Kitty Foyle (1940)

Kitty Foyle (1940) is an almost or proto feminist classic woman's picture white collar girl class and women's rights flashback romance and melodrama Oscar-winning smoochie love and marriage triangle tale of high sadness and existential mid-century womanly angst in both Philly and Manhattan, facing death of hope and an illegitmate baby, and really not the only film of 1940 to make a massive deal out of a snow globe, starring Ginger Rogers, Katharine Stevens, Dennis Morgan, and James Craig, based on Christopher Morley's 1939 bestselling novel of the same name. 

The Glass Wall (1953)

The Glass Wall (1953) is a returning veteran post-Holocaust musical Manhattan based chase and race against time innocent man abroad man hunt cheap-boarding room bound ship and pavement immigrant stowaway thriller with Vittorio Gassmann and Gloria Grahame, and in the meantime, I would so assert bub, that this is a little known but effective film noir, notable for terrific street photography, as wella s starring Joe Turkel in an uncredited young punk son role, and being directed by Maxwell Shane, who became a screenwriter before becoming a director in 1947, after which he worked on noirish films, as a writer or director, like Hell's Island, Fear in the Night and the remake Nightmare, while also scripting City Across the River (1949) and directing1955's The Naked Street, generally some decent noirs, some decent noirs.

Terminal Station (1953)

Stazione Termini (1953) is a Italian American David O'Selznick produced melodrama Italian neo-realist collision of style romance angst and close up photography, and a deeply trroubled film as well as being Vittorio de Sica's only Amercian feature, as well as being a catalogued full motion picture fifties entry into the David O. Selznick and Jennifer Jones marriage, and as such a tale of highest angst and romance and high flying vision, with its long and longing station tracking shots and super intense performance from Montgomery Clift, hacking the neo-realist style with Truman Capote dialogue, which is already served hacked, and Jennifer Jones as the high queen of station dramatics and real neo-realist expression of her self and her style, in a great career moment for all that is often side=stepped known as it is for being a quintessential mash up jam amid and below and atop the chasm of cultures between Hollywood melodrama and Italian neo- realism.

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953)

Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953) is a David O. Selznick cut of the Italian co-prodcued Terminal Station (1953) commonly or preferably known as Staziona Termini (1953) and is the heavily altered US version of Vittorio De Sica’s Italian romantic drama, Terminal Station trimmed from 89 to 64-72 minutes by producer David O. Selznick to spotlight the screen miracle that was Jennifer Jones who was then his wife.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) is a Sam Wood directed and produced adapted from the classic Ernest Hemigway novel epic Spanish Civil War tale of resistance, camarederie, and bridge blasting and romance amid guerilla warfare about an American International Brigades volunteer who is fighting against the fascists and who falls in love with a young woman guerrilla fighter during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge to protect Republican forces, starring Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova, Vladimir Sokoloff, Mikhail Rasumny, Fortunio Bonanova, Eric Feldary, Victor Varconi as Primitivo, the lookout and Joseph Calleia.

The Black Sleep (1956)

The Black Sleep (1956) is a mad scientist body horror induced coma uneven but effective talky but entertaining veteran actor overlooked house of crazies Lugosi, Chaney and Carradine in a final reunion matters of the brain throwback marquee exploitation influential monstrous experiments independent horror film with the American reissue title Dr. Cadman's Secret produced by Bel Air Productions, directed by Reginald LeBorg, and written by John C. Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams. It stars Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Bela Lugosi, and Akim Tamiroff. Tor Johnson appears in a supporting role, produced by Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, as part of a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists, and assembling human wreckage, failed patients, mutilated minds, and ruined legends.

To Have and Have Not (1944)

To Have and Have Not (1944) is a Hemingway adaptation Howard Hawks Humphrey Bogart Lauren Bacall romaticn war adventure noir classic romance Hoagy Carmihcael historic appearance American expatriate French resistance volatile and memorably quotable 40s freelancing fisherman classic of the silver screen whistling and Casablance Part Two "was you ever bit by a dead bee" hot chemistry deriviate to the point of strange mini classic of the era, with Sheldon Leonard, Walter Surovy, Marcel Dalio, Walter Sande, Dan Seymour, and Paul Marion.

Unpublished Story (1942)

Unpublished Story (1942) is a Harold French wartime espionage and adventure journalism and media noir Valerie Hobson star attraction blitz and fifth columnist paranoid London under seige screwball comedy battle of the sexes conspiracy thriller woman in the media tale of British pluck and courage in the face of Nazi bombing and Nazi inflitration under rubbelous wartime conditions, and starring Richard Greene as second billing in everybody's opinion to Valerie Hobson, produced and co-written by Anthony Havelock-Allan set as a propaganda film during World War II with two main plots, the first one involving a journalist whose stories are repeatedly censored by the Ministry of Information and the second one the same folks involvin a pacifist organisation, whose members are actually agents of Nazi Nazi Germany.

Tender Comrade (1943)

Tender Comrade (1943) is a Edward Dmytryk and Dalton Trumbo anti-fascist furloughed wife home front World War 2 morale and community enrichment rousing patriotic drama that also managed to be interpreted by HUAC as a socialistic sinkhole of evidence of communist messaging and infiltration in Hollywood movie-making, melodramatic newlyweds flashback style 'pre-democracy' diverse female housemates drama and war baby and returning and departing veteran tear-inspirer or 'jerker' if you prefer, starring Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, Ruth Hussey and Kim Hunter.

No Trace (1950)

No Trace (1950) is a writer hero blackmail and bad disguise British mysterious sailor suspenser film noir which has a female seeker hero aspect as it is the writer stabber hero's secretary figure who solves the crime and legworks the solution out of the cheap boartding house walls with Hugh Sinclair and Dinah Sheridan, and starring John Laurie and Barry Morse, yes to le deux, a full and rare "British" combo, John Laurie and Barry Morse, and is at the same time a classic of classic actors who do not for various and whatever reasons feature on this weblog.

The Upturned Glass (1947)

The Upturned Glass (1947) is a British flashback and voiceover brain surgeon and love affair murder madness and suicide sanity-searching wicked lady and high quality limey 1940s criminologist revenge introspective and calculated insanity intriguer with star of the show James Mason, and Rosamund John, Pamela Kellino and Ann Stephens.

One-Eyed Jacks (1961)

One-Eyed Jacks (1961) is a classic epic Oedipal psychological drama revenge heist and horseback softly romantic and simultaneously sadistic arthouse western classic and favourite of many for its wildscapes and manly actions and is a film and maybe even a film noir which retains a certain uniquness insofar as it is directed by Marlon Brando and one of the very few elite one of a kind westerns that are set beside the seaside, beside the sea in southern California in this case and instance. 

Bigger Than Life (1956)

Bigger Than Life (1956) is a Cinemascope James Mason Nicholas Ray film noir masterpiece of drug addiction, marital survival school teaching depression mania, cortisone abuse, parenting folly and the suburban collapse of the male mind, pharmacy lurking and the horrors of drug abuse, drug cautionary and high dosage psychosis, pharmamerican tragedy, the American Dream | Nightmare scenario middle class suburban disturbin melodrama, starring James Mason, Barbara Rush and Walter Matthau.

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is a Hollywood-based flashback-told drama of hubris and mania in film production, of betrayal and ambition and which shines a harsh critical light on the lives and careers of the producers of the era, and earlier, notably looking at David O. Selznick, or maybe not since he did not sue Metro about it, and maybe it was Daryl F. Zanuck, or Val Lewton or Orson Wells, and a five Academy Award winning ironic homage to Hollywood showing fragmentary multiple POV the ruthless eighteen-year rise and fall of a tyrannical, manipulative Hollywood movie tycoon, directed by Vincente Minelli and Starring Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Barry Sullivan, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Gloria Grahame, Paul Stewart and Leo G. Carroll.

All About Eve (1950)

All About Eve (1950) is a six Academy Award winning all time classic best films of all time cynical and feminist masterpiece of late golden age Hollywood acting, screen-writing and direction telling of deceit, ambition and betrayal in theatreland, which was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and based on the 1946 short story (and subsequent 1949 radio drama) The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, although Orr does not receive a screen credit, and stars Bette Davis as Margo Channing, a highly regarded but aging Broadway star, and Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, an ambitious young fan who manoeuvres herself into Channing's life, ultimately threatening Channing's career and her personal relationships, as well as starring George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, and Hugh Marlowe, and features Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe in one of her earliest roles, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates and Walter Hampden.

Backfire (1950 )

Backfire (1950 ) is a flashback-based female seeker hero returning veteran rambling tangled web of mystery and violence against women-style Los Angeles and Christmas and military hospital and PTSD adjacent film noir thriller from the tail end of the high period of the dark and foggy beginnings of the television era and which sees Virginia Mayo, Gordon MacRae, Edmond O'Brien, und Great Dane Clark.

Jewel Robbery (1932)

Jewel Robbery (1932) is a pre-code comedy heist reefer-mad lad and lady gentleman thief and sexy Vienses bonbon romp and romance amoral fun and games feature directed by William Dieterle and starring William Powell and Kay Francis, based on the 1931 Hungarian play Ékszerrablás a Váci-utcában by Ladislas Fodor and its subsequent English adaptation, Jewel Robbery by Bertram Bloch.

Three Silent Men (1940)

Three Silent Men (1940) is a Thomas Bentley directed pacifist surgeon and deadly weapon of war early nuclear threat war-themed innocent man accused of murder mystery courtroom largely farcical semi-serious pre-War style but intra-War produced drama noir low budget thriller intriguer, directed by Thomas Bentley and starring Sebastian Shaw, Derrick De Marney, Patricia Roc and Arthur Hambling, written by Jack Byrd and Dudley Leslie.

The Human Jungle (1954)

The Human Jungle (1954) is a Joseph M. Newman procedural cleanin up the streets striptease dancer murder and shooting of innocent bystander and police falsely accused of beating three young men, causing neighborhood tensions to rise film noir policer starring Gary Merrill, Jan Sterling and Regis Toomey and produced and distributed by the Hollywood studio Allied Artists.

Count the Hours (1953)

Count the Hours (1953) is a small town innocent man accused of murder courtroom crusading lawyer death row psychopath home invasion theramin scored Don Siegel rural paranoia and persecution film noir with Macdonald Carey, Teresa Wright, John Craven, Dolores Moran and wow — they got Jack Elam.

Smooth as Silk (1946)

Smooth as Silk (1946) is a femme fatale drunk driver killer playboy in theatreland razor-edged B-noir backstage thriller where Virginia Grey weaponizes glamour, ambition, and male stupidity in a vicious spiral of seduction, betrayal, murder, and theatrical revenge.

The Badlanders (1958)

The Badlanders (1958) is a Metrocolor western caper-style heist and western action romance and crime and camaraderie thriller remake directed by Delmer Daves and starring Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Caruso, Kent Smith, Katy Jurado and Claire Kelly, highlighting Mexican immigration issues and general western greed, local bullying  and cruelty. It is the second film adaptation of the novel following 1950's The Asphalt Jungle. Anthony Caruso was also in the original version of the film, playing the safecracker, Ciavelli.

A Star is Born (1954)

A Star is Born (1954) is a Judy Garland comeback star vehicle musical scratch the surface portrayal of Hollywood stardom and its machinery love story and doomed romance tale of alcohol, fame, and every day studio and star system misogyny, big production piece musical action and suicide and love and success and failure and the scheming folly of the industry that produced it, and while not only not a film noir but emphatically not a noir nor noir film, is still in its narrative and meta-narrative and reflective qualities, one of the darker musicals one might see, in its reflections made upon the place and time of Hollywood at the end of the golden era of the silver screen.

I Want To Live! (1958)

I Want To Live! (1958) is a defiant female lead victimisation of women habitual female criminal courtroom and prison death row journalism and media crime and exploitation based on a true story biographical Robert Wise Oscar winning anti-capital punishment tragedy masterpiece considered by many to be a classic film noir starring Susan Hayward in a once in a lifetime Oscar winning showdown with your senses, with Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent, and Theodore Bikel.

The Best Years of our Lives (1946)

The Best Years of our Lives (1946) is a returning veteran epic post-war romance and social adjustment classic and sweeping melodrama of PTSD, alcoholism, social manners and physical disability charting America's adjustment to the post war order with broken limbs, broken relationships, broken aircraft and civilian indifference, directed by William Wyler and starring Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Cathy O'Donnell, Frederic March, Virginia Mayo, Teresa Wright, Steven Cochran and with best of all perhaps, Hoagy Carmichael on piano.

Temptation (1946)

Temptation (1946) is a shady lady femme fatale scheming wife and marital infidelity historical flashback and voiceover lousy Egyptologically obsessed husband brooding jealous and lust based on a play film noir murder melodrama starring Merle Oberon, Paul Lukas, George Brent and Charles Korvin.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Bringing Up Baby (1938) is a screwball thirties film classic classic Howard Hawks zany heiress and hen-pecked fiancée comedy proto femme fatale use of gay reverse stereotypical gender role bumbling sexless workaholic themes of exploitation, and the impact of colonialism and the removing of animals from their natural habitat madcap fast talkin improvised and anarchic universally acclaimed seminal item of Americana as well as a semantic and semiotic artistic act of gender and social denotation starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant and May Robson and Charles Ruggles and Walter Catlett, as well as Barry Fitzgerald as Aloysius Gogarty, Mrs. Random's gardener.

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) is a creepy euromad historical whodunnit mad pianist and body horror gothic wandering hand vintage special effect horror suspenser with the most unique and unusual music, and directed by Robert Florey and written by Curt Siodmak, and starring Andrea KIng, Robert Alda, Peter Lorre, J. Carrol Naish and Victor Francen, and though we may say whodunnit, when we know that it's the the hand that dunnit, the structure of the whodunnit does override the horror, with the Poirot-like detective making a bumbling but brave and coherent stab at solving the crazed mystery. 

Dead Men Are Dangerous (1939)

Dead Men Are Dangerous (1939) is a Limey proto-noir Harold French directed writer hero mistaken identity police procedural romance and mystery manhunt struggling author film noir thriller from the magic era of Britain in the shadow of War, World War and starring Robert Newton, Betty Lynne, John Warwick, and Peter Gawthorne. It was released in the U.S. as Dangerous Masquerade and its plot concerns an unsuccessful writer who is wrongly accused of a murder.

The Strange Door (1951)

The Strange Door (1951) is a Joseph Pevney directed grand guignol gothic melodrama historical horror film noir women as chattels fantasy escapist historical nonsensical sensational portraits in film noir captive family member and psychopathic historical baron combination chiller-costume melodrama tale of madness, greed, insanity, revenge and loving heroism, starring Charles Laughton, Boris Karloff, Sally Forrest and Richard Stapley, based on the short story The Sire de Maletroit's Door by Robert Louis Stevenson, and sometimes rolling with the alternative title of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Door (1951).

The Long Arm (1956)

The Long Arm (1956) is a Charles Frend British procedural heist and safe-crackin criminal thriller film noir detective motor car noir in which the central intrigue revolves around methodically executed burglaries, the circumvention of high-security safes, femme fatale, last chance saloon, tomorrow's my kid's birthday and the meticulous pursuit of the perpetrator by representatives of law enforcement, inflected throughout with the stylistic and thematic undertones the firm characteristic of the limey noir style and canon, including snarking adjacent cops, domestic bottles of beer and sobriety, silent-style motion action burglary and the deliberate repurposing of a motor vehicle into a mechanism of lethality.

Allotment Wives (1945)

Allotment Wives (1945) is a returning veteran bigamy and fraud journalism and media police procedural femmes fatales scam wife ring office of distributed benefits mystery and murder film noir from poverty row purveyors Monogram Pictures directed by William Nigh and starring and produced by Kay Francis, with Paul Kelly and Otto Kruger.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) is a classic studio spectacle pathos and adventure love survival and corruption tale of technological progress and dark age tale of guilt, compulsion, and claustrophobic urban darkness and starring, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara, Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell, Edmond O'Brien, Walter Hampden, George Zucco and George Tobias.

The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

The Mummy's Tomb (1942) is a Universal monster series early to mid forties Lon Chaney recyclathon gauzed menace archive footage filled fun filled shadow sequel mummy movie from Harold Young with Elyse Knox and Tuhran Bey and reprise roles with George Zucco, and Dick Foran, as well as Wallace Ford combined in a conceptual orientalist expression of North American longing for immortality combined with colonial guilt re-wiped and the use of the word 'occidentals' among other blundering culture and race jamming.

The Mummy's Hand (1940)

The Mummy's Hand (1940) is a fun flick follow up but not sequel Universal Classic Monsters US horror chiller mummy film directed by Christy Cabanne and produced by Ben Pivar, about the ancient Egyptian mummy of Kharis (played by Tom Tyler), who is kept alive with a brew of tana leaves by The High Priest (played by Eduardo Ciannelli) and his successor Andoheb (played by George Zucco), which used stock shots taken from The Mummy (1932), leftover sets from James Whale's film Green Hell (1940), and musical scores almost entirely lifted from Son of Frankenstein (1939). Wallace Ford and Cecil Kellaway play incredible acting roles keeping the show going, indeed this may even be a Kellaway classic. 

Victim (1961)

Der extreme Höhepunkt des absoluten Kinos in Bezug auf die Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison.

Victim (1961) is a classic British later late period film noir blackmail and homosexuality socio public crime and mystery social issue internalised homophobia Basil Dearden lousy husband thriller noir which as well as being the the first British film to explicitly name homosexuality and deal with it sympathetically, is a sneak look into the male queer London underground as it affected lives high and low, pub going and inner court, bookshop and barber shop, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price, Anthony Nicholls, Peter Copley, Norman Bird and Peter McEnery as Jack "Boy" Barrett.

Love Letters (1945)

The beauty of a Joseph Cotten Jennifer Jones season, the emphasis upon this magical pairing.

Love Letters (1945) is a William Dieterle returning veteran amnesia romance and pin-up-girl-of-the-soul World War Two GI murder and rural English idyll magical psychological film noir mystery and identity power of the written word and Ayn Rand scripted variation on the 1940s paranoid woman flick in which a woman is gaslighted into happiness and madness and much more besides, and is a classic Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones feature, we like them together very much. 

Ruby Gentry (1952)

Ruby Gentry (1952) is a King Vidor southern gothic jealousy and revenge social climbing voiceover and flashback and religious damnation triple lousy husband and abuse of women despite rags to riches story melodramatic unfortunate accident focusing sex, lust and love with a side story of American entrepreneurship scathing and furious trashy Duel In The Swamp style melodrama film noir with a famous harmonica theme tune and starring Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden and Barney Philips, with Tom Tully, Phyliss Avery, Frank Wilcox and Bill Walker. All true so far.

The League of Gentlemen (1960)

De la saison Basil Dearden, c’est le moment absolument suprême, certainement l’un des moments forts.

The League of Gentlemen (1960) is a Basil Dearden criminal melodrama disgruntled and disgraced returning veteran multiple lousy husband heist and caper movie from the cusp of the sixties and the final gasp of the fifties before the post war spirit collapsed into an English society as irony as empire ends style of comedy noir starring Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Roger Livesey, Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, Kieron Moore, Terence Alexander, Norman Bird, Robert Coote, Melissa Stribling, and Nanette Newman.

Le rouge et mis (1957)

Le rouge et mis (1957) is a classic jazz riffs all out good time Parisienne one last job-styled heist and gangsters in pyjamas motor car chase and crash French crime film directed by Gilles Grangier and starring Jean Gabin, with the original French title Le rouge est mis, meaning "the red light is on", and with a screenplay based on a novel by Auguste Le Breton, and which not only mentions the 'serie noire' as its own originator, in a metafictional coup, but which stars French legends Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura, with Paul Frankeur, Marcel Bozzuffi, Annie Girardot, Jean-Pierre Mocky and Lucien Raimbourgand it was 100% réalisé par Gilles Grangier, assisté de Jacques Deray, Jacques Rouffio, et sorti en 1957.

Trois jours à vivre (1957)

Trois jours à vivre (1957) is a French film noir witness to murder paranoia romance in theatreland procedural condemned man doomed to die Gilles Grangier fifties Francophile psychological thriller with Daniel Gélin, Lino Ventura Georges Flamant and Jeanne Moreau.

The facile dogmas propagated by the critics of Cahiers du Cinéma have too long consigned Gilles Grangier to the purgatory of the supposedly mediocre. They accused him of failing to innovate, as if innovation were a gaudy ornament to be affixed for the pleasure of theoreticians rather than an organic necessity arising from the material of a film.

A Place to Go (1963)

Une étape intéressante et moins connue de la saison Basil Dearden combine le « kitchen sink » et le film noir.

A Place to Go (1963) is a British Basil Dearden rare kitchen sink and crime combo feature teenage pop hit social commentary and 1960s reconstruction heist and youth dating and romance drama starring Bernard Lee, Rita Tushingham, and Michael Sarne. 

Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945)

Pink String and Sealing Wax (1945) is a British historical poisoning and lousy alcoholic husband murdering Victorian age pharmacist daft dreaming son and local intrigue and femme fatale drama with Googie Withers, Mervyn Johns and Gordon Jackson, in a pent up family story of murder, reserve, calculation and feral femme folie in a beautifully set studio recreation of an 1880s Brighton agay with m class tension, social climbing and gossip.

I'll Be Seeing You (1944)

The Joseph Cotten season drifts on like a welcome breeze, bringing pleasure to all who linger in its shade and now it carries us to yet another film illuminated by his steady, elegant presence, oh his oeuvre, it containeth gems.

I'll Be Seeing You (1944) is a returning veteran PTSD Christmas romance and recovery lost souls and trauma themed prisoner of love during wartime date rape drama of past secrets and emotional struggle, voiceover, and prison movie of a kind, starring Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten, as well as Shirlet Temple, directed it is said by both William Dieterle and George Cukor, and produced to the high emotional standards of David O. Selznick, and while not in sense nor measure nor capacity nor style at all a film noir, is a film which does feature a manslaughter or murder and clings close to themes of PTSD and past secrets, most darkly and commonly explored by film noir at this moment, and so with Joseph Cotten commanding an excellent performance, and Ginger Rogers excellently exploring violence against women and rape culture, is clearly an honorary film noir.

Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)

Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) is a high tension rape and revenge predatory male rock solid underrated classic suspenseful tragic super cinematography Kirk and Tony John Sturges  television production values western film noir with intense and focused performances from leads Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn and Carolyn Jones, supported by Brad Dexter, Earl Holliman, Brian G. Hutton and Ziva Rodann.

A Man Alone (1955)

Übrigens ist er nicht in der Ray-Milland-Saison enthalten.

A Man Alone (1955) is a Ray Milland directed and starring revenge framed man adventure romance angry mob and innocent man wrongly accused father down with a fever nobody's blamin you can make up your own mind, my word against his dangerous man noir inflected gunman film western directed by and starring Ray Milland as Wes Steele, Mary Murphy as Nadine Corrigan, Ward Bond as Sheriff Gil Corrigan, Raymond Burr as Stanley, Arthur Space as Doctor Mason, Lee Van Cleef as Clanton and Alan Hale as Acting Sheriff Jim Anderson.

Under Capricorn (1949)

We return to that felicitous juncture at which the season consecrated to Joseph Cotten unites itself with the prospective current of Alfred Hitchcock.

 Under Capricorn (1949) is an Alfred Hitchcock brooding moral historical sinister housekeeper and class conflict romance outback ranch nine to ten minute tracking shot paranoid women and gaslighting and past catching up with you alcohol themed antipodean love triangle drama classic color film noir farewell to the forties tale of the masochistic extremes of marital fidelity and a gloomy amalgam of shared guilt abjured desire complete with a drugged drink starring Ingrid Bergman, Jospeh Cotten, Cecil Parker, Michael Wilding, Margaret Leighton (as Milly, Flusky's scheming housekeeper), Denis O'Dea as Mr Corrigan, Jack Watling and Harcourt Williams.

Frieda (1947)

Zu Beginn der Basil-Dearden-Filmsaison hattest du noch nie von diesem kraftvollen, vom Holocaust inspirierten Anti-Nazi-Film-noir-Klassiker über einen heimkehrenden Veteranen gehört.

Frieda (1947) is a Basil Dearden British returning veteran World War Two anti-German sentiment in post war society and unrepentant Nazi brother stiff upper lip tension and xenophobia bucolic and Arcadian bar room punch up social issue romance and integration tear jerker film noir of longing and hope, of the holocaust itself rare and yet displayed in full X rated horror, displaying 1940s fig in a tale of national forgiveness and starring Glynis Johns, David Farrer and Mai Zetterling, and how terribly, terribly wrong it is to treat people as less than human.

Peking Express (1951)

Cotten remains our guide, the Joseph Cotten season drifting forward with an air of gentle fulfilment.

Peking Express (1951) is a William Dieterle anti-communist yellowface post-war returning veteran trains in noir remake thriller action adventure starring Jospeh Cotten, Corrine Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Benson Fong, Marvin Miller and Soo Yong.

What follows is a deliberately confrontational act of reinterpretation, an academic recomposition that refuses both ideological timidity and critical fashion. I write not to soothe but to correct, and as I have already declared elsewhere, « la neutralité est la posture préférée de ceux qui n’ont rien à perdre », a statement I repeat here not as ornament but as methodological principle.

The Front Page (1931)

The Front Page (1931) is a journalism and media Lewis Milestone pre-code screwball death row telephony comedy classic United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" public domain brilliant early talkie perfectly transferring into screen terms a stage classic of the twenties ribald rat-a-tat dialogue movie creation which imagines into life a new American archetype, the fast-talking, hard-drinking newshound who'll do anything for a scoop, starring Adolphe Menjou as Walter Burns, Pat O'Brien as Hildebrand "Hildy" Johnson, Mary Brian as Peggy Grant, Edward Everett Horton as Roy V. Bensinger, Walter Catlett as Jimmy Murphy, George E. Stone as Earl Williams, Mae Clarke as Molly Malloy, Slim Summerville as Irving Pincus, Matt Moore as Ernie Kruger, Frank McHugh as "Mac" McCue, Clarence Wilson as Sheriff Peter B. "Pinky" Hartman.