Film Noir Discussion and Recommendations

[HarleyQuinn]

The most notable is Vincent Price. He had an amazing career before doing horror (Laura is one of my favorite movies in the Film Noir genre)

- Detective Ventriloquist

I've dabbled in the genre before and have liked what I've seen (currently blanking on the titles though) so what are some recommendations that TRTSM can make for people looking to get into the genre?

 

[DMann1979]

Maybe you have or haven't seen some of thse titles, but the big ones would be:

Double Indemnity
Detour
D.O.A.
The Lady From Shanghai
Out of the Past
The Big Sleep
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Scarlet Street
The Woman in the Window

 

[Jingus]

I'd also strongly recommend Kiss Me Deadly and especially Touch of Evil for classic noirs. And they still get made right into the modern day: Blade Runner counts as a noir. And to everyone who's never seen Brick, then, I implore go: GO WATCH BRICK.

 

[Valeyard]

Brick tries way too hard to be clever. It's fine enough, but I found it really underwhelming. The hype didn't help, truthfully.

No one mentions Dark Passage when they talk noir, and it's a shame. Bogart and Bacall bring it, and it's got some really innovative things happening.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject

Pitfall (Andre De Toth, 1948)

I'm not usually a huge fan of Dick Powell as a noir hero, since the memory of Busby Berkeley musicals makes it hard to take him seriously as a hard boiled tough guy. Here, though, he's cast as a bourgeois dope who falls for Lizabeth Scott's eyebrows (who wouldn't!) and gets sucked into embezzlement and blackmail schemes. The pace is impressively deliberate, with a sense of inevitable doom gathering like clouds on the horizon before slowly rolling over the the whole film.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

There was a great series put out by Fox Film years ago called Fox Film Noir Series. It was a lot of lesser talked about titles. I bought a bunch of them and loved them. The standouts were Nightmare Alley with Tyrone Power and Call Northside 777 with Jimmy Stewart

 

[Conspiracy_Victim]

I saw "Double Indemnity" in college and thought it was pretty awesome. Man, I loved that "American History Through Film" class.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Bumping this thread after discovering that Netflix has a Film Noir section (Search: Noir)~! Currently watching Laura (1944) now, great stuff. Plan to do a marathon of Noir over the weekend so I'll probably be updating this thread with what I've seen.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Laura (1944): Fantastic movie. Gene Tierney is a knockout and Clifton Webb steals the movie with his portrayal of Waldo Lydecker. Dana Andrews is also solid as Detective McPherson but gets overshadowed by Webb.

Sunset Boulevard (1950): I can see why it's so lauded. Blueprint for the "old actor desiring glory days" plot and Gloria Swanson absolutely murders it as Nora Desmond. Iconic actress portrayal. William Holden holds his own opposite her as Joe Gillis too.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Laura is one of my favorite movies ever. The cast is just perfect.

A few months back Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies showed The Maltese Falcon in theaters. I went with my dad who is a huge classic movie fan to see it. I'd seen the movie before, but it's amazing to see on the big screen. If you're a classics fan, check out those releases. Fathom and TCM do them every month. Just saw On The Waterfront that way a month ago and still have Dr. Strangelove and From Here To Eternity coming up.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Dressed To Kill (1941)
Solid little Noir film more comedic than others and Lloyd Nolan is fun as the quick witted, sarcastic PI Michael Shayne investigating the staged double murder. Also has William Demarest as Inspector Pierson.

 

[Damaramu]

You guys have named some good ones. Has anybody ever seen Nightmare Alley?

Detour and Double Indemnity are two of my favorites.

 

[Damaramu]

I saw "Double Indemnity" in college and thought it was pretty awesome. Man, I loved that "American History Through Film" class.

I saw most of mine through my American Film Noir class.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

You guys have named some good ones. Has anybody ever seen Nightmare Alley?

Detour and Double Indemnity are two of my favorites.

Nightmare Alley is a favorite of mine. I'm a big Tyrone Power fan, and he's pretty damn great in this. A very cool flick. I bought it when Fox had their noir series. another great one from that series is Call Northside 777 with Jimmy Stewart and Lee J. Cobb.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Hulu is doing a Winter Noir theme. I finally watched The Manchurian Candidate (1962) for the first time, great film.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Fear In the Night (1947)
Decent movie overall about a man who dreams he's killed somebody only to find out he's really done it and how he struggles to cope with that knowledge. Written and Directed by Maxwell Shane, based off a story called Nightmare by Cornell Woolrich, there are some interesting effects shots toyed with early in the film. The score is probably the best part as the acting is just decent.

DeForest Kelley and Paul Kelly play Vince, the main protagonist, and Cliff, his friend as the two main leads. Kelley would be better known for his run as McCoy in Star Trek. Ann Doran plays Cliff's wife Lil while Kay Scott, making her film debut, plays Vince's love interest Betty. Paul Kelly has the strongest performance throughout as Kelley tends to play his role a bit too understated for my tastes and struggles with emoting the actual conflict of the situation.

5/10

 

[vivisectvi]

Anything Hitchcock, really.. but specifically:

The 39 Steps
Shadow of a Doubt
Suspicion

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Kind of bouncing around and trying to find lesser known titles in the hopes I may find a rare gem.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) - 6.5/10

Solid little film starring Lee J. Cobb (12 Angry Men) as a Homicide Detective whose girlfriend (Jane Wyatt) kills her husband and has to outwit/outfox his brother (John Dall) given the case. There's some decent action and the plot mostly works as Dall is given moments of slowly figuring out what's going on and suspecting things are up when Cobb starts to give him a run around.

Wyatt is serviceable as the femme-fatale but Cobb largely carries this with a solid performance and Dall mostly keeps up with him. The scenes with the two of them are the better ones and it's nice seeing them actually investigating the case knowing the background to the situation.

There isn't a lot of tension and this film is arguably more known for its use of San Francisco as the location. If you're a Noir afficianado, it's worth a watch though and only goes 119 minutes. The Amazon Prime movie I watched was pretty bad in terms of lines, pixelation, etc. but I blame that on the effects of the tape itself and it being from 1950 with no real restoration likely ever done for it.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Hulu is doing a Winter Noir theme. I finally watched The Manchurian Candidate (1962) for the first time, great film.

Machurian Candidate is always an interesting one to me. I actually first heard about it because my high school did it as a play my sophomore year, which is really strange (but kind of cool) looking back. I barely remember either the original or the 2005 remake, which shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread.

I had been collecting a few of these that I meant to get around to. I had been wanting to watch The Third Man but then never opened my Criterion copy because I found out it was selling for like $150 after going out of print.

 

[SFH]

Laura is one of my favorite movies ever. The cast is just perfect.

A few months back Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies showed The Maltese Falcon in theaters. I went with my dad who is a huge classic movie fan to see it. I'd seen the movie before, but it's amazing to see on the big screen. If you're a classics fan, check out those releases. Fathom and TCM do them every month. Just saw On The Waterfront that way a month ago and still have Dr. Strangelove and From Here To Eternity coming up.

As far as books to movies go, I feel like this is a case of getting it right on the money. It's been years since I've compared the two, but scrolling this thread reminded me of it being required reading in Freshman English. One of the guys in class didn't finish the book and rented the VHS ( ) at Blockbuster and observed that up until the point he stopped reading it was almost identical. I later caught the film on AMC (or something) a year later and with that guy's voice in my head felt like he was pretty damn accurate in that assessment. Might be worth revisiting with adult eyes.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Watched a couple more Noir films as I get back into the genre a bit.

Shield for Murder (1954)

A decent Noir film about a cop (played by Edmond O'Brien) who kills a patsy for $25,000 only to find himself on the run from the bookmaker as well as his cop co-horts. A deaf, mute witness of the scene further complicates matters. Carolyn Jones is a true highlight in the bar when she tries to hit on O'Brien's character, Barney. Overall, the plot is very basic and rudimentary and the paranoia doesn't quite hit all the way for me although the end shootout and chase is entertaining enough. 5/10

Farewell, My Lovely (1975)

Philip Marlowe (played by Robert Mitchum) is hired to find a girlfriend, Vera (played by Charlotte Rampling), of a tough guy named Moose Malloy (played by Jack O'Halloran). Probably most notable for a bit part played by one Sylvester Stallone. Very solid little mystery as it's based off a Raymond Chandler novel and stays mostly true to it. There's some really good acting throughout and Mitchum plays Marlowe as a guy partly caught up in the situation but partly wanting to engage in it all as well. The direction is good although the lighting and atmosphere can be a bit more miss than hit, which robs the movie of some of its truly Noir-ish vibe and sometimes makes it feel more like a contemporary mystery caper. 6.5/10