Look, this may be a crummy joint but a nickel still don’t buy more than a cup of coffee. Nocturne (1946)
OK, so you’ve seen the classics in the film noir canon: Double Indemnity, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Maltese Falcon, Laura, Sunset Boulevard, The Big Sleep, In a Lonely Place and The Big Heat, and maybe even D.O.A., Detour, Gun Crazy and Kiss Me Deadly. You’re now hooked on noir. Here are some less well-known movies that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.
Some of these are vastly under-appreciated noir masterpieces that belong in the same class as the likes of Double Indemnity: Night and the City, Touchez pas au grisbi, Cry Danger, The Narrow Margin, Act of Violence, Pushover, Nightfall, The Burglar, Black Gravel. Others are guilty pleasures (Pickup, Paid to Kill).
99 River Street: can he get off the canvas of life? (highly recommended)
Across the Bridge: predicament after predicament, all of his own making
Act of Violence: stunned into terror and self-loathing (highly recommended)
Ashes and Diamonds: a killer wants to stop
Black Gravel: too jaded for love? (highly recommended)
The Bribe: ambiguity and double crosses amid the sweat
The Burglar: loyalty among thieves (highly recommended)
Caged: Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson in the prototype for Orange is the New Black
Cash on Demand: film noir’s Christmas Carol
The Crimson Kimono: Sam Fuller and James Shigeta break ground
Cry Danger: getting framed wasn’t the worst part (highly recommended)
The Dark Corner: framed…again
Decoy: the MOST FATALE femme fatale
Elevator to the Gallows: one murder is his alibi for another (highly recommended)
Gambling House: ordinary except for the patter
The Gangster: a seedy empire crumbles
Guilty Bystander: booze gets in the way of redemption
He Walked By Night: nerd hunt
His Kind of Woman: he knows the deal is too good
Human Desire: she is who she is (highly recommended)
I Wake Up Screaming: framed by a stalker
Joe Macbeth: the Scottish play in gangland Chicago
The Killer that Stalked New York: outbreak noir
Killer’s Kiss: Stanley Kubrick presages neo-noir
Kiss of Death: trapped, and facing a giggling psycho
The Lineup: cool killer, volcanic killer careening thru San Francisco
The Long Haul: moments from an escape
The Man Who Cheated Himself: he shoulda known better
The Midnight Story: North Beach whodunit
Murder, My Sweet: hardboiled detective as piñata (highly recommended)
The Narrow Margin: murderous hide and go seek on a train (highly recommended)
Night and the City: he doesn’t know that he’s the sucker (highly recommended)
Nightfall: hunting loot while on the run (highly recommended)
Paid to Kill: paying for a murder and then changing your mind
Panic in the Streets: a man hunt on the down low
The Phenix City Story: ripped from the headlines
Pickup: an old fool and his young blonde
Pitfall: a noir thriller without a conventional sap or a conventional femme fatale (highly recommended)
The Prowler: Van Heflin takes a dark turn
Pushover: stealing the girl from the crook and the loot from the cops (highly recommended)
Raw Deal: ménage à noir
Razzia: Gabin as gangster consultant
Ride the Pink Horse: disillusioned in New Mexico
The Set-Up: when the loser surprises
The Stranger on the Third Floor: Nicholas Musaraca and the beginning of film noir
Sudden Fear: twelve minutes of movie perfection
Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems): his nemesis is within him (highly recommended)
The Turning Point: justice comes at a high price
Violent Saturday: desert noir in De Luxe color
While the City Sleeps: backstabbing in the board room in a race to find the killer
Witness to Murder: Can she believe her own eyes? (highly recommended)
Woman on the Run: a sassy gal in 1950 San Francisco (highly recommended)
Coming up in Overlooked Noir:
- The Big Combo
- Decoy
- The Good Die Young
- House of Bamboo
- The Killing
- The Mob
- Naked Alibi
- Touchez pas au grisbi (highly recommended)
- Underworld U.S.A.
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