Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

A consequence of cucumbers

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The stuff dreams are made of

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For no particular reason — except the new season of “Mad Men” — film noir has been on my mind a lot lately. Also too, I like to talk about dark stuff on spring holidays.

So two questions:

(a) What is the best film noir that I am unlikely to have seen? I’ve seen most of the famous ones.

(b) What is the best film noir theme song? I’ll go with “Portrait of Jennie” just edging out the theme from “Laura”.

Finally, I love parodies of film noir, so much so that I enjoyed most of “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”, so I’m going to share with you an intro to a proposed film noir project that a friend of mine wrote about gerrymandering in New York State politics. It was supposed to be for my old blog, but the other people there took things a bit too seriously.

It was the kind of shape that kept the booze business going; cute on the bottom, big up top, and curves in all the right places. It should have come with a sign that said, “Danger! Hands Off!”. Instead, it read, “Map of Senate Districts in New York State” and was gerrymandered so screwy, the only way incumbents left office was in a wooden box or a jumpsuit. Running against them was a one way ticket to Palookaville. I looked at the set up. The pachyderms still ran the joint, but if the smart asses could get three more seats, they could redraw the lines in big blue markers and deep six the protection racket wholesale. Sure, I thought; about as likely as a three-legged pony winning the Preakness.

I looked across the street as mercury vapor lamps poured a head on the High Falls Brewery. It smelled like Cream of Wheat and syrup. It smelled like time for a drink. I reached for the bottle.

That’s when she walked in.

Reader Interactions

178Comments

  4. 4.

    SIA

    Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. With Kirk Douglas at his neurotic evil best.

  5. 5.

    SiubhanDuinne

    What is the best film noir theme song? I’ll go with “Portrait of Jennie” just edging out the theme from “Laura”.

    I don’t know if you also do this, DougJ, but I always think of those two films together. And funnily enough, “A Portrait of Jennie” was just going through my head yesterday, I think it was, or maybe the day before — which means that “Laura” wasn’t far behind.

    Both terrific films. Both absolutely smashing, sublime, title songs.

  7. 7.

    MikeJ

    Out of the Past was what I was going to suggest too. Robert Mitchum is excellent in everything he was ever in.

  11. 11.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    I’ve seen Kiss Me Deadly and Out Of The Past, people! I’ve named three posts “Out of the Past”.

  17. 17.

    SIA

    @MikeJ: Love him in everything he did with Jane Russell. Oddly enough, Vincent Price was in several film noir movies including Laura, His Kind of Woman (Mitchum and Russell, sizzle) etc. Price was great in Laura.

  18. 18.

    jwb

    If I’m not mistaken, “Jennie’s Song” was written by Bernard Herrmann, even though the most of the score was compiled and arranged by Dimitri Tiomkin based on music by Debussy.

  21. 21.

    michael t

    Assasination of a high school principal. Both parody and faithful homage to film noir style and conventions, but told through the mind of a high school student.

  22. 22.

    Joel

    How about a videogame noir? Grim Fandango was a great one, back in the times when I played videogames..

  24. 24.

    MikeJ

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity: It’s hard to know what people have or haven’t seen. You can assume that any fan of noir has seen Touch of Evil, but Out of the Past is a bit more obscure.

    Try Coup de Torchon, Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280 set in colonial Algeria.

  26. 26.

    Mike in NC

    For modern film noir, “L.A. Confidential” with Russell Crowe was the gold standard. Supposedly there’s a new TV movie (and possibly series spinoff) called “L.A. Noir” coming out that will carry on the tradition, starring Jon Bernthal of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” as an LAPD cop in the late 1940s.

  27. 27.

    some guy

    Detour, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer in 1945, supposedly shot for $20,000 in 6 days. starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage.

  28. 28.

    Tom The First

    My all-time favorite is Force of Evil. The screenwriter* was blacklisted for being a “commie” and I’m sure the film had something to do with that perception.

    *And director.

  29. 29.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @MikeJ:

    Robert Mitchum is excellent in everything he was ever in.

    Mitchum, Bogie, Dick Powell — talk about your “golden age.”

  30. 30.

    Groucho48

    I was in a noir mood a couple months ago and watched a few on Netflix instant.

    Kansas City Confidential (John Payne) is pretty well known, and definitely worth watching if you haven’t seen it.

    Union Station (William Holden) isn’t full-fledged noir but is in the same territory.

    Appointment With Danger (Alan Ladd) is decent. I didn’t like it as much as the other two, but worth a view for a noir fan.

    Nona Lisa (Bob Hoskins) is a pretty decent UK noir-ish movie. And, though I haven’t seen it in years, his The Long Good Friday was a great movie and certainly had a noir-ish flavor as well.

  31. 31.

    barbequbob

    Have you seen “the Big Clock” with Ray Milland and Charles Laughton? One of my favorites.

  32. 32.

    jwb

    Anyone here happen to know when the sultry sax is first used to mark the femme fatale?

  35. 35.

    Randiego

    “Murder My Sweet” which is actually a combination of two Raymond Chandler stories. Dick Powell, of all people, is a great Philip Marlowe. Classic dialogue in that one.

    I have a line going through my head. I think it is from Bogart in “The Maltese Falcon”. He slaps someone – Elisha Cook, Jr.? – and says “you’ll get slapped and you’ll like it”.

  36. 36.

    Deech56

    “I Wake Up Screaming”, “Gun Crazy”, “Rififi” “The Lady from Shanghai”, “D.O.A”, “They Live By Night”.

    Film Noir Podcasts

    Ach – someone got “Live By Night” :-)

  38. 38.

    JasonF

    Not particularly obscure, but I don’t think anybody has mentioned The Third Man yet, so I will.

    Also, Dead Again is a great modern film noir.

  39. 39.

    JasonF

    Not particularly obscure, but I don’t think anybody has mentioned The Third Man yet, so I will.

    Also, Dead Again is a great modern film noir.

  40. 40.

    gogol's wife

    Well, you no doubt have seen “D.O.A.” What about “Pickup on South Street”? And it’s not classic noir, but “The Prowler” has some of the virtues of noir. Really weird and depressing, great performance by Van Heflin.

    This is my favorite genre. Unless you call Hitchcock a genre.

  42. 42.

    policomic

    I liked 99 River Street, which I saw recently on Netflix instant. Cry Danger and Where the Sidewalk Ends are also worthwhile.

  45. 45.

    Hawes

    @freelancer: Yes, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is awesome. Just ask Native American Joe Pesci.

    Miller’s Crossing is one of my favorite noirs. Out of the Past is another great one.

  46. 46.

    Deech56

    Randiego – that line was from the Maltese Falson. “I Wake Up Screaming” has great performances by Cook, Jr. and Laird Cregar, who died way too young.

  51. 51.

    gogol's wife

    @jwb:

    I think you’re right. My new obsession is Herrmann’s score for “Jane Eyre” with Orson Welles. Greatest film score ever!

  52. 52.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    @Hawes:

    Yes, in fact, film noir is on my mind partly because of something from real life that reminded me a bit of Miller’s Crossing.

  53. 53.

    some guy

    everything Nicholas Ray made was great, and I second T-Men, but a really obscure gem is Robert Wise’s Odds Against Tomorrow, with Ed Begley, Robert Ryan and a very young Harry Belafonte.

  54. 54.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JasonF:

    “Dead Again” has three of my favourite actors (Branagh, Thompson, Jacobi) so of course I love it!

  56. 56.

    Anya

    Have you seen Human Desire, and I Wake Up Screaming. They’re both really great and not one of the most talked about Noir. Also, Kubrick’s the Killing is great, but I am sure you’ve seen it, if you’ve seen all the big ones.

  58. 58.

    j

    Gaslight

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036855/

    And some movie that my father said was where he took my mother on their first date. I saw it on TV when I was a kid (it was in B&W so the old TV didn’t matter), that’s when he told me all about their courtship.. I thought it was “Sabrina”, it may be, but the IMDB description doesn’t seem like the same movie.

    Second date was a hockey game, and third was a boxing match.

    Ah, young love during/after the Depression and WWII. I guess you found your fun wherever you could.

  60. 60.

    gogol's wife

    @j:

    Okay, now if “Sabrina” is film noir I think I have to stop playing.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love “Sabrina.”

  62. 62.

    vikram

    Try Layer Cake for a layered, noir-like thriller where everyone spends their time one-upping the next person. It has Daniel Craig in a breakout role, just a very good movie. Of the old ones, Maltese Falcon and Out of the Past are the best. I’d also nominate The Long Goodbye from the 70s – just an absolutely spectacular performance by Elliot Gould in a terrific noir film by Robert Altman….

  65. 65.

    forked tongue

    The Best Years of Our Lives.

    What’s that? Not a film noir, you say? Well, just check this out.

  67. 67.

    DougJ, Head of Infidelity

    @vikram:

    I liked Layer Cake, but I liked Croupier even better. I lump all the Brit shit together.

  70. 70.

    swordofdoom

    Out of the Past? The Big Sleep? Come on, folks, Doug’s looking for stuff of the beaten track, and those are genre standards

    Personally, I’d look up some of the French numbers. They were able to distill the essence of the genre from American films (hell, they named the damn genre) but instill their own brand of existentialism into it. I like Touchez pas au grisbi, Ascenseur pour l’échafaud and Classe tous risques a lot, and if you note that Lino Ventura is in two of those, that should give you a clue as to what to look for. I love Jean-Pierre Melville, of course, but among his lesser-known works, I think Le doulos and Le deuxième souffle are pretty darn good. The Japanese tend to make movies that are even bleaker existentially than the French ones, and among those, I think Kawaita hana from Masahiro Shinoda is a frigging masterpiece, and although technically Shussho iwai from Hideo Gosha is a yakuza film set in the 1930s, it plays out like a noir, only with katanas rather than .38s. Brilliant cinematography in both those Japanese numbers as well. I stumbled across some information on another Gosha noir today, Gohiki no shinshi, and the stills from it look great, and as it stars Tatsuya Nakadai, it’s probably worth getting from Far East Flix.

  72. 72.

    Tom The First

    Recently watched a Lloyd Bridges noir called The Sound and the Fury based on a real-life mob lynching in Sacramento. Most of it is great, but it gets very preachy about the news media inciting violence. That whole subplot is very “on-the-nose” expository stuff. Juxtapose it with a film like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and it shows how far film has evolved.

  73. 73.

    kgsoto

    Wait for The Glass Key to play on TCM. Can’t get it on Netflix, or you could try locally. Later remade by the Cohens into Miller’s Crossing, but the original is fantastic. Brian Donlevy as the crime boss that can’t stay out trouble when he ventures into politics, Alan Ladd as his henchman at his ammoral best trying to keep him from getting killed, and Veronica Lake as the dame that comes between them. And William Bendix as the unstable, very scary and sadistic keg of dynamite. Good stuff.

    Seconding Kiss Me Deadly – a weird cold war era noir with sadistic undertones. Also has the Big Sleep style of disorientation – you never know what time it is and most of the action seems to happen between midnight and morning.

    The Asphalt Jungle is amazing – Sterling Hayden as a low-level gun for hire way above his head, just trying to make one more play to get home to the country. Great dialog you won’t hear in most Hollywood films.

  75. 75.

    SIA

    @Micheline: All good. Blue Dahlia is hammy and fun. Double Indemnity was great though it was hard to get my mind around Fred MacMurray as a tough guy!

  77. 77.

    RossInDetroit

    @SIA:

    Blue Dahlia

    Ray Burr as a caddish ladies’ man (to put it politely). I wonder if that was a Hollywood in-joke.

  79. 79.

    Mike N.

    Pick up on South Street and I second DOA (so long as we’re talking 1950, which is the only one I’ve seen). You’ve also probably seen Kubrick’s The Killing, which was great though more crime than Noir. And if you like Sterling Hayden, The Asphalt Jungle‘s a good one, too. My favorite noir parody’s The Big Lebowski, though simply calling it a noir parody does it a massive disservice.

  80. 80.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    @JasonF:
    @SiubhanDuinne:
    __
    This time I did a search of the comments before I jumped in. This was my vote for a noir that isn’t always considered to be part of the genre.
    __
    And speaking of modern versions: How about Chinatown?
    __
    ETA: I see @ReMarksDC: beat me to it.

  81. 81.

    swordofdoom

    @RossInDetroit: But that’s merely a pallid remake of Melville’s Bob le flambeur, one of the original heist movies. (Melville planned to make the first anatomy-of-a-heist film, but during development, Jules Dassin, recently run out of the U.S. — thanks Elia Kazan! — came out with Du riffi chez les hommes in the meantime, so Melville switched to a weirder, more existential direction, and it has one of the greatest last lines in movie history.) Somebody threw out Croupier, which isn’t bad, but the best movie Mike Hodges ever made was the original Get Carter, which is the best British noir, bar none. (OK, if you want to count the original Night and the City as a Brit noir, fine, but that, too, was directed by the recently run out of the U.S. Jules Dassin — thanks again, Elia!)

    If you’re looking for an American noir that’s slipped through the cracks over the years, look up Pitfall with a terrific cast of Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Raymond Burr and Jane Wyatt. It probably resolves its existential dilemma more realistically than most noirs do.

  82. 82.

    SIA

    @RossInDetroit: You’re thinking Of The Blue Gardenia. Heh, yeah I see what you mean, though he pulled it off quite well…I get my Annes mixed up – Bancroft? The one who was in All About Eve? Played the female lead.

    ETA It was Anne Baxter

  83. 83.

    woodyNYC

    These are great suggestions; bookmarking this post!

    How about Moontide (1942) Jean Gabin & Ida Lupino and Claude Rains as cowboy/hobo “Nutsy”. It also has a bonus hallucinogenic alcoholic bender sequence that beats “Spellbound” hands down.

  84. 84.

    RossInDetroit

    @SIA:

    You’re right. Correct actor, wrong flower.

    Did anyone say Rififi?

    It’s a classic but a surprising number of people have never watched the whole thing. I think it’s wonderful.

  85. 85.

    swordofdoom

    @RossInDetroit: I knew he wasn’t in The Blue Dahlia, but I thought maybe you were thinking of Anthony Mann’s Raw Deal in which he plays a similarly caddish type. Burr never really came out of the closet, was married for a stretch back in the late 1940s and even had a back story about having lost a child in infancy from that marriage although nobody could ever find any record of it. So I doubt Hollywood knew that about him in 1948; he might not have figured it out himself yet.

  86. 86.

    freelancer

    @DougJ, Head of Infidelity:

    Yes, in fact, film noir is on my mind partly because of something from real life that reminded me a bit of Miller’s Crossing.

    Did EJ Dionne say, “Jeez, Doug, I was only speculatin’ about a hypothesis?”

  87. 87.

    RossInDetroit

    @swordofdoom:

    Blue Gardenia was from ’53. Directed by Fritz Lang! It has Nat Cole in a cameo, singing the theme song.
    A gay friend, an old Hollywood type, claimed to have personal experience of Burr’s orientation from that era. Though your explanation makes sense. The closet was deep and crowded. We’ll never know.

  88. 88.

    Gin & Tonic

    Not film, per se, but Firesign Theater’s “Adventures of Nick Danger” is pitch-perfect. I’ve even listened to it again a few times recently, not stoned, and it’s just as good as I remember.

  89. 89.

    Bago

    I can’t believe that nobody has mentioned the Lost Highway soundtrack.
    Bowie, Reznor, Badaletemi, Lou reed, and rammstein.

    Delightfully eclectic is one way to put it.

  90. 90.

    swordofdoom

    @RossInDetroit: Yeah, Burr lived with a guy (to whom he left the vineyard where they lived) for a real long time, but he never came to grips with his orientation publicly. It might have been that as an immigrant (he was from British Columbia), he might have had more reason to hide his orientation and never overcome his fear of deportation. Who knows? He was, from all accounts, truly a really nice guy (not sure what your friend says on that score) and loved to play elaborate practical jokes on friends, so he was always somebody I wished well. And his early-career work as a frequent noir bad guy is top-rate.

  91. 91.

    Maeve

    Is Hitchcock really noir?

    I ask because they seem different – Strangers on a Train is often cited as noir, but overall Hitchcock doesnt seem cynical enough to be noir. Not that the personally wasnt (perhaps) cynical enough, but he was a showman too and gave people what they wanted, his movies has “good” people in them (often caught up in circumstances) while to me real noir has almost everyone being corrupt or corrupted in the end.

    To me, Dead Again, which I love, is a Hitchcock tribute, but the hero and heroine are not corrupt enough to be noir.

    Postman Always Rings Twice is the ultimate noir – everyone is corrupt or corrupted in the end. Barbara Stanwyck is the ultimate noir female ( not heroine). She was also really hot in Big Valley (and I’m a mostly heterosexual female).

    It seem to me there are Japanese noir movies. Toshiro Mifune was good in “High and Low” but not sure if that’s noir or more in the ” cynical police procedurals” category. It was based on a novel by McBain.

    I like Mulholland Falls as a commentary on noir.

  92. 92.

    RossInDetroit

    @swordofdoom:

    My grandmother was a huge fan of Burr. Loved Perry Mason and Ironside. I didn’t learn about his film work (there was a LOT of it) until later. I saw him in Rear Window, and got hooked.

  94. 94.

    DarcyPennell

    People already mentioned The Big Clock, The Unsuspected and Gun Crazy, all really good. The Big Clock is one of my favorite noirs and the scene where the couple meets in Gun Crazy is amazing.

    I also liked:
    He Ran All the Way
    Hollow Triumph [sometimes called The Scar]
    Dead Reckoning
    While the City Sleeps

    Does Between Two Worlds count as a noir? What about Border Incident?

    (I’m sure DougJ has seen movies like The Big Heat, In a Lonely Place and Key Largo so instead of recommending them, I’ll just say: weren’t those great movies?)

  95. 95.

    RossInDetroit

    @Maeve:

    Hard Boiled (not Japanese, obviously) could qualify as Noir. I love Chow Yun Fat as a bad guy. He was awesome in The Corruptor.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    There is a continuing debate over whether film noir is a style or a genre. Me, I think there’s very good evidence that it’s a style:

    Noir musicals: A Star is Born (the Judy Garland version) and Love Me or Leave Me

    Noir comedy: Unfaithfully Yours (the good Preston Sturges version, not the piece of shit with Dudley Mooore)

    Noir fantasy: The Devil and Daniel Webster and Alias Nick Beale

    And that’s just the stuff from the classic era.

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne

    If you like noir movies, it’s almost better to look at the work of directors like Fritz Lang, Anthony Mann, Nicholas Ray, and Samuel Fuller than just individual titles.

    Don’t get me started on my deep love of Samuel Fuller unless you want to be here all night. Fuller didn’t do femmes fatales, because he didn’t hate women. He didn’t think a woman should be disrespected just because she was an ex-junkie and an ex-hooker. Hell, in The Naked Kiss, the ex-hooker heroine tries to go straight and discovers that “respectable” society is far more corrupt than anything she’s done, so she decides to go back to an honest life of being a traveling prostitute.

  101. 101.

    j

    @gogol’s wife: All I remember about that movie was that the husband )probably) murdered his first wife, and the maid knew too much.

    So…the maid may have been the murderer.

    The whole thing was kinda creepy, and the new wife was going nuts trying to figure it all out.

    Both thee maid and the husband were goddamned liars, though, so it could have been a GOP recruiting film, for all my 8 year old eyes saw.

    It had something to do with a boat, a hairbrush and a secret compartment in a grandfather clock, if I recall correctly.

    Still creepy.

  103. 103.

    Canadian Shoggoth

    don’t forget the lovecraft as noir detective flicks, Cast a Deadly Spell and Witch Hunt.

  105. 105.

    RossInDetroit

    @Squarely Rooted:

    Rififi is Noir and it’s a very good story, but for me the selling point is the inventiveness and audacity of the storytelling. So different from a typical Hollywood cookie cutter caper flick.

  107. 107.

    tofubo

    going out on a long, thin limb here, it’s noir’ish, and i do mean ‘ish

    Mandrill, a chilian flick i just saw’d

    haven’t watched too many lately, so none on the top of my head

  108. 108.

    vtr

    Double indemnity, if it hasn’t been mentioned. Also, a marvelous tribute to The Third Man was made by Pinky and The Brain.

  109. 109.

    Librarian

    I second Detour, and there’s also “The Hitch Hiker” from 1953 with Edmond O’Brien and William Talman and directed by Ida Lupino. TCM shows them once in a while.

  110. 110.

    dave

    @Maeve:
    yes on high and low! great noir! there is another earlier kurosawa film with mufone as a cop who loses his gun, also great.

  112. 112.

    Tehanu

    @Gin & Tonic:

    The album that “The Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye” is on is called “How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All”. There are also various other Nick Danger adventures available, including “The Case of the Missing Yolk” — check out Firesign dot com.

  115. 115.

    BobbyMac

    My personal favorites are “Crossfire” and “Bad Day at Black Rock.” Robert Ryan plays a great bigoted villain in both of them.

  116. 116.

    James Gary

    People upthread have already recommended “Brick” (set in a California high school, circa 2005) “Frenzy” (set in early 1970s Swinging London) and “Classe Tous Risques” (set in “Breathless”-era France and Italy) and I just want to add my enthusiasm for all three. Each one finds an utterly unique way to riff on the standard “noir” setup, and each one is a great, imaginative, compelling movie.

  117. 117.

    Chris

    MODERN

    “After Dark My Sweet” with Jason Patric, Rachel Ward and Bruce Dern
    “Red Rock West” with Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper and Lara Flynn Boyle
    “The Hot Spot” with Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen and Jennifer Connelly

    CLASSIC

    Here’s a great list of unknown classics listed at SHADOW AND SATIN that I saw in film school:

    “The Killers” with Lee Marvin (not the Bruce Lancaster version – my contribution)
    “Shakedown” (1950)
    “New York Confidential” (1955)
    “The Locket” (1947)
    “Tension” (1950)
    “The Damned Don’t Cry” (1950)
    “Desperate” (1947)
    “Plunder Road” (1957)
    “Shield for Murder” (1954)
    “Nora Prentiss” (1947)

  118. 118.

    RossInDetroit

    @James Gary:

    Brick is a case study in how to make a really gripping film with no money at all. They could have shot that on what Spiderman spends on catering in a day. And it’s great.

  119. 119.

    chrismealy

    Rats! “Night and the City” was my ace in the hole but swordofdoom beat me to it. Come to think of it, “Ace in the Hole” is really a noir. It seems like a farce, but it gets darker and darker.

    “The Killers” is great pairing with “Double Indemnity”. Saw them together years ago. The cinema of insurance.

  121. 121.

    Wag

    I recently watched “Blade Runner ” on Netflix a d it was even better than I remembered. Great noir and an excellent femme fatale in Sean Young.

  122. 122.

    NotMax

    Hmmm. Most of the ones which came to mind right off have been mentioned.

    How about (noirish at any rate) Man Hunt with Walter Pidgeon, directed by Fritz Lang? Which brings to mind, natch, M.

    Also, too, I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.

    And, for nostalgia’s sake, gotta mention (though techincally pre-dating the genre, and more in a stylizedhorror vein) The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

    Several more:

    They Drive by Night
    Night of the Hunter
    Bad Day at Black Rock
    Tomorrow Is Forever (mostly to watch Orson Welles chew the scenery)
    Sorry, Wrong Number (the 40s Stanwyck vehicle)
    Cry Danger
    Donnie Darko

    Best theme tune? The Third Man.

  123. 123.

    Cmm

    Pickup on South Street is an early Sam Fuller movie and really good, better than I expected. Parody…not all noir, but I love the goofy humor of Murder by Death. Peter Falk’s Sam Spade character gets a later movie all to himself, but here is mixed with Maggie Smith and David Niven as the Thin Man couple, Alec Guiness as the blind Butler, Nancy Walker as the deaf and dumb maid, and Truman Capote as the whacky weekend in the country host. Awesome.

  124. 124.

    gluon1

    @RossInDetroit: A fourth vote for Brick. The movie watches like the best of Hammett reads; truly one of the best movies of the past decade. That it was also made for no money is simply another reason to be impressed.

    @Cmm: I also second “Murder by Death” as a delightful farce of Sam Spade, Nick & Nora Charles, Charlie Chan, Poirot, & Miss Marple, all rolled into one delightful, Neil Simon romp. Good times.

  126. 126.

    RossInDetroit

    @Wag:

    I’m irrationally attached to Blade Runner. I know what its problems are but that doesn’t keep me from being mesmerized by the look of it.
    Similarly, Metropolis is absurd in many ways but it’s fantastic to look at.

  128. 128.

    RossInDetroit

    I forgot The Last Seduction. Linda Fiorentino as an evil ball buster. That was great.

  130. 130.

    policomic

    I forgot about Scarlet Street, which I see someone mentioned, and which is a must-see. Other Lang noirs that are good: The Woman in the Window (some think the ending spoils it, but I don’t) and Ministry of Fear, which is crazy, but entertaining.

    Also quite good–kind of a noir crossed with a romantic comedy, with a few out-of-the-blue musical numbers: Lady on a Train. That one stars former child star Deanna Durbin, who is also in one of the most amazing, “how did they get away with that” sort of noir films of the Hollywood era, Christmas Holiday. I don’t think it’s on video, but it’s watchable on youtube, and really must be seen to be believed. Despite the title, it’s got almost nothing to do with Christmas. Durbin’s a thinly-disguised prostitute, and Gene Kelly plays her mother-obsessed, charming psychopath husband. Holiday fun for the whole family!

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    Interesting thing about Chinatown — has anyone else ever realized that the reason that Jake fucks the whole case up is that he mistakes Evelyn for a femme fatale? By the time he realizes she isn’t, he’s blown the case beyond redemption.

  133. 133.

    swordofdoom

    @Mnemosyne: Damn I loved Sammy. Great filmmaker and a great American. Enlisted as an infantryman in WWII when he could have gotten an officer’s commission and avoided combat, then participated in the North African campaign, the Normandy invasion and fought all the way into Germany. Turned down the chance to make his beloved project, The Big Red One, with a decent budget because John Wayne had been attached to the project (not because of Wayne’s politics but because Wayne would want to play a hero, and as a big star, he’d have gotten his way). And after resurrecting his film career in the U.S. with The Big Red One, immediately pissed away again by making White Dog, a film about racism that lots of folks found appalling because it didn’t have an uplifting message. John Wayne might have been twice Sammy’s size, but he wasn’t half the hero Sammy was, because Sammy was always laying everything on the line in a way the Duke could never appreciate.

    I met Sammy at Sundance back in 1989 and got him to autograph my Naked Kiss poster. He wrote, “You like this movie. Don’t try a sequel unless your head likes the thud of a phone.” Needless to say, it’s my most prized possession.

  134. 134.

    Mnemosyne

    @swordofdoom:

    I actually liked White Dog (though it didn’t hurt that I got to see it during a Fuller tribute at the American Cinematheque here in LA). It punches you in the face with its anti-racist message, but that’s how Fuller works.

    His co-writer on that was a very young Curtis Hanson, future director of LA Confidential.

  135. 135.

    freelancer

    @Wag:

    Blade Runner is my favorite film. It took a long time to rise to that status, but the final cut is a perfect film.

  136. 136.

    Jim Faith

    Longtime lurker – first comment. 129 comments and no one has mentioned ‘The Usual Suspects’ … it was Keyser Soze …

  137. 137.

    Console

    I don’t really do noir, I do neo-noir. In which case I recommend Deep Cover with Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. Early 90’s crack movie with a noir veneer that makes it sort of surreal.

    But something tells me Doug might have seen that one.

  138. 138.

    RossInDetroit

    @Console:

    Deep Cover

    I didn’t think anyone had seen that but me, and I saw it by accident when I walked into the wrong theater. Glad I stayed. It was very good.

  140. 140.

    handsmile

    Regret arriving too late into this thread to recommend any obscure or underappreciated film noir gems (e.g., RossinDetroit’s “Red Rock West” or Squarely Rooted’s “Elevator to the Gallows.”

    All the classics have been mentioned and many great films have been proposed, but there’s a serious misunderstanding of what constitutes film noir. Its essential qualities are to be found among the works by the canonical directors listed by Mnemosyne (#100) above. For all their considerable respective merits, films such as “Bad Day at Black Rock,” “Frenzy,” “High and Low,” “Dark City,” and certainly “Portrait of Jennie” are simply not pertinent to the genre/style.

    And while neither film was directed by a member of that pantheon, “D.O.A.” (Rudolph Mate) and “Detour” (Edgar Ulmer) may be the purest and finest distillation of film noir’s existentialist sensibility: innocence confronted by an implacable, enigmatic fate and the struggle to achieve justice or deliverance.

  141. 141.

    Steeplejack

    @gogol’s wife:

    I don’t even think Laura is film noir. It’s a straight-ahead murder mystery with a good twist.

    Classic noir requires more than blackety-black-black-and-white photography, guns and babes frails. The hero has to be compromised or preferably doomed. There has to be some moral stain to go with the dark look. At least a little moral dry rot.

    Out of the Past is the gold standard. The Narrow Margin (1952) is a tight little B-list entry that may not have been widely seen. It shows up on TCM occasionally.

  142. 142.

    Maeve

    @RossInDetroit:

    I”m not sure that hard-boiled is the same as noir, (not to sat I’m right. It just to extend th debate)

    In noir it’s not just that he world is hard, but that it’s ultimately corrupt and will corrupt the “hero”/protagonist, ( yes, reference to snow crash)

    That let’s out too many filmes I consider noir though. Philip Marlowe was not corrupted, he just didn’t win in the end and accepted it, the bad guys didn’ttriumph, but it was only a partial (personal) victory. You still can’t defeat the powers that be. The only way to survive is too be cynical – no hero/heroine clutching each other while the sun comes up and he dawn is breaking and the music swelling.

    That said, I strongly recommend d “high and low” directed by akiru Kurosawa , starring Toshiru Mmifue, based on a novel. By Ed McBain. Toshiru is a millionaire, living literally “high” in an ultramodern house overlooking “low” the city on which he built his fortune. A thug from “low” kidnaps his son- but by Kate it’s not his sons on but the chauffer’s son.

  143. 143.

    James Gary

    @handsmile: For all their considerable respective merits, films such as “Bad Day at Black Rock,” “Frenzy,” “High and Low,” “Dark City,” and certainly “Portrait of Jennie” are simply not pertinent to the genre/style.

    …film noir’s existentialist sensibility: innocence confronted by an implacable, enigmatic fate and the struggle to achieve justice or deliverance.

    I make a point of never engaging in online ping-pong “yes it is/no it isn’t” matches, and I’ve never seen “Black Rock,” “Dark City,” or “Jennie,” but: if you don’t think either “Frenzy” or “High And Low” qualify under your own definition of film noir (quoted above) you might do well to go back and watch those films again.

    Don’t bother responding directly–like I said, I hate ping-pong. I’m just sayin’.

  145. 145.

    Grover Gardner

    Bet you’ve never seen NIGHTMARE ALLEY with Tyrone Power, Jr. I just watched it and while the plot gets a little silly at times, Power’s performance is amazing. I never knew he could act like that. It’s worth buying on DVD.

    This is a great site for finding forgotten noir:

    http://ocdviewer.com/#!/cover

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    Have now finished reading the thread, and various comments have reminded me of some other movies.

    Point Blank (1967), the great Lee Marvin vehicle, answers the question “Can you do noir in Technicolor?” I thought of it because I just finished reading all of the Parker novels by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake). Point Blank is based on the first one.

    Someone reminded me that there are some good Chinese noirs. One early John Woo not mentioned: A Better Tomorrow (1986). Tsui Hark’s Time and Tide (2000) is worth looking for.

    And for “modern” noir, Bill Paxton, of all people, has been in some good ones: Carl Franklin’s One False Move (1992) and Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan (1998).

    And Gary Oldman and Lena Olin burn up the screen in Romeo Is Bleeding (1993). Ooh, I need to run that one down. Haven’t seen it in ages. Trailer here.

  147. 147.

    Jess

    I recommend “Brick,” a lovely indie film that manages to do pitch-perfect film noir with SoCal high school students and a tiny budget. Joseph Gordon-Levitt rocks as the nerdy-cool protagonist.

    Edit: aaand it looks like I’m number 5 to rec this. So glad there are other fans are out there!

  149. 149.

    Steeplejack

    @Maeve:

    High and Low was just on TCM a few days ago. Great movie.

    . . . Realizing how stupid it is to point out movies that have already passed by, I did a quick search on TCM for noir movies coming up this week (all times EDT):

    12:00 a.m. Wednesday (Tuesday night): Get Carter (1971). Mentioned upthread. Michael Caine and a cool Fender Rhodes jazz score.

    4:00 a.m. Wednesday: Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Not noir but noir-ish. Great photography, and Burt Lancaster is mean.

    12:00 a.m. Saturday: Cape Fear (1962). Noir-ish. Robert Mitchum is always a great villain.

  152. 152.

    freelancer

    Aussie noir flick “The Square” is on Netflix Instant. It’s worth checking out.

  154. 154.

    Cmm

    @Steeplejack: One False Move!! I have been wracking my brain trying to remember that one. The early 90s had a nice little nourish revival with all those lower budget and/or indie movies that came out within a few years of each other.

    I also endorse Brick, great movie.

  155. 155.

    Steeplejack

    @Cmm:

    You are (possibly) in luck, depending on your cable configuration. One False Move is on Encore East at 2:50 a.m. EDT next Saturday.

  157. 157.

    Anniecat45

    I second the vote for Night of the hunter — Robert Mitchum is terrifying in that movie. Also Day of the Outlaw, with Robert Ryan — it looks like a western but the plot is very noir.

  158. 158.

    handsmile

    Checking back before turning in…

    Another “modern” noir and one of my very favorite films: Wim Wenders’ “The American Friend.” Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game, it stars the great Bruno Ganz and includes brief roles by noir titans Sam Fuller and Nick Ray.

    While a superb crime mystery featuring one of Toshiro Mifune’s best performances, I’m at a loss to understand how “High and Low” can be considered film noir. While it explores moral compromise and intrigue at both a personal and corporate level, IMO, Mifune’s character is not an unsuspecting protagonist overtaken and undermined by fate. Which is to me the quintessence of noir. But I believe the proper phrase here is YMMV.

  159. 159.

    Tehanu

    @j:

    Roller Maidens is actually my favorite Firesign(-related) thing ever. Dick Private, Private Dick! And “It was Jesus standing underneath the bridge just out of New Orleans / As I gunned my semi home to my baby’s arms….” And John Fresno, played by the (alas) recently late Peter Bergman. And the Roller Maidens themselves, “moaning mysteriously and spending a lot of time in the bathroom.” And Regular and Ethyl, the wacky neighbors!

  161. 161.

    patrick II

    If you like film noir parody, “The Black Bird” is a sendup of “The Maltese Falcon” starring George Segal as the inept son of Sam Spade on his own Maltese misadventure. I laughed when I saw it thirty years ago. Not sure how it holds up now. George inherited the same secretary forty years later and forty pounds heavier.

  162. 162.

    cmm

    @Steeplejack: I don’t have cable or satellite. Just Netflix, and it isn’t on streaming, so I would have to check it out on DVD to watch it again. But for those who do have access to Encore, it is totally worth checking out. In addition to Bill Paxton, it also includes Billy Bob Thornton in a very early role.

  163. 163.

    Robert

    Winter’s Bone, despite being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, is a little seen modern noir gem. It goes against so much of what made period noir successful (in settings, characters, and color palette), but it still cleanly sits in that wheelhouse. It’s a gritty drama of crime and intrigue surrounding a teenage girl in poverty-stricken Appalachia trying to find her drug-addicted father before the bank takes the family’s house away.

  166. 166.

    BruceFromOhio

    I looked across the street as mercury vapor lamps poured a head on the High Falls Brewery. It smelled like Cream of Wheat and syrup. It smelled like time for a drink. I reached for the bottle.

    I cannot for the life of me figure you out, Arkon DougJ. But if want to keep writing this sort of stuff, I will gladly read it.

    Thanks for sharing.

  168. 168.

    boctaoe

    Just thinking about “Black Rain” with Michael Douglas sends a frisson of fear down my back. Is it considered “noir”?

  169. 169.

    NCSteve

    @vtr: Also, the life of anyone who claims to love film noir is not complete until they see the “Brain Noir” episode.

    “Billie’s turned into a hamster? *slap* She’s a mouse! *slap* She’s a hamster! *slap* She’s a mouse! *slap* She’s a hamster! *slap* She’s a mouse and a hamster!”

    Damn near lost bladder control, while simultaneously realizing why the 90s “Saturday morning cartoons grownups can stand to watch with the kids” genre didn’t work out so well on the “watch with the kids” side.

  170. 170.

    Deb T

    @Deech56:
    Oh yeah, I Wake Up Screaming, is great.

    I also liked Bogart in “In a Lonely Place”. One from the sixties with Lee Marvin, a classic, “Point Place”. Both versions of “The Killers”. Edward G. Robinson – “Portrait in the Window”. Oh and for wicked beautiful women try – Leave Her to Heaven (Gene Tierney) and “Beyond the Forest” (Bette Davis) — oh and “Deception” is good too. I really like some of the lesser noir vehicles, but I’m blanking on titles. There’s one from the forties with Ricardo Montalbon as a police detective who solves the murder of the skeleton of a young woman that is found on the beach, with the help of a scientist from Harvard. It has a great character performance by Elsa Lanchester. I think I got all of these through Netflix. I had to buy a VHS of Beyond the Forest.

  173. 173.

    jh

    My two faves

    Classic

    “The Big Combo” – Because I’m a sucker for anything with Corne Wilde in it.

    New

    “Way of the Gun” – More akin to a Western and It drags at times, but Benecio Del Toro, Nicky Katt and Jimmy Caan give it their all. Even Ryan Phillipe is tolerable.

  177. 177.

    mclaren

    “Nightfall,” 1957, dir. by Jacques Tourneur: Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith and Rudy Bond as the best psychotic killer on film. Special note: the location for the campsite is the exact same locale Tourneur used 18 years earlier for the river where Robert Mitchum goes fishing with his girlfriend, and the same small California high sierra town is used in both films.

    “The Killer Is Loose,” 1956: dir. Budd Boetticher: Joseph Cotton, Wendell Corey, Rhonda Fleming.

    “Pickup Alley,” 1957, dir. John Gilling: Victor Mature, Trevor Howard, Anita Ekberg.

    “Deadline: USA,” 1952, dir. Richard Brooks: Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter.

    “Gun Crazy,” 1950: dir. Joseph H. Lewis. John Dall, Peggy Cummins, Berry Kroeger.

    “I Walk Alone,” 1948, dir. Byron Haskin: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lizbeth Scott, Wendell Corey.

    “Criss-Cross,” 1949, dir. Robert Siodmak: Burt Lancaster, Dan Duryea, Yvonne DeCarlo.

    “High and Low,” 1963, dir. Akira Kurosawa: Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa.

    “Cruel Story of Youth,” 1960, dir. Nagisa Oshima.

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