The Strange One (1957)

The Strange One (1957) is a homosexuality Southern military bullying barely suppressed gay love film noir rough and ready with handsome recruits and serious acting styles, alongside ubercruel supersoldiers of the military south, at ease in the wilds of the barracks, boy on boy on boy.

An interesting look at gay themes from the 1950s, The Strange One is a film that reflects the era's attitudes towards homosexuality. At the time of its release, homosexuality was still criminalized in most states and considered a mental illness until much later. 

The Scarface Mob (1959)

The Scarface Mob (1959) is an early TV movie historical Al Capone and The Untouchables Eliot Ness-based film edit of the television pilots into an end of the cycle movie noir type of affair which has virtually no film noir elements to speak of, as such stylistic gems and nuggets are smoothed out to make way for the televisual plainety of the new mass media era of the 1960s.

The late 1950s brought black-and-white television to new heights, with The Untouchables exemplifying the era’s gritty appeal and plunge into endless tropery, some of which started right here. Known for its violence, the show stirred controversy in its day, with its portrayal of mob brutality and intense confrontations between law enforcement and the Chicago crime syndicates. 

Lured (1947)

Lured (1947) is a moody mystery female seeker hero investigatory London-set serial killer thriller outré film noir, made by Douglas Sirk and perhaps as far as the Sirk toes get into the fascinating dark and complicated world of noir drama.

In its way, Douglas Sirk’s lurid Lured (1947), an example of the lurid noir, reimagines hard enough upon Robert Siodmak’s 1939 film Pièges, that it must surely be classed as a remake, capturing the essence of a film noir thriller with an impressive cast and smoke machine moddiness and soundstage London-effect cinematography. 

The plot follows and does trail the female seeker hero type Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball), a sassy American dancer in London who is roped into a police investigation as a decoy for a serial killer targeting women through newspaper ads. 

Across The Pacific (1942)

Across The Pacific (1942) is a mildly xenophobic nautical noir spy movie with plenty of whimsy despite it being an eve-of-World-War-Two thriller, depicting in the figure of Humphrey Bogart, one studio's view of what involvement in that war might cause to bring about, while flinging some style-defining chops at the seascape in the traditional form of portholes, smoke machines, sea bars, deck rails, and Nihonnian peril seen through some rather insulting spectacle lenses.

Humphrey Bogart proves that despite being man of the century, which he may well have been, he does not look good in a uniform.

If we learn lesson about film noir and one lesson only let it be this: Humphrey Bogart does not look good in a uniform. Who would have thought that? More essentially: what deeper noir message can we elucidate from these sartorial obs?

Step by Step (1946)

Step by Step (1946) is a returning veteran post-war Nazis-in-California espionage and action thriller chase murder fugitive romance on the run film with noir qualities, and the amazing bodily properties of Lawrence Tierney, a truer man of film noir there rarely was, with this little coastal corker as one of his finest cracker crazed noiresque outings.

It Happened One Night (1934) properly introduced the couple-thrown-together trope, and it is true that this semi-noir Step By Step proves what a confused year 1946 may have been as it does indeed feature screwball elements, in light dashes, such as Anne Jeffreys in military uniform, and some carrying-across-the-threshold romance style of jinx.

Experiment Perilous (1944)

Experiment Perilous (1944) is a historical melodrama lousy husband suspicious couple insane jealousy film noir tale of  shattered glass, gushing water and floundering fish noir, yes aquarium film noir, and a crazy virtual prisoner drama of noirish proportions.

Tis indeed a film noir which is of those high-class nightmares wrapped in velvet, but make no mistake—it’s got a black heart beating under all that lush, shadow-soaked atmosphere. It’s a tale of gaslight and doom, where dames aren’t sure if they’re crazy or just trapped, and every smooth-talking gent’s got a trick up his sleeve.

The story kicks off when square-jawed psychiatrist Dr. Huntington Bailey (George Brent) stumbles into a real honey of a mess. A train ride and a chance meeting lead him straight into the twisted world of rich and refined Nick Bederaux (Paul Lukas), a husband with a mind like a steel trap and a grip on his wife, Allida (Hedy Lamarr), so tight it’s choking the life outta her. She’s a knockout with trouble in her eyes, and Bailey starts wondering if she’s really losing her marbles—or if her charming hubby is playing a slow, deadly game.

The Master Plan (1955)

The Master Plan (1955) is a Cold War amnesia spy military paranoia post-Korean war mind-control McCarthy era blacklist ahead of its time Limey noir made by Cy Endfield, already exiled from America and resettling within the British film industry.

The Master Plan (1955) is another circa 1955 thriller loss mysteries which open on a transatlantic flight in 'you are American!' mid air kind of whimsy arriving in an all too wrong England, it is sufficient of a noir trope to be expressive for decades, the Korean War is also mentioned in passing quoting banter, while they still also have the overgrown headaches from what they call already the last war.

36 Hours, or as it is daftly or is it deftly otherwise known Terror Street own start this way these characters we meet on the plane, it's the same with another Cy Endfield fun piece from the exact same time, and no surprising because he did fly into England in intrigue and who knows, maybe even disappointment at the old boys of the OSS back home, rooting out the communists.

The Web (1947)

The Web (1947) is a fast-moving entertaining late-early period and slightly preposterous but fun film noir filler, with Ella Raines, Edmond O'Brien, Vincent Price and William Bendix, so that is certainly a stern and select noiresque collection of faces to do the actin'.

The Web (1947) is in effect a Private Investigator film noir (P.I. Noir) although the character played by Edmond O'Brien is supposed to be a lawyer, although he functions entirely as a P.I,. being hired to be a bodyguard, carrying and using a gun, hanging with his coat collars up in alleyways, and more and more traditional and common P.I. behaviours.

He doesn't get down to none legal work, that is for sure. Other than the top and tail styling back of his maligned blue collar character, played by Tito Vuolo, with typical Vuoloism.

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.

The Sleeping City (1950)

The Sleeping City (1950) is an undercover cop murder metropolitan hospital criminal nurse film noir starring Richard Conte and Coleen Gray, and directed by George Sherman.

Less well known than many inferior film noirs, The Sleeping City does offer a disturbing vision of one of the world's most famous hospitals — Bellevue in New York — in which black market drugs are smuggled out of the hospital in a sting and scam gambling operation.

Richard Conte is the cop who goes undercover, after some suitable screening, and his investigations bring him into contact with a rugged elderly elevator operator, a tormented roommate, and a mysteriously criminal nurse. an authority figure — here the actor Richard Conte — offers some message of public authority and often warning.

Abandoned (1949)

Abandoned (1949) is a journalism and media baby-adoption-ring female seeker hero film noir from high into the classic years of all out full fat noir, remaining a mean wittaw crime flick that slithers through the back alleys of corruption like a grifter on the lam. 

It’s got all the dirty fingerprints of a real noir—shadows thick as cigarette smoke, dames in trouble, and heels looking to make a fast buck off somebody else's misery.

It kicks off when Paula Considine (Gale Storm) hits Los Angeles looking for her missing sister. The cops? They don’t care. But a wisecracking newshound named Mark Sitko (Dennis O’Keefe) smells a rat, and soon they’re knee-deep in a baby-smuggling racket run by a smooth operator with ice in his veins, played by the ever-slick Raymond Burr. 

He’s got an adoption scam so tight it squeaks, selling newborns like hot merchandise, and anyone who gets in his way winds up floating face-down in the Los Angeles River.

The Thirteenth Hour (1947)

The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is a haulage and hallucination diamond smuggling duplicity and mystery film noir story from the The Whistler series of the films, eight of which appeared in the 1940s.

Haulage heel Steve Reynolds, played by Richard Dix, is a trucker guy who falls foul of a scheme that he uncovers from what seems like a series of accidents, and may in fact just be that, a series of accidents. 

Indeed and for whatever reason, there are questions unanswered at the conclusion of this tale, possibly the greatest of these being why is this film called The Thirteenth Hour, and what is the thirteenth hour and what in fact is it the thirteenth hour of?

Armored Car Robbery (1950)

Armored Car Robbery (1950) is a police procedural heist from the hard school of film noir as it slid painfully from the 1940s to the 1950s, leaving the theater, hitting the television, and features a super full film noir cast and a host of other style details and landmarks.

This is an Austerely Efficient B-Noir. Film noir, as a stylistic and narrative mode, emerged in American cinema as an aesthetic response to postwar disillusionment, embodying moral ambiguity, existential anxiety, and the inexorable descent of its protagonists into fated destruction.

Amongst the myriad offerings of this style, by which there may be about 1,000 relevant films from the 1940s and 1950s, with about and at least 700 of those being of the most importance to the noir crazed academics of the dark and black and white.

Double Indemnity (1944)

Double Indemnity (1944) is the super-famous stylish insurance fraud double murder classic film noir thriller that stands central to all commentary, criticism, focus and definition of the great noir style of the 1940s, and the production which is usually cited as the best example of the medium, the finest of all noirs, the apogee of the instance of the style, and the exemplification and blueprint were it needed of all the thousands of brimming wonders of production that made up the hugely powerful film noir movement.

The frightening and exciting weakness of sex was never better shown than in the encounters between Fred MacMurray and a to-begin-with naked Barbara Stanwyck, whom as equals it seems, concoct a murder for the existential fact of morality take over and trip them both up.

Dillinger (1945)

Dillinger (1945) is a cheapo-epic biopic crime heist, robbery, murder, prison and prison-break film noir which was the breakthrough role for tough guy villainous noir actor Lawrence Tierney, directed by Max Nosseck and co-starring Anne Jeffreys, Edmund Lowe, Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cooke Jnr and Eduardo Cianelli. 

Packed with fun, action and menace, and oddly replete with cinematic meta-mechanics, Dillinger (1945) cannot be flawed for anything other than historical accuracy. 

Historical accuracy might have gone against the grain, too. The minute makers of 1945, fresh off the tracks of the great crime film experiments of the 1930s, which incidentally probably amount to the greatest body of work of 1930s cinema, were imminently to collide with state forces and the Production Code was in fullest sway, and so accuracy might have been well sacrificed.

Riffraff (1947)

Riffraff (1947) is a  flavoursome Panamanian-set P.I. adventure oil executive nightclub mystery film noir with Pat O'Brien committed to the hard-bittten style, atheistically prosecuting the style for all the grimy practise it is worth.

The question of who came first, Dan Hammer or Mike Hammer, is one that warrants investigation. Both characters made their debut in 1947, but the more pressing question is: which of the two left a more significant mark on American pop culture?

Dan Hammer, the protagonist of the film Riffraff, is a character who, despite having several commendable qualities, has largely faded into obscurity. The film, set in Panama, features Pat O’Brien as Dan Hammer, a suave and resourceful man who knows the ins and outs of the town. 

Foreign Correspondent (1940)

Foreign Correspondent (1940) is an early American period Alfred Hitchcock wartime journalism and media political adventure anti-Nazi propaganda espionage romance thriller chase and assumed identity movie, not in any sufficiency of the term as film noir, but most importantly a spy noir, and an espionage adventure, made noir almost with the advent of the twentieth century's best known bad types, the Nazis. 

Made in, for and about a morbid and bellicose hiatus period before the United States entered Word War II and when World War II had no name and is referred to as 'a general war', when Germany has invaded Poland but Russia is still in Alliance with Germany and Britain is at war of a sudden, while Holland is Nazified and occupied and makes up most of the set piece glory, most famously some windmill scene and scenery, amounting to some of the best and if not the best windmill film of the century.

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) is a jealous invalid-sister paranoid woman small town family murder plot movie which takes the film noir style and its themes off of the city streets and into the middle class homes of a dull New Hampshire mill town.

Historical classical and purest high period Golden Age film noir does have a slight craze for mid century small town mill-centred drama. There are more than a few mill-town noirs. Among The Living (1941) is a classic mill-town noir, as is the amazing Bette Davis noir Beyond The Forest (1949). Purely classic mill town film noir

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945) and any article about it, or discussion of its noir propensities must always come with an extra spoiler warning, extra to the universal spoiler warning of this website, and your every day moment of film exploration will be shattered if you have not seen this film noir and continue reading this.

Dangerous Crossing (1953)

Dangerous Crossing (1953) is a maritime murder conspiracy mystery paranoid woman heiress in distress missing husband silly-newlywed-woman version of the well tested film noir trope of the vulnerable woman, lost in a world of romance that is fear-bitten, weird and underwritten by criminal conspiracy.

That most classic of mystery setups is no longer employed by the movies, the one in which all the world seems to be a conspiracy. No, madam, the purser has not seen your husband. No, madam, this is not your cabin and your bags were never here, your husband was never on this ship. This story is used again and again by da moviemakers, and here it is in a well-formed and perfect trope, creating rough ripples and mystery.

Temptation Harbour (1947)

Temptation Harbour (1947) is a sympathetic British morally complex period piece post-war Limey noir suitcase full of money gangster versus civilian poverty versus temptation melodrama romance film noir, with Robert Newton and Simon Simon struggling on the south coast of England. 

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.

Station West (1948)

Station West (1948) is a private eye cynical male lead morally ambiguous rugged frontier Western tale of deceit, violence and heists, and is likely a star case of the strangely elusive and debatable category that the cineastes and afficionados refer to as film noir Western, or Western film noir.

Snappy, moody and splashing a wagon load of Sedona scenery, Station West is an earnest and honest item of op class Americana from the days when film noir and westerns were the absolute staples of 

Sidney Lanfield, director, is not best known for film noir although he did direct the 1939 The Hound of the Baskervilles, a classic of more than just one canon, and comedy and romance with a little bit of musical might describe his work. The closest effort to a spy film within his range might well have been The Lady Has Plans (1942), a comedy spy thriller with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard.

The Girl Hunters (1963)

The Girl Hunters (1963) is a barely coherent lost classic Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer curiosity P.I. outré grilled steak big city hard nosed hard boiled  hard sidewalk and newsstand pounding snogga neo film noir blandishment from the 1960s, the non-standard issue cereal-box-reciting acting style creation of the entire all American Hammer oeuvre.

Infamous as the moment when Mickey was Mike, The Girl Hunters (1963) rocks the city and ransacks the style, tuning into the weirdness of the new era of the 1960s, rooted in habits that resonate from the vaudeville years even before the Depression.

Terror in a Texas Town (1958)

Terror in a Texas Town (1958) is an extended flashback wild west whaler revenge tale of corruption and gun slinging oil grabbing landlordism and violence, created in the wake of the HUAC hearings which terrorised and attempted to sterilise and de-communise the media of the 1950s.

A low budget western with a deep moral message, Joseph H. Lewis’s Terror in a Texas Town (1958) is an underappreciated Western that defies many of the conventions typically associated with the genre. At first glance, it may seem to be yet another run-of-the-mill B-western, but beneath its low-budget exterior, the film raises deeply disturbing questions about justice, morality, and societal complicity.

Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

Down Three Dark Streets (1954) is a later period police procedural docu-style triple narrative case study murder mystery film noir starring Broderick Crawford and Ruth Roman, as a cop on the case and a victim in the suburbs, in fairly standard practise style thrillnoir for its era and budget.

Clearly by 1954 there was little noir left and although this film and many others like it carry the label of film noir and are known to the lazies who populate the fanchats and social pages constructed and dedicated to the deconstruction and dedication of the style, there is little of what could ever be classified as the true film noir in here, with none of the noirish measures of shadow and paranoia, of the individual and their fateful decline, and of the psychosexual madnesses of melodrama so typical of the medium in its 1940s heyday.

World in My Corner (1956)

World in My Corner (1956) is a struggle for glory and battle against the corrupted self and the odds emotional, the odds social, and the odds feminine-style of boxing film noir and one of Audie Murphy's rare as hen's teeth contributions to the film noir style. 

Ten solid minutes of this film is one boxing fight alone? Well for effect this is almost experimental.

World in My Corner, a 1956 American film noir drama, directed by Jesse Hibbs and featuring Audie Murphy, Barbara Rush, and Jeff Morrow, does in its onw manner of standing function as a notable entry in the annals of mid-20th-century cinema insofar as yes, it's an Audie Murphy noir, or attempt at the noir style, and well, the Large Language Models will say anything, and are happy to spraff about films they have not seen.

Rear Window (1954)

Rear Window (1954) is a classic Alfred Hitchcock suspense and murder mystery voyeur noir film cineaste's dream romantic drama about marriage, and one man's ability to face the prospect, while weirding a large camera at a window, from which he sees people, and yet no person appears to see him.

The dream of murder commences as James Stewart's character photographer Jeff appears to piece together something far too gruesome to be shown on screen, including the hack sawing of a woman's body.

A Kiss Before Dying (1956)

A Kiss Before Dying (1956) is a colour noir female seeker hero psychopath murder thriller film noir which while unlikely in its telling is a credible and effective movie version of the Ira Levin novel of the same name.

Making full use of the colour processes of the day, and delivering two bright American worlds, that of the college campus and that of the modern industrialist, A Kiss Before Dying (1956) delivers where many of the promised excitements of the coloured film noirs of the 1950s fail. 

The world of the campus and the café bars where the students gather are perfectly in keeping with the brightness of hope that struck across suburban America at the time, and nothing better expresses the reach of the industrialist and their aspirations than the copper telephone, which is in line with the other copper colours around it, including the victim's copper car, and the copper banisters and swimming pool ladder in the Arizona home of the mining magnate, played by George Macready.

Plein Soleil (1960)

Plein Soleil (1960), which is known in English as Purple Noon, is a French full colour film noir deceit and murder romance novel adaptation, and a genuine classic and of the later French film noir cycle, not in the least for its iconic, seminal,  foundational, ground-breaking, influential, landmark, catalystic performance from Alain Delon.

Purple Noon then as is known, this seminal French seminar in Mediterranean murder chic, so cold and so warm, so yacht-deadly and so nouveau in its horrors, sdo nihilistic in its love and so anti-American in its subtle heart, so tight lipped and so guilty, so clever and so swift.

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.

Five Graves To Cairo (1943)

Five Graves To Cairo (1943) is a World War Two espionage and desert assumed-identity Nazis on the march adventure and romance thriller, made by Billy Wilder, and while not often thought of as classic film noir in its story and outlook, is as essential to the canon as other key works from its super talented and Germanic Americanic, classic of all time wonderful uberfilm powerhouse of a director.

Five Graves To Cairo (1943) remains of critical interest to the noireaux and other aficionados who hover among the tombstones which mark the old old films that are rarely but watched no more, because it forms the foundational evidence for the thesis of one of the most interesting noir writers and commenters on the globe, which is Dan Hodges of The Film Noir File.

49th Parallel (1941)

49th Parallel (1941) is a wartime hunted-man-narrative adventure road movie-style Nazi espionage chase propaganda thriller, in which a World War II U-boat crew are stranded in northern Canada, and to avoid internment, they must make their way to the border and get into the still-neutral U.S

While not under any circumstance a film noir and containing nothing within its narratives nor stylings which might help classify it or tend it towards discussing in the film noir for a of our own reflective times, 49th Parallel (1941) does depend on themes of espionage and manhunting , while also and most curiously profiling Nazis as the protagonists.

This is an effective narrative route, for the large part because Powell and Pressburger did not make films which heavily patronised, satirised, demonised and ridiculed the Third Reichers of the early 1940s. 

My Gun Is Quick (1957)

My Gun Is Quick (1957) is a Mike Hammer late period P.I. violent woman-thrashing chase and murder deception thuggery exploitation noir, which barely carries the name film noir staggering out of the 1950s, yet probably capturing some of the maddened spirit of the early 40s noir as it inadvertently and rather ogrishly does so.

My Gun Is Quick is a Mike Hammer adventure that defies expectations and stands strong despite numerous challenges. Originating from the mind of Mickey Spillane, the film navigates the inherent issues of its creator's style, its largely unknown cast and crew, and the general dismissiveness of its existence. However, like the curate's egg, parts of it are quite good.

Man Hunt (1941)

Man Hunt (1941) is a hunted man World War II anti-Nazi political romance drama thriller made by the master of plastering the paranoia far and wide and dep into and out of the cinematic shadows, yes it is Fritz Lang, the plasterer of these shadows, the far and beyond the pale of the scale past maestro of so many of the defining motions of film noir.

Man Hunt is one of Fritz Lang's most compelling films, showcasing his mastery in creating action-packed, humorous, and emotionally gripping thrillers. With the collaboration of superior scenarist Dudley Nichols, Lang crafted a literate and imaginatively photographed film that, despite occasional implausibility, captivates the audience from the start.

Contraband (1940)

Contraband (1940) is a Powell and Pressburger British espionage wartime maritime female super hero nautical erotic romance thriller with shades of the early noir style, and shades too of what may be called 'camp expressionism' or 'expressionist camp', along with very early noir-style markers apparent in the blackout-Britain style approach which presents a wartime underworld London, in a time of real peril, when national identity becomes a matter of life and death, and where pluck and humour bob to the surface to provide the Limey noir feel that only the besieged Britain could provide, offering in fact what became the cementing of several clichés for all time including the female spy hero.

Without any shadow of a doubt it is time once more to turn to Dan Hodges and his studies on spy noir and its place in the origins of film noir in the UK and the US.

High Noon (1952)

High Noon (1952) is a renowned suspense classic Western that is not in any sense of the term a film noir, although it yet reflects many film noir values, and was made by many film makers associated by the style, while at the same time being a product of its exact age, and so reflects many of the concerns social and political of the film noir style, while remaining faithful to its own underlying genre. That of the Western.

Not even in this sense then can High Noon (1952) be quantified as a film noir western, like many movies of the period may be. And yet there are so many minute noir markers placed within, and a certain sensitivity to the ailing male and some more complex female relations, as well as commentary on the public body politic, and the influence on community of criminal fear, direct from the government as much as from the villains in our midst, those determined unto lawlessness. 

Dark Passage (1947)

Dark Passage (1947) is a face-lift ex-con innocent hunted man on the run POV prison break cabbie sexual chemistry classic Warner Bros. mystery picture starring the Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, who are all over this marvel of a chemistry set of a classic film noir.

The mythology of the face-lift is deeply rooted in cultural narratives and societal expectations, particularly regarding beauty and aging. In many stories, women undergo face-lifts to retain their partners, highlighting the societal pressure for women to remain beautiful. 

This contrasts with men, who are often depicted as seeking new partners rather than maintaining their current relationships. The perceived ugliness of aging women is seen as natural and biological, though it is heavily influenced by cultural standards that do not apply equally to men.

Die Mörder sind unter uns (1946)

Die Mörder sind unter uns (1946) is an immediately post-war German Trümmerfilm, a style or genre translated as rubble film and was possibly the first film to be produced in Germany after World War Two, and maybe even the first anti-fascist film should such a canon be similarly useful.

To compare the cinema of 1946 and sample that of the US and that of Germany is to stumble upon the most severe of contrasts, and yet within this the word noir might still function to explain what we are seeing.

Die Mörder sind unter uns, known in English as The Murderers Are Among Us, is the most naturally ironic film one could imagine. The irony of anything at all happening in the rubbled remains of Berlin is strong enough without adding romance, and Christmas.

I, The Jury (1953)

I, The Jury (1953) is a violent sexified-narcotic Mike Hammer exploitation shocker Private Eye thriller film noir, in fact it was the first violent Mike Hammer exploitation shocker Private Eye thriller film noir.

Mike Hammer is explosively portrayed by newcomer Biff Elliot who walks into shot and examines the dead body of his one-armed pal, some crude jokes are made and then Hammer brutally attacks a journalist, smashing him into a rack of plates. This is as solid a character introduction as was ever made.

While not a great film nor a great effort at a film, I, The Jury (1953) is one of these movies that seems responsible for some of the truer of film noir's tropes and visions.

Champion (1949)

Champion (1949) is a sports-noir drifter narrative boxing film noir rags to riches drama of hubris and corruption, starring Kirk Douglas as a one time bum who finds he is a great boxer, and makes an all-American stab at gaining the all-American system of fight-rigging, mobsterism, and big sport gambling and media.

A remarkable and entertaining vehicle for the young Kirk Douglas, for whom this was a certain break-through role, Champion (1949) is not lauded much as a great noir, although it is, with first rate performances and high drama and emotion, sweeping through much of American social systems and presenting as well as any other high-period film noir does, the story of the individual against himself, against the country, against the insurmountable cruelty and manipulations of the system that elevates sport to the wild, corrupted and abusive focal point of life it will become.

Outrage (1950)

Outrage (1950) is a powerful woman's social message rape-discussing drama film noir from Ida Lupino, the undoubted quintessential queentessence of noir and lady noir and women's noir and femme-noir, and all things that do resolve upon the maximum that may be said of this gender and sex in the medium we best adore, and medium that best expresses the century. 

The fact is and was that America in 1950 was so neck-deep in a formal misogyny which allowed casual sexism to flourish in every look and leer, and in which even the children wolf whistle the older women.

Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960)

Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960) is a seminal and classic French horror plastic surgery father-daughter mad scientist murder noir which turned out to be one of the very first productions of the modern horror era, replete with psychological fear, gore and incidental lurking canine terror, with a dash of policer procedural.

The film centers on and at the same time revolves around and turns upon while circling the notional conceit that a plastic surgeon is determined to perform a face transplant on his daughter, who was disfigured in a car accident. 

During production, efforts were made to align with European censorship standards by minimizing graphic gore. Despite being cleared by censors, Eyes Without a Face sparked controversy upon its European release, with critics offering reactions that ranged from praise to disgust.

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947) is a Cy Endfield Bowery Boys comedy P.I. film noir pastiche murder spiritualist romp with Teala Loring and Betty Compson.

In early 1946, director Cy Endfield began working for Monogram Pictures, a studio known for producing low-budget B-films. Monogram, established in the early 1930s, found greater success in the late 1940s under the leadership of president Steve Broidy. 

The studio’s philosophy was to keep production costs low, focusing on well-known but not top-tier actors. Broidy once candidly remarked that some audiences preferred "stale bread" over "fresh bread," reflecting the studio's aim to cater to a specific segment of the movie-going public.

The Night Runner (1957)

The Night Runner (1957) is a social issue mental health exploitation psycho patient in the community murder film noir directed by Abner Biberman and starring Ray Danton as Roy Turner, a psychiatric patient who is released into the community as a bad board level decision made by an overcrowded Californian sanatorium.

As an interesting take on an unusual social issue, The Night Runner is one of a run of film noir B pictures from Universal, offers a unique and intense viewing experience as serious but seriously misunderstood social and medical issues are collided into exploitation fiction. 

Le Corbeau (1943)

Le Corbeau (The Raven) (1943) is a French poison pen letter rural moral paranoia classic film noir, and of all the classics of the French positioning in any canon, it's one beauty of a production that bears multiple readings, as well as offering mystery, character, love and violence.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1943 film Le Corbeau (The Raven) is a cornerstone of French cinema, notable for its controversial origins, dark narrative, and enduring legacy. Set in a small French town, the film unravels a sinister mystery involving anonymous poison pen letters accusing a local doctor, Rémy Germain, of performing illegal abortions and engaging in an affair. 

Hell Drivers (1957)

Hell Drivers (1957) is a blue-collar ex-con high energy British exploitation truck noir tale of violence, corruption and the unscrupulous carriage of aggregates across small distances within the British countryside.

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.

This Island Earth (1955)

This Island Earth (1955) is a classic nineteen-fifties sci-fi adventure monster interplanetary interocitor movie with neither film noir style nor qualities to speak of, but which yet speaks of the Cold War, the connection between pulp fiction and the cinema and the invention of styles and sciences new in the storytelling of the period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II, and lasted until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and has film noir elements and connections in more than enough areas of style and production for it to pass unnoticed by an serious noireau looking at the year of 1955 in the United States. This island earth could take it no more.

Pickup (1951)

Pickup (1951) is a tragic Hugo Haas femme fatale on the make tale of weak and devious minor characters planning murder in a rural backwater, starring Beverly Michaels as a bored and ambitious scheming woman, who attempts in the style of The Postman Always Rings Twice, to kill an older man for his dough.

With its scuzzy setting, between the old railway shack where Hugo Haas' vulnerable old widower lives, the nearby fairground, and the rails themselves, it is a simple an exploitative tale, assuming the worst of the wicked female lead, and the worst of her husband, the sap, the mark in this matter, the man she marries for money.

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

The Blackboard Jungle (1955) is the ultimate mid-1950s juvenile delinquent scare movie and features Glenn Ford in one of his best roles as a teacher in a violent urban school for boys. 

Within The Blackboard Jungle (1955) are both significant lies and truths, as well as discussion of racism underpinned by the thin air of misogyny, and an uncomfortable sexism which is constant enough to form an almost separate movie. Unlike in noir in toto, and this is not noir, there are no interesting roles for women in this man's, man's, man's, man's movie.

The Unseen (1945)

The Unseen (1945) is an old dark house children and governess paranoid woman lousy husband old homeless woman murder mystery mansion house genuine thrillodrama film noir, from mid the paranoia period of women in crazy marriages era of the Golden Age of the Silver Screen

Watching The Unseen (1945) you will be upset into a derisory frame of mind when you hear how often the prettiness of Gail Russell's character is referred to. 

I am sure this might have contributed to her drinking herself to death, being called pretty in so many scenes.

The Wolfman (1941)

The Wolfman (1941) is a Universal horror cycle classic lycanthrope thriller adventure amalgamation of Gothic ambience and psychological film making which juxtaposes the primal and the civilized within a tragically cursed protagonist who goes on to play in a variety of non-threatening carnival of monsters-style of movies, while cycling into the larger culture notions of monsterism coded with what in film noir terms could be a kind of gothic Überwald mis en scene.

Exploring the fragility of human identity through lycanthropic metamorphosis, The Wolfman (1941) has become one of the more indelible stopping points in the narratives of horror lore, not so much creating horror as such, but forming a solid concrete base upon which to build the identity of this genre.