Film Noir

The Amazing Mr. X, also known as The Spiritualist, is a 1948 thriller film directed by Bernard Vorhaus with cinematography by John Alton. Like the film noir Nightmare Alley released a year earlier, this film tells the story of a phony spiritualist racket.

He’s just a gigolo, everywhere he goes.  He’s Ricardo “They call me Rick” DeVilla.  He seduces a wealthy and sickly widow, Vanessa Bancroft, and plays the part of the good husband.  Really he’s a bad, bad boy.  Even the bongo player wants to kill him for fooling around with his wife.

This violent, dark film tells of tormented Police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde), who is on a personal crusade to bring down sadistic gangster Mr. Brown (Richard Conte). He’s also dangerously obsessed with Brown’s girlfriend (Jean Wallace), his captive lover.

This dream-like film noir is about Chuck Scott (Robert “Love That Bob” Cummings), a World War II vet now a penniless drifter tormented by bizarre dreams, who takes a job as driver to Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), a vicious gangster.

D.O.A. (1950), a film noir drama film directed by Rudolph Mata, is considered a classic of the genre. The frantically-paced plot revolves around a doomed man’s quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies.

A piano player, Al (Neal), sets off hitchhiking his way to California to be with his girl. Along the way, a stranger in a convertible gives him a ride. While driving, Al stops to put the top up during a rainstorm. He discovers that the owner of the car has died in his sleep. Al panics and dumps the body in a gully and drives off in his car. Later, he picks up another hitchhiker. Vera, (Savage) a femme fatale, threatens to turn him in for the supposed murder unless he assumes the identity of the dead man to collect an inheritance.

Bank teller Vince Grayson (DeForest Kelley) dreams that he stabs someone in an octagonal room of mirrors and locks the body in a closet. When he wakes up, he discovers marks on his throat, a strange key and a button in his pocket, and blood on his cuff. Cliff Herlihy (Paul Kelly), his police officer brother-in-law, tries to convince him it was just a dream.

Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck) falls for a jewel thief and helps him steal her aunts jewelry. She ends up shooting her formerly-rich aunt but makes it look like an outside job. The D.A. falls in love with her and gets her off. From there things go badly.

A 1947 film-noir about an inmate with only a year on his sentence who is forced to participate in a prison break.

The Great Flamarion is an arrogant, friendless, sideshow marksman who displays his trick gunshot act in the vaudeville circuit. He falls in love with the magicians assistant. She tries to get him to kill her husband.

Steve McQueen plays a college dropout hired to be the getaway driver in a bank robbery. It’s based on a real 1953 case.

Gripping film noir crime drama about a manhunt for a ruthless killer who plays a deadly cat and mouse game with the police. Starring Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Whit Bissell, and Jack Webb, this movie was the basis for “Dragnet”. Watch for Whit Bissell, the unsung but solid bit player who has appeared in hundreds of films and TV shows.

It’s another film noir directed by Ida Lupino. Two hunting buddies who pick up a mysterious hitchhiker. It was based on a story by screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, who was blacklisted for being a communist.

Lawrence Tierney (“Reservoir Dogs”) plays an unreformed, hardened criminal who has just been released from prison. While working at his brother’s gas station, he becomes very interested in the armored car that makes regular stops at the bank across the street.

I Love Trouble is a 1948 film noir written by Roy Huggins from his first novel The Double Take, directed by S. Sylvan Simon, and starring Franchot Tone as Stuart Bailey. The character of Stuart Baily was later portrayed by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in the television series 77 Sunset Strip.

Hard bitten San Francisco industrialist Walter Williams’s two-timing wife and her lover plot to do her husband in, but instead the boyfriend gets killed and mistaken for.

Doctor Velonius explains the story of a man who committed murder to a woman on a rail train. The main takes refuge in a boarding house because he is trapped by a storm. This print is a little tattered, but this is a pretty good example of film noir.

Jigsaw is a 1949 film noir made by Tower Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by Fletcher Markle and produced by Edward J. Danziger and Harry Lee Danziger from a screenplay by Vincent McConnor and Fletcher Markle from a story by John Roeburt.

Kansas City Confidential is a 1952 black-and-white crime film directed by Phil Karlson and starring John Payne. Karlson and Payne teamed up a year later for another black-and-white film, this time a noir, titled 99 River Street, followed by a 1955 color film, Hell’s Island.

Angela Lansbury plays another bad girl who starts an affair with an out of luck builder and architect. He begins to figure out that she really isn’t interested in him, but wants to kill him off for insurance money.

Lloyd Bridges plays an ex-GI, Frank Pryor, who arrives in London to visit a wartime girlfriend, whom he hasn’t seen in six years. His arrival at the airport coincides with a man being killed by a sniper, and he finds himself to be a suspect.

A poor woman (Ann Harding) wins the lottery and soon she’s swept off her feet by a nice man (Basil Rathbone) but after they’re married she begins to think he has a few secrets including murder.

Socialite wants a divorce from her wealthy husband, but she thinks he’s gonna kill her. Well it doesn’t work out that way. The husband ends up dead. Her boyfriend is a cop, whose brother gets assigned to investigate the case.

An expose of the bribery of parole board officials by the underworld to obtain the illegal release of hardened gangsters from prison. The government sends FBI agent Richard Hendricks, at the request of the state governor, to investigate.

An actor is killed during the performance of a play and critic Tony Woolrich (Dave O’Brien) undertakes to solve the crime. Claudia Moore (Kay Aldridge, in her last movie role), the girl he loves, is suspected, but when two more deaths occur, she is also threatened by the Phantom Killer.

Please Murder Me is a 1956 film starring Raymond Burr and Angela Landsbury. It’s a film noir with Burr playing a lawyer. It’s like a character he would reprise a year later as the famous Perry Mason. Looking at this, it must be a reason that he got the role. I can’t say too much about this film because anything I would say from here would be a spoiler. I really enjoyed it. I hope you do too.

Port of New York is a 1949 film shot in semidocumentary style. The film is notable for being Yul Brynner’s first movie. The film, which is very similar to T-Men (1947), was shot on location in New York City. The movie was directed by László Benedek with cinematography by George E. Diskant.

Here’s a pretty good little film noir presentation from the 1940′s. It stars Edward G. Robinson and Lon McCallister. You’ll notice the bad girl that is a very young Julie London of later singing fame.

A mild banker and amateur painter is at a dinner honouring him for for twenty-five years of service in the bank for which he works. Enroute home he helps Kitty , an amoral femme fatale apparently being attacked by a man. Soon, he is enamoured of her, since his own domestic life is ruled by his bullying wife Adele (Rosalind Ivan), who idolises her former husband, a policeman drowned while trying to save a woman.

This film noir tells the story of Jeff Cohalan (Robert Young). He’s a successful architect who is tormented by the fact that his fiancée was killed in a mysterious car accident on the night before their wedding.

Strange Illusion is a 1945 American film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. According to noir historian Spencer Selby the film is,A stylish cheapie by the recognized master of stylish cheapies.

Martha Ivers tried to get away from her aunt. She and her friend Sam were caught by the police and returns. When Mrs. Ivers attacks Martha’s pet cat with her cane; Martha intervenes and accidentally kills her aunt. After this, the movie is a great film noir full of blackmail and intrigue..

Here’s a strange little film about a “Strange Woman” played by Hedy Lamar and directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. In the style of film noir, this film tells the story of Jenny Hager, a beautiful woman who can get men to do anything she wants.

Edward G. Robinson pursues a nazi war criminal named Franz Kindler. He thinks it’s the kindly college professor played by Orson Welles. Only a dead man can link him to the crimes… or is it his own obsessions that will finally be his undoing. If you haven’t caught this film, this is a keeper in the realm of public domain films.

A man pretending to be a doctor holds up a train and escapes with a $500,000 payroll. The insurance company puts its best investigator, Charlie Norman, on the case to work. A pretty nifty film noir.

Too Late for Tears is a 1949 black-and-white film noir starring Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. Alan Palmer accidentally gets a hold of $60,000 in stolen cash. Lizabeth Scott is one of the great movie femme fatales and plays his plotting wife Jane.

Chuck Connors as plays an over-the-top, slightly psychotic big-game hunter. He’s out for revenge on an army officer who he thinks got his brother killed.

Taking place in Quebec City, The Whispering City tells the story of a lawyer and a patron of the arts, Albert Frédéric, who, earlier in life, caused a murder and made it look like an accident for financial gain. Later in life, a dying woman tells a reporter the tale of how she thinks the accident was actually murder.

A prosecuting attorney treats every homicide case as first degree murder and uses miniature replicas of human skulls to tally the death sentences that he garners. Then he himself is beset by the urge to murder.

A cop gets killed when he runs into some gangster Marty Clark heisting a warehouse. This is a film noir, gumshoe gangster movie of the cheapest variety and it kind of rambles a bit. It’s still a fair movie and a pretty good example of the film noir genre.