Your favourite films noire.

[Fleabag]

For me, this film defines a true film noir, corruption on a political and personal level; a mystery that can be solved by the presented evidence, to the viewer; not by some hidden conceit.As in real life, the perpertrator and victim(s) are close/intimate.This film is beautifully, directed,acted, scripted and scored.Go watch it now!

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Fleabag

For me, this film defines a true film noir, corruption on a political and personal level; a mystery that can be solved by the presented evidence, to the viewer; not by some hidden conceit.As in real life, the perpertrator and victim(s) are close/intimate.This film is beautifully, directed,acted, scripted and scored.Go watch it now!

Chinatown is a good choice. The mood of the film is very dark, for all that it was shot in colour, and Faye Dunaway is excellent as the heroine with a secret (what a terrible secret). I also remember that Jack Nicholson has...nose issues. Ouch!

Well done Fleabag for managing to post today. Forum software is making a lot of trouble just now.

[cerv3za]

Originally Posted by Fleabag

For me, this film defines a true film noir, corruption on a political and personal level; a mystery that can be solved by the presented evidence, to the viewer; not by some hidden conceit.As in real life, the perpertrator and victim(s) are close/intimate.This film is beautifully, directed,acted, scripted and scored.Go watch it now!

My favorite film of all time. The mystery is revealed little by little as it is to the main character, who is in virtually every shot of the movie...and as craft, it has everything: great plot, great acting, brilliant direction, all of which you said of course.

I loved The Third Man also...

You know what's a great subversive, noirish-but-not-quite-noir film...the original Manchurian Candidate. It's amazing that one ever got made.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by cerv3za

You know what's a great subversive, noirish-but-not-quite-noir film...the original Manchurian Candidate. It's amazing that one ever got made.

Rather like Chinatown this one, in the way the betrayers and the villains turn out to be the ones above all that you should be able to trust. But the film also taps into the cold war paranoia of its time and (like Michael Caine in The Ipcress File), the use of brainwashing techniques by the villains means that the hero, in this case Frank Sinatra in possibly his best outing as an actor, is struggling to find what to trust in even cold reality and even inside himself. What remains that he can believe in as ''truth''?

Only saw this one once and that was years ago. I don't remember whether it had all the stylistic tools and whether it looked and felt like a film noir (Chinatown does this) but as cerv3za says, The Manchurian Candidate is strongly influenced by preceding films noire, even if we don't regard it as a film noir in its own right.

[Mal Hombre]

How about the original Kiss of Death ? with Victor Mature and the late great Richard Widmark.Alternately snarling and giggling,he introduced the psychopath to film.

[scoundrel]

Directed by Richard Fleischer.

Detective Sergeant Brown (Charles McGraw) is assigned to escort a mobster's widow (Mrs Neall), played by Marie Windsor, from Chicago to Los Angeles, where she is due to give evidence. Unfortunately, her journey is not a well kept secret and the train they are travelling on becomes a covert battleground where anyone on board might be friend or deadly foe. To make matters worse, Sergeant Brown's ward is not a well behaved charge, alternately flirting with him, doubting his competence, offering to run off with him into the wide blue yonder, but always distracting him when he needs to be absolutely focused. Bizarrely, she is much less afraid than he is. She is treacherous, dangerous and TROUBLE. In this film, no-one is exactly as they seem and no-one conforms to the expected character type.

Fleischer uses the claustrophobic setting of the train cleverly, and exploits the rhythms of rail travel: for example there are artful interludes when the train stops at stations and the characters, good and bad, communicate with their superiors by telex. The sense of being trapped in this mobile ampi-theatre is strong. The final confrontation features a really smart use of the reflection in the window of a second train running parallel to the Chicago/LA express, a neat cinematic trick.

The film used relatively unknown actors, all of whom perform really well, fairly cheap settings and no expensive special effects. It proved that a really good director and cast with a first rate screenplay doesn't need fancy tricks or a massive budget to create a high class film. This great and complex thriller was made as a B movie: it outshines 9 out of 10 modern blockbuster feature films being released this year.

[Mad Koala Bear]

Double Indemnity.

[Mal Hombre]

It occurs to me that Reservoir Dogs is a classic film noir plot,with it's heist gone wrong,crooks falling out and the ultimate down beat ending.It could easily have been made in the 40s or 50s(with a lot less swearing and a little less violence).You could imagine Richard Widmark as Mr Blond, Dana Andrews as Mr Orange and Victor Mature as Mr White.(i call it a Premake)

[Mad Koala Bear]

Touch of Evil.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

My proposition is: Which film or films noire do you particularly like, and what is it about it/them which especially pleases you . A post naming the film is all very well, but with no extra information the members who haven't already seen the movie won't get any value from your contribution, and might not click the 'Thanks' button!

Here's a brief reminder of the ground rules I set at the start of the thread. All contributions are gratefully received but I think its much more interesting for the other members if you say something about the nature of the film instead of merely naming it. No need to go overboard as I tend to do: just a few pithy comments is quite good enough.

Brighton Rock

Film of a book by Graham Green. In the photo we see Richard Attenborough as Pinkie Brown and Carol Marsh as Rose, an innocent abroad who doesn't know that she really really needs to stay away from men like Pinkie Brown...

I say ''men'' but Pinkie is really a teenager, but old in crime and wickedness and already the leader of a violent gang of protection racketeers, enforcers and multi-talented organised criminals much older than himself, but in thrall to him because he is energetic, imaginative, devilishly clever, charismatic and bad all the way through, like Brighton Rock. Brighton Rock is a long thin tube of sugar confectionery, flavoured with peppermint, and with the word 'Brighton' in the middle of it all the way through from one end to the other. Pinkie Brown is the Brighton Rock of the title.

IMHO this is Richard Attenborough's finest hour as an actor in front of the camera. He creates a wonderful, terrifying villainous persona, not a million miles away from the monster put together by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs nearly forty years later. Pinkie doesn't shout, swear, threaten or bluster: he is quiet, usually impeccably polite and friendly, even in the company of someone he is about to kill and even when both men know it. He does very scary things without so much as a hesitation or a second thought. In 1947, I doubt if many British filmgoers were familiar with the word 'psychopath', but once the end credits were running on Brighton Rock, they knew what one was. Oh yes indeedy.

Pinkie's ''romantic'' connection with the innocent and vulnerable Rose is one of the creepiest things about this dark and creepy film. She is attracted to a man for the first time in her life (and it has to be Pinkie Brown). She more than half suspects that he is a very bad boy, which of course enhances his appeal. He is at all times a perfect gentleman in his behaviour towards her, as far as she knows.

We, the viewers, can see the horrible attraction Rose hold for Pinkie Brown. It isn't simply that she is good looking (she is, of course) but that she is, in her own way, the picture of innocence. That itself is fascinating to Pinkie, who knows theoretically that such a thing exists but has never seen it for real before. Also, he is a horrendous mixture of cruelty, malice and deadly patience. If she ever fell wholly into his power, he would break her physically and emotionally into a million pieces, but there's no hurry. Most of the pleasure in fishing is baiting the hook, and waiting...

The scratch in the vinyl record on which Pinkie has expressed his true feelings for Rose is a really clever cinematic trick. Even at the end, she still hasn't grasped what has been going on: we omniscient viewers pity her but are cruelly superior, almost like Gods in Ancient Greece, and very like Pinkie Brown in the action of the film. I like this ending a lot.

IMHO Brighton Rock is the best out of the very few film noir offerings to emerge from the UK: We Brits weren't very suited to this subversive way of seeing. the Americans were past masters and the French were also excellent but we Brits? Perhaps we thought it wasn't cricket...