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, Pushover, Nightfall, The Burglar. 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
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
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
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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