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".
Madeleine (1950)
7/10
Director: David Lean
Starring: Ann Todd, Ivan Desny, Leslie Banks
"Madeleine" was inspired by a true story that rocked the English legal system to its foundations in the mid-19th century. Told in flashback, the film... Read more
Call Northside 777 (1948)
7.4/10
Director: Henry Hathaway
Starring: James Stewart, Lee J Cobb, Richard Conte, Helen Walker
When a classified ad grabs the attention of Chicago Times editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), he sends ace reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) to dig u... Read more
Rancho Notorious (1952)
7/10
Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, Mel Ferrer
Fritz Lang's final film noir infused western - a highly moral and distinctly feminist tale that innovatively reworked his themes of love, betrayal and... Read more
The Woman in the Window (1944)
7.8/10
Director: Fritz Lang
Starring: Dan Duryea, Edward G Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey
Fritz Lang directs this dazzling film noir showing Edward G. Robinson as an amiable professor invited to join beautiful model Joan Bennett in her apar... Read more
Crime Wave / Decoy (1954)
Director: Andre De Toth, Jack Bernhard
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Edward Norris, Jean Gillie, Charles Bronson
Film noir double feature features the underrated noir thriller 'Crime Wave' (1954), about a hardboiled LA cop out to get a 'reformed' ex-con who was l... Read more
Taxi Driver ( Blu-ray ) (1976)
8.3/10
Director: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Albert Brooks, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Jodie Foster, Peter Boyle, Robert...
A disturbingly brutal depiction of a lonely, unstable New York City cab driver (Robert De Niro) who stalks a presidential candidate, then turns his vi... Read more
Brute Force (1947)
7.7/10
Director: Jules Dassin
Starring: Ann Blyth, Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford, Hume Cronyn, Yvonne De Carlo, Ella...
As hard-hitting as its title, "Brute Force" was the first of Jules Dassin's forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama that takes a critical look... Read more
The Spiral Staircase (1945)
7.5/10
Director: Robert Siodmak
Starring: Dorothy McGuire, Elsa Lanchester, Ethel Barrymore, George Brent, Kent Smith, Rho...
This compelling suspenser stars Dorothy McGuire as a servant, left mute by a childhood trauma, caring for invalid Ethel Barrymore in a Victorian New E... Read more
The Night of the Hunter ( Blu-ray ) (1955)
8/10
Director: Charles Laughton
Starring: Lillian Gish, Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters
Robert Mitchum gives one of his best performances as Harry Powell, a psychotic self-styled preacher who is after the stolen money of a hanged man. Set... Read more
Black Angel (1946)
7/10
Director: Roy William Neill
Starring: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford, Wallace Ford, John Ph...
An imaginative and effective noir adapted from the novel by Cornell Woolrich, with Dan Duryea as a down-hearted musician who goes on a bender after hi... Read more