His Kind of Woman. Robert Mitchum, Jane Russel, Vincent Price and Raymond Burr star in a film noir about a mobster in need of an new identity, the man so desperate for cash that he is willing to sell his name, and the gold-digging beauty determined to land a rich husband.
His Kind of Woman
In A Long Night, a worker and a no-longer-very-young magician compete for the love of a young woman. The latter resorts to the most shameless lies to eliminate his rival, who kills him in a fit of rage. Then he locks himself in a hotel room, besieged by the police and recalls the whole story in flashback.
Long Night
House of Strangers is supposedly a film noir, but it doesn’t feel like one. Instead, it’s the story of an immigrant family, with a controlling, hard father who runs the family with an iron fist, and his anger and control extends beyond the grave. It’s also the story of the favored son, who goes to prison for his father’s crime — and after his father’s death, manages to break free of the anger and bitterness that his father used to control him.
House of Strangers
In Black Widow, an aspiring young writer is found dead …. In a Broadway producer’s apartment. Is the Broadway producer helping her guilty?
Black Widow (1954)
Road House has acquired a cult as a prime film noir. Certainly the title location is archetypal, a lounge and bowling alley up toward the Canadian border, and Ida Lupino and Richard Widmark make the most of flavorful roles that would qualify them as exemplary noir denizens even if they hadn’t established that elsewhere. Road House
Moontide is a variety of things — a forgotten movie with excellent acting, a character study, a film noir. It’s the story of a French wanderer named Bobo (Jean Gabin). Bobo is a handsome, hard-drinking man who considers himself a wandering gypsy. He wanders from place to place and job to job. His best friend Tiny (Thomas Mitchell) tails him. But this friend is more of a leech. He blackmails Bobo into paying his bills so that Tiny doesn’t have to work for a living.
Until they come to a small fishing town, and Bobo falls for a beautiful waitress (Ida Lupino). And after Bobo rescues her from an attempted suicide by drowning, the two begin falling in love. Then, Bobo begins to think about settling down for the first time … But that doesn’t fit in with Tiny’s plans. And an old man has been murdered. But Bobo remembers nothing about it since he was drinking at the time …
A lesser-known, but classic Humphrey Bogart movie, possibly his best performance in the film noir genre – Bogart plays screenwriter Dixon Steele, accused of a murder that he may, or may not, have committed. It is a riveting character study that must be seen to be appreciated.
DVD review of John Huston’s production of The Maltese Falcon — starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre
The Maltese Falcon
Scarlet Street (1945) starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea – classic film noir directed by Fritz Lang
Scarlet Street
