Force of Evil (1948)

"According to Martin Scorsese nobody portrayed guilt on the American screen better than John Garfield in Abraham Polonsky's hard-hitting Force of Evil (1948). As Joe Morse, 'a crooked little lawyer,' Garfield has reason to feel guilty. He's in league with Ben Tucker, a former beer-runner, who's planning to takeover the numbers racket by fixing the old liberty number, 776, to fall on July 4th. After 776 hits, the big Tucker corporation will move in and consolidate the small numbers banks that can't pay off their debts and form a monopoly."
Images Journal, Wikipedia, YouTube, Twenty Four Frames, amazon, Noir of the Week

Union Station (1950)

"Union City (1951) directed by Rudolph Mate is a period crime action movie set in Chicago that marks the transition from the classic period of film noir to the 50′s police procedural. While the picture is weakened by a conventional plot and a fairly laconic performance from William Holden as the railway cop, the location shooting (actually on the streets of LA) has a 'naked city' feel and the action played out in Union Station is made interesting by certain noirish episodes.
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The Big Clock (1948)

"If there is one thing I learned from Ray Milland’s most famous performance, it’s that a booze bender makes for a great narrative. Milland’s Oscar winning role in The Lost Weekend was as one of film history’s most memorable and voracious alcoholics. Battling his personal bacchant demons, as well as the people trying to sober him up, made for a great movie (especially when flying bats are hallucinated). In director John Farrow’s The Big Clock we know that Milland may find himself in trouble again because of lady liquor after he is fired from his job and confides that the first thing he is going to do is “have a good stiff couple of drinks.” In this film he ties one on with the wrong woman, in the wrong place and as the title may allude, at the wrong time. The fatal result is a murder committed in the heat of passion."
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The Stranger (1946)

"The dark nature of this movie of course is what consigns it to the noir category, that plus the moody but still dazzling black-and-white photography, complete with unusual camera angles, especially during the many trips up and down the inside of the bell tower facing the green in a small one-horse town in Connecticut right after the war. But is it really a noir film? Not really by subject matter, that of a post-World War II manhunt."
Mystery File, Twenty Four Frames, Wikipedia, YouTube

Crime Wave (1954)

"A late night gas station knock-over goes South for a trio of escaped thugs when one is killed and an intervening cop is killed. The L.A.P.D. suspect the culprits will converge on - and hole up at - the home of Steve Lacey (Gene Nelson), an ex-con anxious to leave the life and that ilk far behind."
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Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

"Seeing Otto Preminger's film Where the Sidewalk Ends recently has made me regard it as a very odd companion piece with his earlier, more well-known film Laura. With this film, Preminger was reunited not only with his two principal Laura actors, Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, but also his director of photography, Joseph LaShelle. However, it's similarities end there. Laura with its urbane, sophisticated characters and its high society setting, succeeds as an elegant murder mystery. On the flipside, the crime in Where the Sidewalk Ends takes place in tenement apartments, police precincts, parking garages, and gambling dens. It is for this reason that, of the two films, Where the Sidewalk Ends better represents the classic noir period."
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His Kind of Woman (1951)

"That pretty much nails it, although it says something interesting about what one might call Farber's critical ecumenism that he could deem this both 'nonsense' and a 'best film' of the year. It is a thoroughly enjoyable picture, and its enjoyable qualities stem in no small part from its being something of a mess—more nonsensical than your average bit of studio nonsense. Blame then-RKO-head Howard Hughes, whose obsession with his discovery Russell compelled him to micro-manage the production, firing original director Farrow and bringing in RIchard Fleischer to preside over a grueling series of re-shoots, during which the principle actors took the liberty of revising their own dialogue."
Some Came Running, Wikipedia, amazon

Brute Force (1947)

"Prison films were most popular in the 1930s when dozens of movies about men serving hard time were churned out. The films were an allegory for the bigger problems in society. Depression era movie goers liked seeing prisoners in Invisible Stripes or Hell's Highway have victories -even small ones- against authority. The men, usually serving time because of mitigating circumstances, were surrounded by violent men and tried to survive despite oppressive living conditions."
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Thieves' Highway (1949)

"From director, Jules Dassin, whose earlier films included the noirs, Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948), Thieves’ Highway about the struggles of truckers trying to make a buck hauling fruit to the San Francisco produce markets, is great melodrama with a strong social conscience. It tells a story strongly rooted in the southern European migrant experience. The screenplay was adapted by Albert Isaac Bezzerides from his novel Thieves’ Market (1949). Bezzeridis’ noir credits include Desert Fury (1947), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), On Dangerous Ground (1952), and They Drive by Night (1948). Dassin was blacklisted by the HUAC and left the US before the final cut was made, and word has it the studio axed his original 'noir' ending and added a 'happy-ending' re-take. But even with a darker ending, I would not say it is a film noir."
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Criss Cross (1949)

"Criss Cross (1949) is a film noir, directed by Robert Siodmak from a novel by Don Tracy. This black and white film was shot partly on location in the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles. The film was written by Daniel Fuchs. Franz Planer's cinematography creates a black-and-white film noir world. Miklós Rózsa scored the film's soundtrack. The production nearly derailed when producer Mark Hellinger died suddenly before filming began. Lancaster claimed he was unhappy with the way Siodmak and Fuchs had reworked Hellinger's idea of a racetrack heist into a fatal romantic triangle."
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Kansas City Confidential (1952)

"From a hotel room window a man observes the delivery of millions of dollars in cash to a bank across the street. Through several days the man observes and times the routine of the armored truck crew, noticing how a panel truck always arrives to deliver flowers to the shop located next door to the bank just before the armored car arrives. The unnamed man (Preston Foster) recruits three criminals to help him rob the armored truck- Pete Harris (Jack Elam), Boyd Kane (Neville Brand), and Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef). The master mind keeps himself masked in these encounters and explains to all the thieves they will remain masked throughout the heist to avoid identification. During the robbery they use a delivery truck identical to the florist truck. The police chase and arrest the driver of the delivery truck, Joe Rolfe (John Payne), an ex-convict. As they escape the master mind tells the thieves they will be contacted later to collect their share of the money, as a countermark each of the thieves is given half of a playing card, the mastermind keeping the other half."
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Black Angel (1946)

"Black Angel is a 1946 B-Noir, directed by Roy William Neill and based on a Cornell Woolrich novel. Woolrich apparently disliked the film, and the script veers quite a bit from the novel, save the atmospheric twist ending. While it is not among the very greatest noirs, it comes smack in the middle of the classic 40's cycle and so doesn't present the rehashed feel that some early 50s noirs do, for me anyway. I must say I like the 40's noirs the best, as they are visually more stylish: more shadows, hulking cars, more walk-up tenements. Black Angel is not very stylized in this way, however; cinematographer Paul Ivano does a competent job, and there are several close-ups, especially of Dan Duryea while drunk or hallucinating that are very well done. In my opinion, the payoff of an evening spent watching Black Angel has to be the ensemble cast."
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The Set-Up (1947)

"The Set-Up from noir director, Robert Wise, is a sharp expose of the fight game packed into a lean 72 minutes. From RKO and filmed at night on a studio lot, this movie is brooding and intense, with Robert Ryan, as the aging boxer, 'Stoker' Thompson, in perhaps his best role, with a great supporting cast. The boxing scenes are as real as they get: Ryan himself was a college boxing champ. The arena is brilliantly filmed with focused and repeated shots on selected spectators, which portray not only the excitement, but also the unadorned mob brutality, that reaches fever pitch as the fighters struggle to a climactic finish. The film opens and ends with zoom shots of a street clock: starting at 9.05pm and ending at 10.17pm – yes – the actual length of the picture…"
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White Heat (1949)

"White Heat (1949) is one of the top classic crime-heist dramas of the post-war period, and one of the last of Warner Bros' gritty crime films in its era. White Heat is an entertaining, fascinating and hypnotic portrait of a flamboyant, mother-dominated and fixated, epileptic and psychotic killer, who often spouts crude bits of humor. The dynamic film, with both film noir and documentary-style elements, is characterized by an increased level of violence and brutality along with classical Greek elements."
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Niagara (1953)

"Released in 1953, Niagara is one of a handful of noir movies that were exclusively intended as a star vehicle for a single personality—oddly enough in this case, Marilyn Monroe. The majority of A-list noirs of the classic period were packed with characters, especially in cases of urban detective stories. A jungle of characters and subplots is one of the genre’s strengths, resulting in consistently complex plot lines unheard of in other genre films. At the same time, the intricacies of film noir are sometimes an Achilles heel, serving only to confuse even the most attentive audience (John Huston’s The Big Sleep is notorious for its various ‘inexplicables,’ due more to editing-under-pressure than anything else). That being said, Niagara is the exception to the rule; though produced by 20th Century Fox, it appears that the studio didn’t care much for having a Byzantine story or a large cast—the film is strictly meant to be an eye-popping, figure-hugging, titillating introduction to a gal named Marilyn Monroe."
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The Narrow Margin (1952)

"Landscapes and environment were undeniably integral aspects of many classic film noirs. They seemed nearly as important in conveying the crucial noir elements of suspense and dread as the actors starring in them. From the cobblestone streets of Vienna in The Third Man, the seedy underworld of London in Night and the City, the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles in Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, and of course the concrete jungle of Manhattan in Scarlet Street, The Naked City and Pickup on South Street are just few of some of the numerous possible match-ups. These environments breathed aesthetic life into these films and literally set the stage for the players to interact, investigate, pursue, be chased, live and die on their streets."
Noir of the Week, Coleman Corner in Cinema, amazon, YouTube, Films Noir

The Big Steal (1949)

"‘The Big Steal’, starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer and scripted by Geoffrey Holmes (Daniel Mainwaring) often appears to be best known and least admired for what it isn’t, namely ‘Out of the Past’. The latter, released in 1947 - starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer and scripted by Geoffrey Holmes - is regarded as an elegant and sublime evocation of noir. The ‘Big Steal’ is hardly referenced and not much regarded at all."
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The Enforcer (1951)

Wikipedia - "The Enforcer is a black-and-white 1951 film noir starring Humphrey Bogart. Based on the Murder, Inc. trials, the film is largely a police procedural directed by Bretaigne Windust with uncredited help from Raoul Walsh, who shot most of the film's suspenseful moments, including the ending. The opening narration is voiced by Estes Kefauver who, at the time, was chairing a US Senate investigation into organized crime."
Wikipedia, The Night Editor, YouTube, amazon

Out of the Past (1947)

"Jacques Tourneur’s riveting 1947 film noir, usually ranked as one of the best of the genre, was adapted from Daniel Mainwaring’s evocatively titled novel Build My Gallows High (published under the name Geoffrey Homes by Mainwaring, later blacklisted). Late in the film, world-weary gumshoe Jeff Markham (Robert Mitchum) quotes this phrase to Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer), one of the most fatale of cinema’s femmes. When he realizes she’s behind a series of murderous maneuvers that have smashed any chance of hope or happiness in his life, he looks at her and quietly remarks, 'You built my gallows high, baby.' As grimly appropriate as the original title is, the changed version has its own resonance. It’s the past’s death-grip on the present that dominates this film and its doomed characters, threatening the lives of Jeff, Kathie, and the third member of what becomes a lethal triangle, wealthy gambler Whit Stirling (Kirk Douglas)."
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Pickup on South Street (1953)

"Petty crook Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) has his eyes fixed on the big score. When the cocky three-time convict picks the pocketbook of unsuspecting Candy (Jean Peters), he finds a haul bigger than he could have imagined: a strip of microfilm bearing confidential U.S. secrets. Tailed by manipulative Feds and the unwitting courier’s Communist puppeteers, Skip and Candy find themselves in a precarious gambit that pits greed against redemption, Right versus Red, and passion against self-preservation. With its dazzling cast and director Samuel Fuller’s signature raw energy and hardboiled repartee, Pickup on South Street is a true film noir classic by one of America’s most passionate cinematic craftsmen."
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