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Classic Film Noir

Here be those darkly vexing offerings one should include in their diet periodically. Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Frank Nino in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark' and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France following the war. It was a style of black and white American films that first evolved in the 1940s, became prominent in the post-war era, and lasted in a classic "Golden Age" period until about 1965. With the list below Alice has included many "Contempory Noirs", making browsing that much more "coloured"..... Right: Orson Wells stars and directs "A Touch Of Evil".

Kiss of Death (1947)

7.5/10
Director: Henry Hathaway
Starring: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, Karl Malden

This superior noir crime thriller stars Victor Mature as a crook who turns state's evidence when his gang betrays him and leaves him to rot in jail. R... Read more

La Fuerza Del Destion/Force Of Evil (Blu-ray) (1948)

7.3/10
Director: Abraham Polonsky
Starring: Beatrice Pearson, John Garfield, Thomas Gomez

Film Noir featuring John Garfield as an attorney who works for a mobster and finds himself caught in a numbers racket scheme that could bankrupt New Y... Read more

Lady in a Cage (1964)

6.9/10
Director: Walter Grauman
Starring: James Caan, Olivia de Havilland, Rafael Campos

Olivia de Havilland plays an aging, wealthy widow who is recuperating from a recent hip operation and is forced to use an elevator to get from one sto... Read more

Lady in the Lake (1946)

6.6/10
Director: Robert Montgomery
Starring: Audrey Totter, Leon Ames, Lloyd Nolan, Robert Montgomery, Tom Tully

Robert Montgomery stars in and directs this snappy adaptation of Raymond Chandler's hardboiled detective mystery. The case begins when Marlowe, the pr... Read more

Lady of Burlesque (1943)

6.4/10
Director: William A Wellman
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck

A mystery novel by stripper Gypsy Rose Lee served as the basis for this entertaining whodunit, with Barbara Stanwyck as the star of a burlesque house... Read more

Laura (1944)

8.1/10
Director: Otto Preminger
Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

One of the greatest Hollywood whodunits ever made, Otto Preminger's noir-flavored thriller stars Dana Andrews as a detective investigating the murder... Read more

Lauren Bacall: Key Largo / Blood Alley / Dark Passage / Designing Woman (1957)

9/10
Director: Delmer Daves, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli, William A Wellman
Starring: Edward G Robinson, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Lauren Bacall

Lauren Bacall Box Set. 'Dark Passage' (1947) - Humphrey Bogart is a prison escapee framed for murder who emerges from plastic surgery with a new face.... Read more

Leave Her to Heaven (1946)

7.8/10
Director: John M Stahl
Starring: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price

Gene Tierney received a Best Actress nomination for her depiction of a jealous woman unable to control her possessive instincts. This classic melodram... Read more

Lifeboat (1944)

7.8/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, John Hodiak, Hume Cronyn, Cana...

From a story by John Steinbeck, director Alfred Hitchcock's riveting film of human strengths and frailties under extraordinary circumstances finds eig... Read more

Little Caesar (1930)

7.3/10
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Edward G Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr

Edward G. Robinson gives a powerful performance as Caesar Enrico Bandello, one of moviedom's most infamous and ruthless criminals. This landmark film... Read more