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".
Female Jungle (1956)
5.6/10
Director: Bruno Vesota
Starring: Jayne Mansfield, Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine
Aka 'The Hangover'. Taking place over the course of a night this fifties take on film-noir tells the story of the murder of a glamorous blonde actress... Read more
The Killing/Killer's Kiss (Blu-ray) (1956)
8.2/10
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards
An early Stanley Kubrick classic about an elaborate race track robbery filmed with total artistic freedom using a multilayered simultaneous storyline.... Read more
The Killing (1956)
8/10
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards
An early Stanley Kubrick classic about an elaborate race track robbery filmed with total artistic freedom using a multilayered simultaneous storyline.... Read more
A Life at Stake (1955)
5.8/10
Starring: Angela Lansbury, Keith Andes, Claudia Barrett, Jane Darwell, Gavin Gordon
An out-of-work architect meets a married woman who has a business proposition for him. The architect begins to suspect the woman's interest in him is... Read more
The Big Combo (1955)
7.4/10
Director: Joseph Lewis
Starring: Cornel Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donlevy
A violent film Noir about the struggle between a crime syndicate and forces of law and order, in the shape of a persistent cop who is out to nail a cu... Read more
Killer's Kiss (1955)
6.7/10
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane
Killer's Kiss is a 1955 movie produced, directed and written by a 27 year old Stanley Kubrick. Coming off the heels of a poorly received first effort,... 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
Violent Saturday (1955)
6.9/10
Director: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Victor Mature
A number of otherwise insignificant small-town stories erupt into drama when a gang of hoodlums decides to rob the local bank. A father looking for pr... Read more
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 1 (1955)
8.6/10
Starring: Lorne Greene, Cloris Leachman, Vera Miles, Claude Rains, Joanne Woodward, Charle...
Join the legendary Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock for all 39 episodes of the first season of the Emmy Award-winning murder mystery series that in... Read more
Bob the Gambler ( Bob le Flambeur ) (1955)
7.8/10
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Isabelle Corey, Roger Duchesne, Daniel Cauchy
Suffused with wry humour, Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Bob le Flambeur' melds the toughness of American gangster films with Gallic sophistication to lay th... Read more