I have been going through the first edition of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (2003 New Burlington Books), and highly recommend it to film noir fans. All the major noirs are included, and the commentaries are fresh and incisive.
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On Dangerous Ground (1952) – A Definitive Noir?
Another interesting post from the mardecortesbaja.com blog:
Nicholas Ray’s On Dangerous Ground is a problematic film noir on many grounds but in an odd way it helps define the genre. More precisely, it helps us realize that film noir isn’t really a genre at all but a way of identifying a particular strain of post-WWII dread as it came to infect many different kinds of film…
Film Noir Trailers
Film Noir Trailers:
Blackmail
Brick
Conflict
Crossfire
Dark Passage
Detective Story
DOA
Don’t Bother to Knock
Double Indemnity
Gilda
Hold Back Tomorrow
I Want To Live
In a Lonely Place
Lady in the Lake
Leave Her To Heaven
Mildred Pierce
Ministry of Fear
Peter Gunn
Private Hell 36
Slightly Scarlet
Strange Triangle
Sunset Boulevard
The Accused
The Big Clock
The Big Sleep
The Bribe
This Gun for Hire
The Lady From Shanghai
The Lost Weekend
They Drive by Night
To Have and Have Not
The Maltese Falcon
This Gun For Hire
The Third Man
Touch Of Evil
Art Noir: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942)
Nighthawks (1942). The Art Institute of Chicago.
From a recent post on Neatorama
NO WAY OUT: Look closely; there’s no entrance to this diner. We as observers are shut out, and the figures are trapped within. The only door looks to be a service exit to the kitchen, so the only figure who can escape is the busboy, who is separated from the diners not only by the counter, but also by his white-clothed innocence and youth…
Undercurrent (1946): A Katharine Hepburn Film Noir?
From a review by Jamie S. Rich of DVD Talkof the just released Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection DVD Box Set (Warner Bros. US$59.95)
Undercurrent has started to pick up a bit of a reputation as a film noir. I first heard of the film last year when it played as part of a noir festival at the Northwest Film Center. I’m not really sure it qualifies, however, unless we can establish a subgenre of women’s noir. The plot has more in common with Victorian melodramas like Wuthering Heights and the work of Daphne Du Maurier (and her frequent adapter Alfred Hitchcock) than it does the moody expressionism of Fritz Lang or Jules Dassin. Genre hair-splitting aside, however, I found Undercurrent to be absolutely riveting. [Director Vincent] Minnelli creates a palpable sense of foreboding that lingers over the picture, ratcheting up the suspense each time Anne finds something new to cause her to doubt her husband’s story only to be placated by his wily explanations. You just know that eventually one of these things is going to be too large for him to erase, and then Anne is going to be in real trouble.”
Robert Mitchum has a supporting role.
Out of The Past (1947): The Prototypical Film Noir
Otto Penzler in his book, 101 Greatest Films of Mystery & Suspense (ibooks, NY, 2000):
If any one film could be said to epitomize the term film noir, Out of the Past would be it. The tough hero who is doomed for love of the wrong woman; the treacherous femme fatale who double-crosses every man she meets; the inevitability of the past resurfacing to assure violent death; the night, when everything seems to happen so commonly that daylight seems an intrusion; gangsters; nightclubs; jazz; bright lights; deep shadows; a good woman lost; dialogue that sounds like pulp poetry – all of it and more can be found in Out of the Past. (p.281)
Penzler also quotes what must be one of the great film noir lines, spoken by the hero to the femme-fatale: “You’re like a leaf that the wind blows from one gutter to another.”
Top 50 Voted Films Noir at IMDB
Released by IMDB on May 26, 2007
Rank Rating Title Votes
1. 8.6 Sunset Blvd. (1950) 27,768
2. 8.5 M (1931) 20,791
3. 8.5 The Third Man (1949) 29,064
4. 8.4 Double Indemnity (1944) 19,108
5. 8.4 The Maltese Falcon (1941) 30,073
6. 8.3 Touch of Evil (1958) 18,111
7. 8.3 Strangers on a Train (1951) 17,667
8. 8.3 Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) 3,584
9. 8.3 The Big Sleep (1946) 16,050
10. 8.3 Notorious (1946) 16,941
11. 8.3 Ace in the Hole (1951) 1,866
12. 8.2 I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) 2,242
13. 8.2 The Killing (1956) 12,064
14. 8.2 Sweet Smell of Success (1957) 4,054
15. 8.2 Out of the Past (1947) 5,024
16. 8.2 Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 10,042
17. 8.1 The Night of the Hunter (1955) 12,629
18. 8.1 White Heat (1949) 5,195
19. 8.0 Nightmare Alley (1947) 983
20. 8.0 Laura (1944) 7,606
21. 8.0 The Set-Up (1949) 1,397
22. 8.0 Key Largo (1948) 8,739
23. 8.0 Night and the City (1950) 1,037
24. 8.0 Body and Soul (1947) 809
25. 7.9 Scarface (1932) 4,434
26. 7.9 The Big Heat (1953) 2,981
27. 7.9 Pickup on South Street (1953) 1,606
28. 7.9 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) 4,204
29. 7.9 The Killers (1946) 2,670
30. 7.8 Ossessione (1943) 1,065
31. 7.8 The Roaring Twenties (1939) 1,892
32. 7.8 In a Lonely Place (1950) 2,706
33. 7.8 The Asphalt Jungle (1950) 4,481
34. 7.8 The Narrow Margin (1952) 970
35. 7.8 Deadly Is the Female (1950) 1,445
36. 7.8 Scarlet Street (1945) 1,673
37. 7.7 The Woman in the Window (1944) 1,354
38. 7.7 The Lady from Shanghai (1947) 4,073
39. 7.7 This Gun for Hire (1942) 1,042
40. 7.7 The Big Clock (1948) 1,035
41. 7.7 Gilda (1946) 4,896
42. 7.7 Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 666
43. 7.7 The Letter (1940) 1,943
44. 7.6 Thieves’ Highway (1949) 527
45. 7.6 Brute Force (1947) 732
46. 7.6 Kiss of Death (1947) 1,031
47. 7.6 Mildred Pierce (1945) 3,916
48. 7.6 Murder, My Sweet (1944) 1,801
49. 7.6 The Naked City (1948) 1,089
50. 7.6 Sudden Fear (1952) 622
Crime and the American Genre Film
A wide-ranging discussion between Chris Fujiwara and Mark Roberts: It Takes a Thief to Catch a Thief : Crime and the American Genre Film
Mexico And Film Noir
An interesting post from the mardecortesbaja.com blog:
WWII exposed those hidden things for a generation of Americans and in its wake film noir began a systematic investigation of the shadow world at the fringes (and somehow also at the heart) of American culture. In the process, Mexico took on a new aura. It became a kind of shimmering paradise, the locus of an honesty and innocence that no longer seemed feasible along the mean streets and lost highways of post-WWII America…
Films discussed include Out of the Past, Gun Crazy, and The Night of the Iguana.
Film Noir DVDs Available at Amazon: Full List
A Double Life (1947)
Against All Odds (1984)
Anatomy Of A Murder (1959)
Angel Face (1953)
Another Man’s Poison (1951)
Black Angel (1946)
Bob le Flambeur (1955)
Body And Soul (1947)
Boomerang (1947)
Born to Kill (1947)
Breathless (1960)
Brute Force (1947)
C-Man (1949)
Call Northside 777 (1948)
Chinatown (1974)
Classic Film Noir
Cold Around the Heart (1997)
Collector’s Classics: Film Noir
Color of Night (1994)
Crime of Passion (1957)
Criss Cross (1948)
Crossfire (1947)
Dark City: Lost World of Film Noir
Dark Passage (1947)
Deadly Pursuits (1996)
Detour (1946)
Diabolique (1954)
DOA (1950)
Double Indemnity (1944)
East Side Kids (1940)
Fallen Angel (1945)
Farewell My Lovely (1975)
Fear in the Night (1947)
Film Noir – Quicksand/Scarlet Street/Suddenly (1954)
Film Noir Classics Collection(s)
Film Noir Collection – Gilda/In A Lonely Place/The Killers/Double Indemnity
Film Noir Double Feature(s)
Film Noir Pack: Postman Always Rings Twice/Dark Passage/Bad and the Beautiful
Film Noir Thrillers (1945)
Film Noir: Killer Classics (1946)
Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood
Film Noir: The Stranger/Borderline/He Walked Night/Call It Murder/The Red House/DOA/Kansas
Force Of Evil (1948)
Forgotten Noir
Forgotten Noir Collector’s Set
Forgotten Noir: Kit Parker Double Features
Fox Film Noir
Raw Deal (1948)
T-Men (1947)
Gilda (1946)
Gun Crazy (1949)
Hammer Film Noir Collector’s Set
Hard Eight (1997)
He Walked Night (1948)
High and Low (1962)
Hommage A Noir Hommage a Noir (DVD – 2006)
I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
In A Lonely Place (1950)
Jigsaw (1949)
Key Largo (1948)
Killer’s Kiss (1955)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Kiss of Death (1947)
Laura (1944)
Le Corbeau (1943)
Leave Her To Heaven (1946)
Lured (1947)
Man in the Vault (1956)
Max Allen Collins: The Black Box Collection: Shades of Neo-Noir (2006)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Mr Arkadin (1955)
Naked City (1948)
Natural City (2003)
Niagara (1952)
Night and the City (1950)
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
On Dangerous Ground
Out of the Past (1947)
Possessed (1947)
Pulp Cinema
Quai des Orfevres (1947)
Quicksand (1950)
Railroaded (1947)
Raw Deal (1948)
Ring of Fear (1955)
Scarlet Street (1945)
Shoot the Piano Player (1960)
Shoot to Kill (1947)
Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Somewhere in the Night (1946)
Strange Illusion (1945)
Strange Impersonation (1946)
Strangers On A Train (1951)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
T-Men (1947)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
The Best Of Film Noir (2000)
The Big Clock (1948)
The Big Combo (1955)
The Big Heat (1953)
The Big Sleep (1946)
The Blue Dahlia (1946)
The Blue Gardenia (1953)
The Blue Iguana (1988)
The Chase (1947)
The Cover Up (1949)
The Dark Corner (1946)
The Enforcer (1951)
The Girl From Rio (1939)
The Harder They Fall (1956)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)
The Killers (1946)
The Killing (1956)
The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
The Long Night (1947)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Naked City (1948)
The Night Of The Hunter (1955)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
The Scar (1948)
The Second Woman (1951)
The Set-Up (1949)
The Spiral Staircase (1946)
The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers (1946)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers – Lady of Burlesque (1946)
The Stranger (1946)
The Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
The Thief (1952)
The Third Man (1949)
The Third Man – Criterion Collection (1949)
The Ultimate Film Noir Collection
Therese Raquin (1953)
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
They Made Me a Killer (1946)
Thieves’ Highway (1949)
This Gun for Hire (1942)
Too Late for Tears (1949)
Touch Of Evil (1958)
Tough Luck (2003)
Triple Cross (2004)
Ultimate Film Noir Collection
Union City (1979)
Vertigo (1958)
Western Film Noir
Wet Asphalt (1958)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
FilmsNoir.Net - all about film noir 