I think Murder My Sweet is a quintessential noir, crummy detective being taken advantage of by a femme fatale, mostly occurs a night with great photography, Mike Mazurki as the heavy and lots of hats. What don't you like about it?
It is probably a quintessential "detective solving a case" noir. I simply don't like those much. Instead of a hotshot fast talking detective in the lead I would much prefer a shady cop (The Prowler), con man (Nightmare Alley), criminal in hiding (The Scar), cuckolded man (Tension), nagged/whipped husband (Scarlet Street), and possessive father figure who creepily blurs the line (The Red House.) Their motivations are more interesting.
Recently watched 'Where the sidewalk ends' which was absolutely brilliant. I like all sorts of noir, but the 'nastier' the noir then the better in my opinion. This one is up there on the nasty scale. I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a 'nasty noir'? If interested, I would say my favourite noirs are: Third Man (one of the best films ever?) Touch of Evil Big Heat Gilda Double Indemnity Angel Face The Killers Runners up: In a Lonely Place Killer's Kiss Detour Out of the Past DOA Big Sleep Lady from Shanghai Sunset B Maltese Falcon Scarlet Street The Killing Big Combo The Stranger Postman always rings twice
So are The Lineup (what's more psychotic than an angry Eli Wallach, I asks ya!) and Crime Wave (with a creepy-looking young Charles Budinsky a/k/a Charles Bronson and Timothy Carey). The DVD commentaries are by Eddie Muller and James Ellroy and they're terrific too. I'd also add The Prowler to that category, wherein we see a slimy cop (Van Heflin) deteriorate into an evil goo, or something like that.
I guess it's not really film noir in some people's eyes, but it is a Dashiel Hammett story, but I like it because I thought the pair were good together in "This Gun For Hire." I've a VHS copy I bought from the USA twenty years ago. I've not seen it advertised on TV since, though I've never looked that hard.
The Glass Key is absolutely considered to be a classic film noir. I have never read any serious claim to the contrary. I adore Veronica Lake, even though she was nuttier than squirrel shit in real life. In another time and place, I’d have been happy to fall under her femme fatale wheels. The Blue Dahlia is another great Ladd-Lake noir.
With all due respect, I covered my bases as I've read elsewhere a couple of views to the contrary. I was trying to pre-empt a discussion on it. I've always been a fan of Veronica Lake. She had a lot of misfortune, due to an ankle injury her movie career was cut short. Later in life she worked as a waitress for a time. I also liked her in "I Wanted Wings" and "Sullivan's Travels." I've a bit of a film noir collection. I've always liked Alan Ladd. He could sing a bit too, though some might say it's not his voice. Others that it's not the women playing the instruments. I play tenor sax and I can't be sure. They said that about Dooley Wilson, that he neither played the piano or sang in Casablanca. I'll give them the piano, as I bit of a ham pianist myself, it's obvious he isn't playing it.
TCM has put out a 3-disc DVD that features The Glass Key, 1944's Phantom Lady and 1946's The Blue Dahlia (Ladd and Lake again), well-worth getting altho' there are no commentaries; dunno if there's a version you can play in your neck of the woods. Phantom Lady's a nice little film produced by Joan Harrison, who had broken away from Hitchcock at this point to do stuff on her own. Unfortunately it does feature Alan Curtis doing a successful imitation of a block of wood and Franchot Tone who fits nobody's definition of menacing.
There's a new blu-ray of that out, definitely worth getting! I love the seediness of so much of the movie, the surroundings (especially the dump Raven lives in) and of course, the tragic and inimitable Laird Cregar. You can keep your Sydney Greenstreets and Victor Buonos, nobody filled the screen in his way like Cregar did. I always wished Hitchcock had cast him in Saboteur instead of Otto Kruger or given him Cotten's role in Shadow of a Doubt.
It's sad to see Lila Leeds in this movie; she was quite the hottie and her career was beginning to take off, and then she was part of the infamous pot bust of Robert Mitchum in 1948, which didn't hurt his career, to the surprise of most, but effectively ended Leeds'. She ended up doing an exploitation film Wild Weed to try and do penance but it did nothing to restore her to Hollywood's good graces, and heroin addiction would soon follow.
While I've seen a fair few noir movies, I think a blind spot is the straight up gangster movies - stuff like 'angels with dirty faces' - would you consider them noir movies? I guess that is my next stop. I haven't seen 'White Heat' either.
Angels with Dirty Faces is a little early to be considered a true noir of the classic period. However, it is often cited as a precursor, or early noir-like, film. White Heat is definitely considered a noir picture. As we’ve seen elsewhere in this thread, film noir has always suffered from an identity crisis, leading some to embrace only the most narrow, reductive definition of the term. For me, that way is a fool’s errand, resulting in the dismissal of many fine films, especially non-American productions from the 1940s and 1950s.
This post prompted me to look up some more about Lila Leeds.What a knockout, really. According to this blog post, THIS DAZZLING TIME: LILA LEEDS - How bad can a good girl get? Lila eventually found herself doing volunteer work in religious missions in LA. Judging from her age on passing away in 1999- 70 or 71- it appears that she managed to rid herself of her heroin habit, or at least avoided the worst consequences of addiction, and show business.
The Night of The Hunter's considered noir?!? The term "film noir" sure encompasses a broad spectrum of movies; it's my all-time favorite film! I never viewed it as noir.... (I wonder if the movie The Window then, is film noir? Some consider it to be, some don't......)
I don’t set the categories on the Blu-ray.com website. I wouldn’t necessarily call The Night of the Hunter noir either, but I guess some people see the expressionist visuals in those terms. German expressionism certainly influenced the later film noir style.
´ ...... Below some lesser known UK-Noir recommendations from the late 40s & 50s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo0tEaz95no https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-RVtDWT208 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2DFKyWTYGE ............................
The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, Double Indemnity, The Informer in the 40s, and then for the latter day stuff there's Chinatown, Body Heat, and Blade Runner. I would argue that all of these are not just first-rate noir, but brilliant films that transcend their genres. But there's a lot of fun to be had in the second-tier stuff where the production values aren't as high or the plot and acting are dodgy. Give me a lot of hard, angular shadows and backlit characters and I'm guaranteed to have a good time.
i saw my first gull wing MB in “Screaming Skull” ... not a noir and not a very good horror flick although it gave me the heebee jeebies at the age of 10
