is incredibly forward looking in its tragic and existential biploar jazz and thumb-breakin' misery, set in the seediest halls and shabbiest rooms, in the ropiest towns in the loneliest states, finding a vortex of doom which swallows thew female character, played by Piper Laurie, whole.

Bedlam (1946)

Bedlam (1946) is a historical shocker exploitation psychological thriller horror noir based on the drawings of William Hogarth and telling of exhibitionism, cruelty and vintage style madness, sympathy and bedlamites of yore in fig, pose, phantasy and framed with filmic license aplenty, talking much of the madness, and mildly exhibiting the standards of the earliest and most genteel modes of exploitation as cinema.

No monstrous modes of action herein but something that seems to prefigure the British Hammer films of the later 1950s and the 1960s, with a village horror kind of vaudevillian villain most mild torture and cruelty, with visions of captivity dominating the viewers delivered palette of ideas.

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) is a Universal horror Frankenstein-franchise 'Monster Factory' resurrected monster horror drama villager thriller starring Lon Chaney Jr, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers and Lionel Atwill. 

An otherwise tale of perpetual and repeated and universal rejection, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) is a class-act movie yarn of mob activity, superstition in the imaginary Eurowald of Hollywood, and possibly one of the finer expressions of the villager mob experience in all of the Golden Age horror cycling, while also undertaking some monster streamlining as the franchises developed, and as they simultaneously migrated into an increasingly cheaper sound stage reproduction of the monster infected olde worlde which appears increasingly foggy-floored and foggily-lored.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943)

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) is a dense anti-Nazi World War 2 returning veteran film noir of paranoia, trauma, and espionage, with John Garfield as a Spanish Civil War veteran in possession of a priceless keepsake, who returns home to find out who murdered his friend. It received an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

The Fallen Sparrow (1943) directed by Richard Wallace is a convoluted, politically charged spy thriller steeped in noir sensibilities. Starring John Garfield as the psychologically fractured Kit McKittrick and Maureen O’Hara as the enigmatic Toni Donne, the film operates within a framework of paranoia and trauma. 

Flesh And Fury (1952)

Flesh And Fury (1952) is a rise and fall glamour and gloves biting the dust deaf and mute boxing exploitation film noir with Tony Curtis, Jan Sterling, Joseph Pevney, Mona Freeman and Wallace Ford.

It is almost in a way a new and undiscovered media, what might be called simpleton noir. Joseph Pevney’s Flesh and Fury occupies a fascinating position within the boxing genre, offering a melodramatic yet compelling exploration of identity, class, and vulnerability. 

Jamaica Inn (1939)

Jamaica Inn (1939) is an Alfred Hitchcock Daphne Du Maurier historical wrecker and robber grog-swilling smuggler undercover cop old dark house family tragedy and at times pleasantly ham-laden melodrama, which also doubles as Alfred Hitchcock's last British film and the last feature film the great director made which did not feature one of his directorial cameos within it.

Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre is rife with complex and often tyrannical parental figures. This recurring motif not only shapes his narratives but also deepens the psychological tension in his films. 

Obsession (1949)

Obsession (1949) is a Limey lousy husband murder cat and mouse and dog revenge thriller in which Robert Newton plays a London psychiatrist who is so fed up with the repeated affairs of his wife Storm, that he plots and executes a seemingly perfect revenge against her latest lover, an American, by locking him for five months in a dingy post-war basement, while preparing a fiendish end for the sorry Yank.

The American nature of the victim seems to be a snidely perfect backdrop for the very British murder, and as the action commences, we are in the gentleman's club where the psychiatrist relaxes, listening to the snobbish upper classes dish the dirt on the British economy, and its new reliance on the US dollar, and the post-war glooms which are irritated further by the cultural evidence of the United States which pervades the drear with its omnipresent and clashing accent.

Deadline At Dawn (1946)

Deadline At Dawn (1946) is a classic era classic female seeker hero hardboiled amnesia film noir, and a classic film noir which is also a great example of several other film noir sub-styles including cabbie noir, and outre noir.

Full of fun, mystery and menace and with an almost unique script, quipped with an unequaled touch by Clifford Odets, not known for his cinematic writing, and directed by 

The history and definition of film noir remain complex, filled with contradictions and shifting interpretations. Though often described as an American invention emerging from a synthesis of hard-boiled fiction and German expressionism, noir's roots and reach are far broader.

The Bribe (1949)

The Bribe (1949) is a classic exotic lousy husband post-war Central American murder mystery cop film noir with Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, Vincent Price and Charles Laughton, in a kind of noir-by-numbers take on many staples of the style, combing noirish elementata in a perfect combination late forties thriller.

There is a lot to see, not the least of it is Robert Taylor and Vincent price, sitting together and looking so kinda similar that it is not just eerie, but a sign that things are going to be a lot of fun. 

Pleins feux sur l'assassin (1961)

Pleins feux sur l'assassin (1961) is a strange thriller mystery horroresque French film noir nest of vipers-style rural chateau based tale of twisted and messed up tale of bereavement and greed, which speaks of mortality, intense hatred, evil old age male spite and 

It is a film not entirely within the French New Wave, and yet one which does display strong noir tropes, and at the same time seems to look at Jean Cocteua or Marcel Carne as inspiration rather than indulging in the deconstructions of the contemporary French class-acts such as Godard and Truffaut.

Illegal Entry (1949)

Illegal Entry (1949) is an unlawful residence Truman-era illicit Mexican border immigrant smuggling operation film noir directed by Frederick De Cordova and starring Howard Duff, Märta Torén and George Brent.

The later 1940s and early 1950s were a unique era in American cinema, where the intersection of real-world fears and Hollywood's hunger for drama gave birth to a distinct genre: the semi-documentary. 

These films, often based on espionage and FBI cases, served not only as entertainment but also as propaganda, reinforcing the public's trust in federal agencies at the dawn of the Cold War. 

Appointment With Crime (1946)

Appointment With Crime (1946) is a British gangland revenge thriller Limey film noir with a sweet and vile sharp noir edge indicating that the forties filmers of the United Kingdom has been paying attention to the American noir reels, enough to encapsulate and imitate and transplant some of the best noir tropes from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and so with wrist torture, sore wrists, and all manner of wrist attack upon William Hartnell's villainous and hard done by wristless crook.

William Hartnell plays as cool calm and smokin twisted career criminal who like any true anti-hero villain has a peculiar facet or obsession, and in this case it is his wrists.

Der Verlorene (1951)

Der Verlorene (1951) is a post-World War II Peter Lorre directed West German rubble vengeance and regret existential experimental-Nazi vivisection lab film noir, directed and starring the recovering morphine-addicted super-scion of film noir, Peter Lorre.

Peter Lorre does manage within the scope of this late period rubble film, to create a most memorable character, although he does so much Lorre drift, peer, stare and smoke, and like all Peter Lorre films, and like all of Peter Lorre's life, the mis en scene is heavy on the cigarette-based action.

Thunder Road (1958)

Thunder Road (1958) is a free-wheeling and lurid hillbilly noir drama thriller about the moonshine business and a crazed item of uber-engine-block-rockin fun abd double Mitchum-]based racing madness and mannish boyhood aggression among the backwood backwaters of the moonshine states of Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee in the late 1950s, with added cult-movie drive-in status and plenty machine action and moody maleness, old and young.

It's a noirish crime story with more than just a few late period swiping stabs at the style.

Boy must ya hate 1958 and this movie which opens with the banjo pickin moan of authority that complains millions of dollars are lost to the treasury through taxation each year by means of the power of illicit whiskey, boo hoo. Who cares!

Judex (1963)

Judex (1963) is a French language crime remake revenge-noir swinging mirror camera action mystery, capture, intrigue and oddity P.I. historical noir melodrama which is delightfully static, wild of avian headgear, and other subtly surreal touches of oddity and exciting curio.

It's soft and gentle, a film on tip toes, an acoustic film like no other, without doubt a film of birdsong, and otehr ambience, but eh music when it is musical is absolutely choice, the ambient quiet drone and deep distant trills during he good versus evil white body suit versus black body suit combat mani a manin on the dark French provincial rooftop is unmissable film chic. You know this film has some heavy dark chords too, beneath the word FIN au fin they clang in death march time baby.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) is a historical supernatural film noir drama adaptation of the great decadent novel by the fop himself, the dandy of the decade, the finesse of the fin de siècle himself, Oscar Wilde.

Noir and special effects and noir and colour noir, and a peculiar observation that like The Woman in White (1949) it's a novel adaptation that stretches the patience of its period, proving words provide girth and are worth their weight in those heavy heavy reels and our tendency to like em short.

Stray Dog (1949)

Stray Dog (1949) is an Akira Kurosawa buddy-cop Japanese film noir undercover heatwave detective police procedural homicide back-street illicit arms market absolute classic of Japanese noir, that stars  Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura.

It was Kurosawa's second film of 1949 produced by the Film Art Association and released by Shintoho and while considered a noir, it should also be fully considered as a fully formed detective movie and indeed you should know it as being among the earliest films in that genre.

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.

Cry Vengeance (1954)

Cry Vengeance (1954) is an ex-con framed and disfigured ex-cop on a mission violent rural slick vengeance film noir with hardboiled cops and a blond psycho hitman on the loose in backwater Alaska.

The orchestras of the 1950s are bugger, bolder, brassier and this mid 50s noir indicates well the period when the hardboiled become so hard that the pan had dried and the metal of its surface had fused into a mighty grimace, here worked by the unsmiling Mark Stevens.

The Brute Man (1946)

The Brute Man (1946) is an exploitation noir-style civic horror B-feature in which social fears of deformity seem to come alive in the rather blunt capitalisation of the medical misfortunes of Rondo Hatton, some time proto-horror star and former journalist who found a career in film due to his unique facial features, which were the result of acromegaly. Hatton headlined horror films with Universal Studios near the end of his life, earning him a reputation as a cult icon.

In The Brute Man, Hatton plays Hal Moffet. He’s a handsome college athlete disfigured by a chemistry lab accident. Raging at the friend he blames for his misfortune, he sets off on a killing spree. 

This neatly parallels Hatton’s real biography. He was once an athletic youth, but war and disease changed his body. 

The Case Against Brooklyn (1958)

The Case Against Brooklyn (1958) is a crooked cop police procedural crime-syndicate corrupting city officials style of late film noir cycle rookie-cop-taking-on-the-system style of bribery thriller drama from Paul Wendkos, who went on to direct many a cop and comedy TV and movie thriller up until the 1990s, and indeed many other kind of 80s and 90s era TV movie fare.

The 1958 noir film The Case Against Brooklyn offers a semi-gripping portrayal of systemic corruption within the police force and the criminal underworld. Directed by Paul Wendkos and based on a real-life article by investigative journalist Ed Reid, the film is a film noir sensational guarantee that Hollywood will pretend to offer a reminder of the ethical dilemmas and personal sacrifices involved in exposing organized crime.

The Spy in Black (1939)

The Spy in Black (1939) is a British espionage World War One submarine and double agent spy noir, and the first collaboration between the filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. 

These two visionaries of the mid-century were brought together by Alexander Korda to make this World War I spy thriller novel of the same title by Joseph Storer Clouston into a film. 

Powell and Pressburger eventually made over 20 films during the course of their partnership.