Black Film: It’s perhaps more of a style than a genre, the descendant of German expressionist films of the 1920s such as Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922) and Pandora’s Box (1929), along with American gangster films of the 1930s , and crime and detective stories (published in France as série noire; then roman noir, and, on film in the 1940s and 1950s, film noir). There are homages or ‘neo-noirs’ (Chinatown, Marlowe (1969), Night Moves (1975)) and parodies (The Long Goodbye (1973), and The Big Sleep – the 1978 version, of which Lauren Bacall, asked if she had seen it, said “Has anyone?”) but the ‘golden age’ of true noir comprise the 1940s and 1950s.
Black Flags: If you see the following, you’re probably watching a film noir:
Here’s our list of outstanding film noir offerings. Quality varies of course: not all are classics, but we think there is definite morbid interest in these works. (Suggestions and quibbles welcome). We’ve marked an asterisk by films that are ‘noirish’ to us but may not be pure film noir:
Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) (dir. Boris Ingster)
They Drive by Night (1940) (dir. Raoul Walsh)
The Maltese Falcon (1941) (dir. John Huston)
I Wake Up Screaming (1941) (dir. H. Bruce Humberstone)
This Gun for Hire (1942) (dir. Frank Tuttle)
The Glass Key (1942) (dir. Stuart Heisler)
The Seventh Victim (1943) (dir. Mark Robson)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Double Indemnity (1944) (dir. Billy Wilder)
The Woman in the Window (1944) (dir. Fritz Lang)
The Mask of Dimitrios (1944) (dir. Jean Negulesco)
Laura (1944) (dir. Otto Preminger)
Murder, My Sweet (1944) (dir. Edward Dmytryk)
Scarlet Street (1945) (dir. Fritz Lang)
Detour (1945) (dir. Edgar G. Ulmer)
Mildred Pierce (1945) (dir. Michael Curtiz)
Fallen Angel (1945) (dir. Otto Preminger)
The Spiral Staircase* (1945) (dir. Robert Siodmak)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) (dir. John M. Stahl)
The Big Sleep (1946) (dir. Howard Hawks)
Gilda (1946) (dir. Charles Vidor)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) (dir. Lewis Milestone)
The Stranger (1946) (dir. Orson Welles)
The Blue Dahlia (1946) (dir. George Marshall)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) (dir. Tay Garnett)
Black Angel (1946) (dir. Roy William Neill)
The Dark Corner (1946) (dir. Henry Hathaway)
Three Strangers (1946) (dir. Jean Negulesco)
The Killers (1946) (dir. Robert Siodmak)
A Woman on the Beach (1946) (dir. Jean Renoir)
Out of the Past (1947) (dir. Jacques Tourneur)
Dead Reckoning (1947) (dir. John Cromwell)
Dark Passage (1947) (dir. Delmer Daves)
Nightmare Alley (1947) (dir. Edmund Goulding)
The Lady From Shanghai (1947) (dir. Orson Welles)
Kiss of Death (1947) (dir. Henry Hathaway)
Odd Man Out (1947) (dir. Carol Reed)
Boomerang! (1947) (dir. Elia Kazan)
Lady in the Lake (1947) (dir. Robert Montgomery)
Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) (dir. Anatole Litvak)
Key Largo (1948) (dir. John Huston)
Sleep, My Love (1948) (dir. Douglas Sirk)
They Live by Night (1948) (dir. Nicholas Ray)
Cry of the City (1948) (dir. Robert Siodmak)
Call Northside 777 (1948) (dir. Henry Hathaway)
The Set-Up (1949) (dir. Robert Wise)
Criss Cross (1949) (dir. Robert Siodmak)
The Third Man (1949) (dir. Carol Reed)
Flamingo Road (1949) (dir. Michael Curtiz)
Rope of Sand * (1949) (dir. William Dieterle)
Gun Crazy (1950) (dir. Joseph H. Lewis)
In a Lonely Place (1950) (dir. Nicholas Ray)
The Breaking Point (1950) (dir. Michael Curtiz)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) (dir. John Huston)
Night and the City (1950) (dir. Jules Dassin)
Quicksand (1950) (dir. Irving Pichel)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (dir. Otto Preminger)
Sunset Boulevard* (1950) (dir. Billy Wilder)
On Dangerous Ground (1951) (dir. Nicholas Ray)
Strangers on a Train (1951)(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
The Narrow Margin (1952) (dir. Richard Fleischer)
The Big Heat (1953) (dir. Fritz Lang)
Pick Up on South Street (1953) (dir. Sam Fuller)
The Wages of Fear* (1953) (dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot)
The Big Combo (1955) (dir. Joseph H. Lewis)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955) (dir. Robert Aldrich)
The Desperate Hours (1955) (dir. William Wyler)
Rififi (1955) (dir. Jules Dassin)
The Killing (1956) (dir. Stanley Kubrick)
While the City Sleeps (1956) (dir. Fritz Lang)
Sweet Smell of Success* (1957) (dir. Alexander Mackendrick)
Lift to the Scaffold (1958) (dir. Louis Malle)
Touch of Evil (1958) (dir. Orson Welles)
While your email address is required to post a comment, it will NOT be published.
2 Comments