Your favourite films noire.

[Mile88]

My favorite noir's:

This Gun for Hire (1942)
The Glass Key (1942)
The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Call Northside 777 (1948)
Fury (1936)

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake are amazing together.

[Sir Honkers]

Chinatown, Blood Simple, and Crimes Of Passion. deepsepia's nomination of The Man Who Wasn't There also gets a ringing endorsement.

[Meini Hirion]

...mainly because of Valentina Cortese

A Jules Dassin film ~ made before he was forced out of the USA because of the 'Blacklist' ~ stopping in the UK and then Greece. Melina ....

Good development of characters, taught editing and way superior in style to many of the 'bigger' Hollywood films to which it was second billed.

And Valentina Cortese

An OTT Review from 2012 on IMDB even...

Absolutely sensational thriller from Jules Dassin and starring Richard Conte on top form.
One would not have imagined that a film revolving around the apple trade would be even the slightest bit interesting but this is a stunner.

The tension is so extreme at time

The script from A J Bezzerides based upon his original book is articulate, intelligent, funny and political and with such blistering dialogue and faultless direction and camera work, including trademark montages, this movie never pauses for breath.

We even get sizzling non explicit sex scenes courtesy of the lead and an equally stunning performance from Valentina Cortesa. Just wait for the late scene when the aforementioned lady to declare in full sarcastic mode, 'Aren't women wonderful'. I gasped and you will too - see it now!

That reviewer should have just said....
And Valentina Cortese

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

This is a late flower of the British film industry, shortly before it ceased to exist. It is possibly the first true British gangster film.

{snip}

This is film noir.

A big thank you to scoundrel for what really is an essay . . . was looking for "something good we haven't seen" -- this goes to the top of the list.

Don't know if I'd mentioned it before, but there was a kinda interesting HBO original film, with an 1930s era LA private dick by the name of HP Lovecraft. Its horror meets film noire, somewhat in the vein of Kolchak. It was called "Cast a Deadly Spell"; its on Youtube -- complete, but at 360 res.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhKio_WCDWI

Was a Gale Anne Hurd production(aka James Cameron's ex, producer of "Walking Dead"), there was an even more rarely seen sequel called "Witch Hunt"

[rodak]

As far as classic noir I'm gonna go with Lady in the Lake.
Great movie that was ahead of it time in that it was filmed almost entirely in First Person.
You watch the film through the eyes of the films star.



New school I'm gonna go with the sci-fi/noir film Dark City.
This one is full of eye candy and I'm not speaking of Jeniffer Connelly.

[scoundrel]

This is an unusual crime noir, all about character and fate in the best tragic tradition. Joan Crawford (Mommie in Mommie Dearest of course) is both beautiful and a terrific player who manages to play a flawed character in a deeply sympathetic way. What we warm to in Mildred is her courage, energy and sincerity and honour; but in some crucial respects she is a bad mother and she is also socially ambitious in a blinkered and narrow way and the plot of the film is the story of Mildred's nemesis.

The problems do not begin when Mildred parts ways with her first husband but this is first crack in the edifice caused by issues which pre-date their actual quarrel. Bert Pierce was never quite the earner who could support the posh house, ballet lessons and music lessons for the kids etc. etc. and he has never quite shared the underlying snobbery which drives all this, but he did support it by working extra hard until his job went sour. He thinks, since he is now out of work, that his wife could reconsider their family lifestyle, and she wont.

What Mildred refuses to see is that she has spoiled their children and that Bert is not only worried about the money, but is actually just as worried that they could turn out bad and that in fact his eldest daughter is turning out bad even as he watchs. Bert is right and in her deepest heart Mildred knows that Vida is a problem of Mildred's own making. Mildred is far too concerned with money and wants to live well; but where Mildred still has limits and a firm middle class morality, Vida's moral turpitude is evident in little things from the beginning of the film. It is first a serious issue when she urges her mother to seek marraige from Bert's wealthy but drunkard and not very trustworthy former business partner, Wally Fay.

Wally is a lecherous heel who has been trying to corrupt Mildred's morals for years; his best character attribute is that he never tries to pretend he isn't a heel and he is in fact a good businessman. In matter of business he is reliable and honest and he is instrumental in helping Mildred to rebuild her material life by starting her own restaurant, using her culinary skills plus the trade skills she gained from grafting as a waitress to get desperately needed money in when she has become a single mother. Wally wouldn't let Mildred down on a thing such as this; in fact, despite being a heel whose motives are thoroughly impure, he is (within certain parameters) geniunely her friend and genuinely wishes her good things.

But Vida thinks that Mildred is missing an open goal. Wally would certainly marry Mildred in order:
1. To get what he wants.
2. Because he quite likes her and she would discharge wifely duties with skill, charm and style, making a good trophy wife.

But Mildred has straightforward views. She didn't divorce Bert even though he is living openly with another woman (this relationship was the trigger of their quarrel but not really the cause of it); she bites the divorce bullet in order to protect her one third share of the restaurant from Bert's creditors. She isn't flighty or casual about marraige and she sees the divorce as a bitter personal defeat: also, she still has feelings for Bert even though some of those feelings are rage and jealousy. Vida's idea that Mildred should marry Wally is totally immoral because Mildred has no such feelings for Wally: but Vida thinks that's just fine.

Vida is the snake in paradise here. She has a parasitic and nasty character (Ann Blyth is very good as Vida) and holds up a distorting mirror to Mildred showing all the worst sides of Mildred's own personality in magnification and with none of the redeeming decency and humanity of Mildred's own nature. Vida wants to live the high life without worrying about money and is scornful of her own mother for earning money which pays for Vida's life. Vida sees nothing wrong with marrying a rich boy and getting paid off to allow an annulment, or with pretending to be pregnant to get the pay off; in fact she thinks its funny. Vida is determined to escape (as she sees it). The rift between mother and daughter, when it comes, is dark and satisfying. Having seen what Vida has turned out to be, her mother banishes her from the family home on pain of death. But Bert has been vindicated and its all too late.

Ida Corwin [the restaurant manageress who gave Mildred her first job] : "Personally, Vida has convinced me that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young."

The denoument is cruel, and satisfying and in one way it is redeeming. Mildred is left to contemplate her life in ruins. She will even have to sell her restaurant chain because Vida and her worthless second husband Monte Beregon have squandered the working capital and she has no children left (Vida doesn't count anymore); and she even fails to take the rap for an extremely serious crime Vida has committed, succeeding only in deflecting police accusations away from Bert, who also tried to lie to get Mildred off, thinking it was Mildred whodunnit. "Its your fault I'm the way I am": these are true and deadly words. Mildred walks out of the police station in a state of utter prostration and finds to her surprise that Bert is waiting.

Bert doesn't need Mildred; he has rebuilt his own life. But in fact at this moment of crisis and disaster he came running, and not for Vida's sake. Bert wrote Vida off before Mildred ever did. But in spite of the divorce and the other woman, who parted company with Bert long ago, Bert has never stopped caring about Mildred and, if truth really is told, he never really divorced her in his heart. If she has been a bad wife (and she has) he has been a much worse husband. But he would have gone to the electric chair for her and now she knows he tried to do this to save her neck. Fact is, she has never needed him as she needs him now and she knows that the man who would die for her will live for her. Its not exactly a happy ending, its very noir, but it has the ring of truth. These two are going to face it together.

[Roubignol]

Blow out (1981) by Brian De Palma



I watched it when I was 15 years old thanks to the professor of philosophy who managed the film library of the college.

[Schwenck]

There is a lot of great film noir, but my favourites are The Maltese Falcon (John Huston version) and Double Indemnity.

[Staffsyeoman]

Double Indemnity (as well) and Sorry, Wrong Number.

[stuffstuff]

The Narrow Margin