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".
Mr Wong, Detective (1938)
6.2/10
Director: William Nigh
Starring: Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, Evelyn Brent
Following in the inscrutable footsteps of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto, Boris Karloff portrayed Chinese-born crimefighter Mr Wong in a series of classic... Read more
Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
8/10
Director: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft
A classic Warner Bros 'urban crime drama' of two kids from the wrong side of the tracks - Hell's Kitchen in New York; one becomes a priest (Pat O'Brie... Read more
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
7.9/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Cecil Parker
One of Hitchcock's best British films; Dame May Whitty stars as the kindly old woman who befriends a young English girl on a European train, and then... Read more
The Humphrey Bogart Collection of Films: Across the Pacific / All Through the Night / Bullets or Ballots / Dark Passage (1936)
Director: Delmer Daves, John Huston, Vincent Sherman, William Keighley
Starring: Conrad Veidt, Edward G Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Joan Blondell, Lauren Bacall,...
Humphrey Bogart Box Set. 'Across the Pacific' (1942) - When disgraced American military officer Rick Leland (Bogart) boards a Japanese ship, he is app... Read more
The Petrified Forest (1936)
7.6/10
Director: Archie Mayo
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Leslie Howard
Adapted from Robert E Sherwood's Broadway hit, Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard reprise their respective stage roles as gangster, Duke and writer, Al... Read more
Sabotage (1936)
7.1/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, John Loder
Based on Joseph Conrad's 'Secret Agent' in which Sylvia Sidney suspects her husband, a theatre manager, is keeping something from her - he is a sabote... Read more
Sabotage (Blu-ray) (1936)
7.1/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, John Loder
Based on Joseph Conrad's 'Secret Agent' in which Sylvia Sidney suspects her husband, a theatre manager, is keeping something from her - he is a sabote... Read more
The 39 Steps (1935)
7.8/10
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim
A Canadian leaves London and goes to Scotland in order to find the spy ring that has stabbed a woman to death at his flat. What follows is Hitchcock's... Read more
Call It Murder (1934)
5.5/10
Director: Chester Erskine
Starring: Henry Hull, Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Wycherley, Sidney Fox
Aka 'Midnight'. One of Humphrey Bogart's first featured roles was as a gangster in 'Call It Murder', the story of a man who must help his daughter whe... Read more
The Invisible Man (1933)
7.7/10
Director: James Whale
Starring: Claude Rains, Gloria Stuart, Una O'Connor
A super version of HG Wells' fantasy, with Claude Rains playing the scientist who experiments with a drug which, while it makes him invisible, also tu... Read more