Do I spy a reference to Gregg Toland… 
Nicely done. Straight outta BLACK MASK…
I figure I’m gonna start out this Noir kick with the one’s lensed by John Alton. But maybe The Third Man first.
Third Man! Watch it and be astounded…
Still Alton has his share of classics…
The Third Man is one of the best. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Maybe one of my favourites because the story takes place in Vienna after WW II .
Two others I would like to recommend: The Blue Dahlia (1946) and The Dark Corner (1946). If these two haven’t been mentioned before.
Not often does the star not appear in the movie for so long. What an effect when he does. Give credit to Kevin Spacey, In SE7EN, by not putting his name on the trailers & opening credits, when he appears, it is impactful.
[quote=“I…I…Idiot, post:25, topic:1786”]Not often does the star not appear in the movie for so long. What an effect when he does. Give credit to Kevin Spacey, In SE7EN, by not putting his name on the trailers & opening credits, when he appears, it is impactful.[/quote]Kevin Spacey’s performance in seven is one of the best and most chilling of a psychopathic serial killer in films and i agree I…I it certainly is impactful especially his first scene when he walks in the police station.
Just started reading European Film Noir, a collection of writing on, well, European film noir, edited by Andrew Spicer. I’ve also got Robin Buss’s French Film Noir on the shelf.
It’s always fascinating to compare and contrast American and European noirs, considering that both schools borrowed so much from each other.
I second those recommendations. The Dark Corner in particular surprised me because I usually can’t bear Lucille Ball, but here she’s restrained, not yet the monster she would become in her TV SHOW.
Speaking of Alan Ladd, I really need to see This Gun for Hire - can anybody express an opinion on that?
I just watched Fritz Lang’s “Cloak and Dagger” yesterday. i must admit, I was dissapointed with it. It wasn’t so mush a Film Noir as a Spy Thriller. Click this link if you want to read my “IMDb” review of it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038417/usercomments-15
Actually, some of Lang’s ‘noirs’ are among the most disappointing of all; as well as Cloak and Dagger, Human Desire is rather tame and predictable, albeit with some good visual metaphors, and I expected a lot more from Ministry of Fear.
Of course, he also gave us some true classics, so we can cut him a lot of slack.
And one of those “classic” was “The Big Heat”.
Oh, and “Scarlet Street”.
I found it a nice little piece following hit man Raven and the reveal of what drives his murderous actions. We have double crosses in play and some brooding character study as well. Veronica Lake plays the lovely voice of reason who tries to hault Raven's climb to the top. Features some great cinematography by John Seltz that captures the city beautifully while Alan Ladd as the stonefaced tough guy is chased through it... 9/10
Sounds excellent - I’ll bump it up my Lovefilm list.
I’ll second THIS GUN FOR HIRE. Good flick.
I’m going to be watching Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound” after I have finished “12 Angry Men” and watched another Hitchcock, “Dial M For Murder”.
Spellbound and Dial M are both quite disappointing in my opinion (though I need to see the former again). Still, there are plenty of fine scenes, amazing Dali designs and of course Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly to gawp at.
For what it’s worth, Shadow of a Doubt is my favourite Hitch.
Are Hitchcock films noir films?
Not all of them, of course, but then ‘noir’ has so many connotations. He didn’t direct any hard-boiled crime thrillers, but there’s a lot more to noir than mean streets and Marlowe types.
I’d say there are noir elements - visually, thematically and in terms of attitude and characterisations - in many of his best suspense films.
The bleakness of the noir world-view shines through, as it were, in Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, Psycho, Rear Window, The Wrong Man, I Confess…
Of course, this might be stretching the definition of noir too far for some, but that definition is anything but concise in the first place.
Some are. Films like “Vertigo”, “Strangers on a Train”, “Rebbeca”, “Notorious” and “Suspicion” I class as Film Noirs.
I never viewed any of Hitch’s films as noir films. They are thrillers.
Noir film are gangster-, detective-, police films.
I have just seen Notorious again. It’s a masterpiece and maybe Hitch’s best.
It’s a sex film, a vulgar love film, it’s a brutish film without any (visible) violence or action, it’s about trust and mistrust, about desire and repulsion, it’s deep, abysmal, complex and retains at the same time a maximum of simplicity, and of course it is one of his most stylishly directed films.
Is there any other of his films in which the thriller plot (something about Nazis and Uranium in Brazil) is less important (and absolutely interchangeable) than in Notorious?
A 10/10 film which gets all my admiration.