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TSPDT
TSPDT

1,000 Noir Films (O)

Introduction
The 1,000 Noir Films: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Y - Z
View by: Title / Director / Year / Country
More Noir(ish) Films / 50 Key Noir Directors / Updates / Links
Obsession
Obsession Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
The Hidden Room (USA title)
● BRIT-NOIR
1949, UK, 98m, BW, Thriller-Crime-Mystery
Screenplay Alec Coppel (based on his novel A Man About a Dog) Producer Nat A. Bronstein Photography C.M. Pennington-Richards Editor Lito Carruthers Music Nino Rota Cast Robert Newton, Phil Brown, Sally Gray, Naunton Wayne, James Harcourt, Betty Cooper, Michael Balfour, Ronald Adam, Roddy Hughes, Olga Lindo.
"Not as well known as Edward Dmytryk's groundbreaking film noirs of the forties, Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Crossfire (1947), Obsession is nonetheless a gripping psychological thriller that builds considerable menace and tension in its bleak trajectory of events. On a visual level, the film (photographed by C.M. Pennington-Richards) is pure noir but in terms of execution, Obsession compares favorably to such better known portraits of aberrant behavior depicted in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954); like Robert Walker's Bruno Antony or Ray Milland's Tony Wendice in the latter films, Dr. Riordan (Newton) is the sort of cunning psychopath who has worked out the perfect murder down to the last detail but has overlooked the possibility of any flaw in the grand design.” - Jeff Stafford (Turner Classic Movies)
October Man
The October Man
● BRIT-NOIR
1947, UK, 98m, BW, Mystery
Screenplay Eric Ambler (from his novel) Producer Eric Ambler Photography Erwin Hillier Editor Alan L. Jaggs Music William Alwyn Cast John Mills, Joan Greenwood, Kay Walsh, Edward Chapman, Joyce Carey, Catherine Lacey, Adrianne Allen, Felix Aylmer, Frederick Piper, Patrick Holt.
"This amnesia murder thriller owes whatever good fortune it has to its ominous dark setting of a threatening world in postwar London (shadowy streets and a musty hotel), otherwise the murderer is too obvious, the harried suspect never requires our full sympathy because the police really don't have a thing on him, the screenplay is too cardboard and the acting, for the most part, is a wee bit starchy…. The grim story is adapted by Eric Ambler from his own novel; it never remains tense nor does it offer any surprises about how the mentally injured have a tough go of adjusting to reality. Mills is a first-rate actor who is stuck in this B-film, and it's to his credit that he makes the most of the incredulous and stiff role he was saddled with." - Dennis Schwartz (Movie Reviews)
Odd Man Out
Odd Man Out Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
● BRIT-NOIR
1947, UK, 115m, BW, Drama-Crime-Chase Movie
Screenplay F.L. Green, R.C. Sherriff (from the novel by F.L. Green) Producer Carol Reed Photography Robert Krasker Editor Fergus McDonell Music William Alwyn Cast James Mason, Robert Newton, Robert Beatty, Kathleen Ryan, William Hartnell, Cyril Cusack, F.J. McCormick, Fay Compton, Beryl Measor, Dan O'Herlihy.
"Odd Man Out was Carol Reed's first postwar feature and the first of a quartet of films, including The Fallen Idol, The Third Man, and Outcast of the Islands, which were to mark the highpoint of a lengthy film-making career. Based on F. L. Green's novel of the same name, the film was partly shot in Belfast with a predominantly Irish cast... Robert Krasker, the cameraman on Brief Encounter, was responsible for the film's striking photography, and William Alwyn contributed a memorable musical score, incorporating individual leitmotifs for three of the central characters... Formally, the film is heavily indebted to both German Expressionism and French poetic realism—indeed, its ending is practically a copy of Julien Duvivier's Pepé le Moko (1936)—and has much in common with its similarly stylised postwar US counterpart, the film noir." - John Hill (Film Reference)
Odds Against Tomorrow
Odds Against Tomorrow
100 Essential Noirs (or the 100 films most often referred to as noir) Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
1959, USA, 95m, BW, Thriller-Crime-Caper
Screenplay Abraham Polonsky [uncredited], Nelson Gidding (from the novel by William P. McGivern) Producer Robert Wise Photography Joseph Brun Editor Dede Allen Music John Lewis Cast Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley, Gloria Grahame, Will Kuluva, Kim Hamilton, Mae Barnes, Richard Bright, Carmen De Lavallade.
"Odds Against Tomorrow is erroneously tapped as the first noir with an African-American lead (see 1950's No Way Out for the true heir to this title). Harry Belafonte produces and stars, along with Ed Begley Sr. and Wise regular Robert Ryan. Bleak beyond redemption, Odds is a heist movie crossed with The Defiant Ones: A Black man and a White man must trust each other in order to succeed... What makes Odds Against Tomorrow one of Wise's best is just how nasty and subversive it is for 1959. The dialogue is raw and epithet-filled... Both novelist James Ellroy and director Jean-Pierre Melville cite it as an influence on their work. (Ellroy calls it "just about the best heist gone wrong movie ever made.") Scorsese also cites it as one of Wise's better pictures." - Odie Henderson (The House Next Door)
Oldboy
Oldboy
Oldeuboi (original title)
● SOUTH KOREAN NOIR / NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
2003, South Korea, 120m, Col, Action-Mystery-Thriller
Screenplay Hwang Jo-yun, Lim Chun-hyeong, Park Chan-wook (based on the manga series Ōrudo Bōi by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi) Producers Kim Dong-joo, Lim Seung-yong Photography Chung Chung-hoon Editor Kim Sang-beom Music Shim Hyun-jung Cast Min-Sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang, Byeong-ok Kim, Dae-han Ji, Dal-su Oh, Seung-Shin Lee, Jin-seo Yun, Tae-kyung Oh, Yeon-suk Ahn.
"A businessman in Seoul (Min-sik Choi) passes out after a drunken revel and wakes up in a private prison cell, where he spends the next 15 years wondering who incarcerated him and why. Just as arbitrarily, he finds himself set free, though his mysterious captor continues to torture him with cryptic communications. This stylish South Korean noir by Chan-wook Park won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, but there's a lot less here than meets the eye. The premise may suggest Kafka, but once the hero has been released onto the neon-lit streets, this devolves into the sort of hypercruel Asian pulp popularized by Takashi Miike before settling at the level of an old Fu Manchu programmer." - J.R. Jones (Chicago Reader)
On Dangerous Ground
On Dangerous Ground
100 Essential Noirs (or the 100 films most often referred to as noir) Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
1951, USA, 82m, BW, Crime-Drama-Police Detective Film
Screenplay A.I. Bezzerides (adapted by A.I. Bezzerides and Nicholas Ray from the novel Mad with Much Heart by Gerald Butler) Producer John Houseman Photography George E. Diskant Editor Roland Gross Music Bernard Herrmann Cast Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper, Ed Begley, Cleo Moore, Sumner Williams, Anthony Ross, Ian Wolfe, Gus Schilling.
"One of the loveliest of Nick Ray's movies: this 1952 feature begins as a harsh film noir and gradually shifts to an ethereal romanticism reminiscent of Frank Borzage. Robert Ryan is the unstable hero, a thuggish cop sent upstate in search of a murderer; he ends up falling in love with the killer's blind sister (Ida Lupino, who took over some of the direction when Ray fell ill). Ray excels both in the portrayal of the corrupt urban environment, a swirl of noirish shadows and violent movements, and in his exalted vision of the snow-covered countryside, filmed as a blindingly white, painfully silent field for moral regeneration." - Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader)
On the Night of the Fire
On the Night of the Fire
The Fugitive (USA title)
● NOIR-PRECURSOR / BRIT-NOIR
1939, UK, 76m, BW, Drama-Thriller-Crime
Screenplay Brian Desmond Hurst, Patrick Kirwan, Terence Young (based on the novel by Frederick Lawrence Green) Producer Josef Somlo Photography Günther Krampf Editor Terence Fisher Music Miklós Rózsa Cast Ralph Richardson, Diana Wynyard, Romney Brent, Mary Clare, Henry Oscar, Dave Crowley, Gertrude Musgrove, Frederick Leister, Ivan Brandt, Sara Allgood.
"This brooding Tyneside saga has the feel of film noir, but predates Hollywood's earliest example (John Huston's The Maltese Falcon) by two years. The story centres on the crisis of conscience endured by barber Ralph Richardson after he steals £100 to pay wife Diana Wynyard's debt to draper Henry Oscar… While not exactly an archetypal Geordie, Richardson makes an empathetic everyman and Northern Irish director Brian Desmond Hurst makes effective use of the cramped interiors and Expressionist lighting to suggest Richardson's options narrowing as guilt gnaws away at him. With Romney Brent and Mary Clare lending colourful support, and Miklos Rozsa's score being as clipped as future Hammer stalwart Terence Fisher's editing, this neglected psychological melodrama is long overdue reappraisal." - David Parkinson (RadioTimes)
Once a Thief
Once a Thief
1950, USA, 88m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Richard S. Conway, W. Lee Wilder [uncredited] (based on a story by Max Kolpé and Hans Wilhelm) Producer W. Lee Wilder Photography William Clothier Editor Asa Boyd Clark Music Michel Michelet Cast Cesar Romero, June Havoc, Marie McDonald, Lon Chaney Jr., Iris Adrian, Jack Daly, Marta Mitrovich, Ann Tyrrell, Michael Mark, Kathleen Freeman.
"W. Lee Wilder, the younger brother of Billy Wilder, was producer/director/co-writer of Once a Thief. June Havoc stars as Margie, a shoplifter who falls in love with smooth-talking Mitch (Cesar Romero). Margie's new beau reveals his true colors by stealing every penny she has, then turning her into the authorities. Upon her release from prison, Margie swears revenge. Though Mitch gets his just desserts, no one comes out a winner in this one. Though Once a Thief offers few surprises, the film does boast an impressive supporting cast (by "B"-picture standards, at least), including Marie McDonald, Lon Chaney Jr., Iris Adrian and Kathleen Freeman." - Hal Erickson (Allmovie)
One False Move
One False Move Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1992, USA, 105m, Col, Drama-Crime-Thriller
Screenplay Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Epperson Producers Ben Myron, Jesse Beaton Photography James L. Carter Editor Carole Kravetz Aykanian Music Derek Holt, Peter Haycock Cast Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Jim Metzler, Michael Beach, Earl Billings, Natalie Canerday, Robert Anthony Bell, Kevin Hunter, Robert Ginnaven.
"Here is a crime movie that lifts you up and carries you along in an ominously rising tide of tension, building to an emotional payoff of amazing power. On the very short list of great movies about violent criminals, One False Move deserves a place of honor, beside such different kinds of films as In Cold Blood, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Badlands, The Executioner's Song and At Close Range… Yet no words of praise can quite reflect the seductive strength of One False Move, which begins as a crime story and ends as a human story in which everything that happens depends on the personalities of the characters. It's so rare to find a film in which the events are driven by people, not by chases or special effects." - Roger Ebert (Roger Ebert.com)
One Way Street
One Way Street
1950, USA, 79m, BW, Drama-Crime
Screenplay Lawrence Kimble Producer Leonard Goldstein Photography Maury Gertsman Editor Milton Carruth Music Frank Skinner Cast James Mason, Marta Toren, Dan Duryea, Basil Ruysdael, William Conrad, Rodolfo Acosta, King Donovan, Robert Espinoza, Tito Renaldo, Margarito Luna.
"It's a shame One Way Street has such a low profile today because it is one of the better noirs from the early 1950s. Director Hugo Fregonese, along with cast and crew, conjures a sense of life's ongoing flow before the first shot and after the end credits, the mark of a memorable film. However, the viewer might wish that Lawrence Kimble's script didn't seem more than just a good first draft, that it delved deeper into the lead characters. There is no sense of the impressive tapestry of detail that one finds in noirs like Out of the Past and Criss Cross, films with which it shares some faint similarities... But, to be fair, One Way Street seems as if it was shot on a lower budget and a much faster schedule than those earlier benchmark pictures." - Chris D. (Film Noir: The Encyclopedia)
The Onion Field
The Onion Field
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1979, USA, 122m, Col, Police Drama-Crime-Docudrama
Screenplay Joseph Wambaugh (based on his novel) Producer Walter Coblenz Photography Charles Rosher Jr. Editor John W. Wheeler Music Eumir Deodato Cast John Savage, James Woods, Franklyn Seales, Ted Danson, Ronny Cox, David Huffman, Christopher Lloyd, Dianne Hull, Priscilla Pointer, Beege Barkett.
"An expertly performed adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh's novel, based on the real-life case history of an LA Cop (Danson) murdered by two hijackers he tries to arrest (Woods, Seales), and the effect of the killing on his partner (Savage). It's the usual heavy Wambaugh brew: police procedure closely observed without a trace of romanticism, suggesting simply that life in the force is psychological hell. So far, so good. But that very insistence on authenticity is followed by the film to the detriment of the narrative's dramatic structure; half way through, the whole thing begins to ramble badly. Engrossingly sordid, nevertheless." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
Open Secret
Open Secret
1948, USA, 68m, BW, Drama-Crime-Thriller
Screenplay Henry Blankfort, Max Wilk (based on a story by Max Wilk and Ted Murkland) Producer Frank Satenstein Photography George Robinson Editor Stanley Frazen Music Herschel Burke Gilbert Cast John Ireland, Jane Randolph, Sheldon Leonard, Roman Bohnen, George Tyne, Morgan Farley, Ellen Lowe, Arthur O'Connell, Rory Mallinson, Bert Conway.
"Paul Lester (Ireland) has just arrived in town with his new bride Nancy (Randolph). They make arrangements to stay with Paul’s war buddy, fellow photographer Ed Stevens (Charles Waldron Jr.). But when they get to his apartment, Ed isn’t there… and he doesn’t come back. There are signs of something sinister going on: hate-filled pamphlets in Ed’s apartment, a man named Fisher who was run down by a truck, anti-Semitic chatter at the local watering hole… That’s actually most of the plot of this movie, but it’s only 67 minutes long. And even at that feels a bit repetitive. However, the handling of the subject matter (also covered the previous year in Crossfire and Gentleman’s Agreement) is quite deft. The script doesn’t dance around the problem of anti-Semitism with innuendo… It’s a reasonably gripping film with its heart in the right place, and a few instances of fine noir photography." - Martin Teller (Martin Teller's Movie Reviews)
Ossessione
Ossessione Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
● ITALIAN NOIR
1943, Italy, 140m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Gianni Puccini, Giuseppe De Santis, Luchino Visconti, Luchino Visconti (based on the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain) Producer Libero Solaroli Photography Domenico Scala Editor Mario Serandrei Music Giuseppe Rosati Cast Clara Calamai, Massimo Girotti, Juan deLanda, Elio Marcuzzo, Dhia Cristani, Vittorio Duse, Michele Riccardini, Michele Sakara.
"When Visconti received permission to adapt James M. Cain's American pulp novel The Postman Always Rings Twice—about a drifter who falls in love with a diner owner's wife and conspires to kill her husband—he loaded the story with as much Marxist critique as it could bear. That 1943 debut, Ossessione, contained the sense of fatalism soon to be standard in American noir, as well as the sweaty, dusty neo-realism soon to be the dominant mode of expression in Italian cinema. The film holds up well today, both as a murder story and as a slice-of-life. Massimo Girotti's performance as the unemployed drifter has a desperation that pierces his character's lackadaisical surface; he appears to be genuinely enamored of the somewhat shrewish Clara Calamai, and to possess a real feeling of hope that his lot is about to improve." - Noel Murray (A.V. Club)
The Other Woman
The Other Woman
1954, USA, 81m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Hugo Haas Producer Hugo Haas Photography Eddie Fitzgerald Editor Robert S. Eisen Music Ernest Gold Cast Hugo Haas, Cleo Moore, Lance Fuller, Lucille Barkley, Jack Macy, John Qualen, Jan Arvan, Karolee Kelly, Steve Mitchell, Robert Lowell.
"Haas’ American films are remembered today primarily for his R. Crumb-like obsession with casting buxom blonde bombshells. He directed and starred alongside Cleo Moore in seven pictures, including The Other Woman… It’s unfair to dismiss Haas as a from-hunger purveyor of drive-in cheesecake. The Other Woman demands otherwise. Despite its obviously low budget production values and cast, it’s a polished, highly personal film with a nuanced, clever script that doesn’t compromise its own dark underpinnings — even if the story of blackmail and murder is hackneyed. What elevates The Other Woman over similar potboilers is how Haas uses the story and visual tropes of film noir to comment about his personal life in Hollywood.” - Mark Fertig (Where Danger Lives)
La Otra
La Otra
The Other One (English title)
● MEXICAN NOIR
1946, Mexico, 98m, BW, Crime-Drama-Mystery
Screenplay José Revueltas, Roberto Gavaldón (based on a story by Ryan James) Producer Mauricio de la Serna Photography Alex Phillips Editor Charles L. Kimball Music Raúl Lavista Cast Dolores Del Rio, Agustin Irusta, Victor Junco, Jose Baviera, Conchita Carracedo, Carlos Villarias, Rafael Icardo, Manuel Donde, Jose Arratia, Daniel Arroyo.
"Gavaldón collaborated with his favorite screenwriter, José Revueltas, to create this distinctly Mexican variant on the time-honored Evil Twin plot: this time, it’s the great Dolores del Rio, returning to Mexico from her Hollywood period, who plays the central dual role, as a meek, bespectacled manicurist and her mercenary, man-eating sister. But in this case, envy proves to be a greater sin than avarice. The film was based on an unproduced screenplay commissioned for Bette Davis, who eventually made her version in 1964: Dead Ringer, directed by Paul Henreid." - The Museum of Modern Art
Out of the Fog
Out of the Fog
1941, USA, 93m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, Robert Rossen (based on the play The Gentle People by Irwin Shaw) Producer Henry Blanke Photography James Wong Howe Editor Warren Low Music Leo F. Forbstein Cast Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert, John Qualen, George Tobias, Aline MacMahon, Leo Gorcey, Jerome Cowan, Odette Myrtil.
"Oddly atmospheric mixture of noir melodrama and semi-comic parable (based on Irwin Shaw's play The Gentle People), in which Garfield's tinpot Dillinger terrorises a small wharfside community by extracting protection money. Problems arise when Lupino, daughter of Mitchell - who eventually plots with Qualen to combat their oppressor - falls for the hood. Originally intended by Shaw as an anti-fascist statement, the film's message is inevitably confused by the fact that Mitchell and Qualen finally take the law into their own hands. Nevertheless, the vivid performances, the occasionally poetic dialogue (by a team of writers that included Jerry Wald and Robert Rossen), and James Wong Howe's excellent moody photography lend it a professionalism that the story barely warrants." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
Out of the Past
Out of the Past 100 Essential Noirs (or the 100 films most often referred to as noir) Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
Build My Gallows High (UK title)
1947, USA, 97m, BW, Thriller-Mystery-Crime
Screenplay Daniel Mainwaring, Frank Fenton, James M. Cain (from the novel Build My Gallows High by Daniel Mainwaring) Producer Warren Duff Photography Nicholas Musuraca Editor Samuel E. Beetley Music Roy Webb Cast Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, Ken Niles.
"The script is dense, subtly shaped, and bristles with stylised, often witty hard-boiled dialogue and voice-over narration, eg: 'I never saw her in the daytime. We seemed to live by night. What was left of the day went away like a pack of cigarettes you smoke.' The superb photography is by Nicholas Musuraca, an RKO stalwart specialising in noir, and the first-rate score is by the studio's prolific senior composer, Roy Webb, who had worked with Hitchcock on Notorious the previous year. The picture draws on Hemingway's The Killers for its opening sequence, and is a major influence on David Cronenberg's A History of Violence." - Philip French (The Observer)
Out of Time
Out of Time
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
2003, USA, 105m, Col, Thriller-Crime-Police Detective Film
Screenplay David Collard Producers Jesse Beaton, Neal H. Moritz Photography Theo van de Sande Editor Carole Kravetz Aykanian Music Graeme Revell Cast Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain, John Billingsley, Robert Baker, Alex Carter, Antoni Corone, Terry Loughlin, Nora Dunn.
"I reckon 90 of the movie’s 106 minutes are thriller heaven. The windup, alas, isn’t in the same league: Both humdrum and confusingly staged, it pales beside the volcanic climaxes of Franklin’s One False Move (1992) and Devil in a Blue Dress. Still, I love those huge close-ups of Washington, with Theo van de Sande’s camera slightly cocked and the image suffused in Everglades colors and bric-a-brac. The tightness of the frame is like the tightness of the vise in which the hero is caught. And there aren’t too many faces that could hold that camera as well as Washington’s. You see in his eyes that he needs time, he needs space, and he needs, above all, to maintain his preternatural cool." - David Edelstein (Slate)
The Outfit
The Outfit Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
● NEO-NOIR / COLOUR NOIR
1973, USA, 103m, Col, Crime-Thriller-Drama
Screenplay John Flynn (from the novel by Richard Stark) Producer Carter DeHaven Photography Bruce Surtees Editor Ralph E. Winters Music Jerry Fielding Cast Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey, Richard Jaeckel, Sheree North, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr.
"Excellent adaptation of a novel by Richard Stark (Donald E Westlake), who also provided the source material for Point Blank, The Split and Godard's Made in USA. A taut, grim thriller, it sees Duvall, just out of prison and with revenge burning in his heart for the murder of his brother, taking on the Syndicate with the help of heavy Joe Don Baker. Tightly scripted by Flynn himself, sharply shot by Bruce Surtees, it's a cool, exciting thriller in the Siegel tradition, paying more than passing reference to classic film noir with its host of character actors (Cook, Windsor, Greer, Carey), a cruel performance from Ryan as the mob leader, and its vision of people caught up in a chaotic, confused and treacherous world." - Geoff Andrew (Time Out)
Outrage
Outrage
1950, USA, 75m, BW, Drama-Crime
Screenplay Collier Young, Ida Lupino, Marvin Wald Producer Collier Young Photography Archie Stout Editor Harvey Manger Music Paul Sawtell Cast Mala Powers, Tod Andrews, Robert Clarke, Raymond Bond, Lillian Hamilton, Hal March, Kenneth Patterson, Angela Clarke, William Challee, Jerry Paris.
"This 1950 film by Ida Lupino may not be stylistically original or completely successful, but it does treat the subject of rape with real sensitivity, especially for its era. Ann Walton (Mala Powers) is a young bookkeeper whose life falls apart after she is raped, and her reactions—refusing to talk about the rape, rejecting her fiance, and ultimately fleeing her hometown—seem believable, in part because of the various ways Lupino presents the woman’s body. The rape itself is omitted, but Walton’s helplessness and terror are palpable as she tries to escape her pursuer in a barren industrial landscape, dwarfed by parked trucks and lifeless buildings." - Fred Camper (Chicago Reader)
Outside the Wall
Outside the Wall
1950, USA, 80m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Crane Wilbur (from a story by Henry Edward Helseth) Producer Aaron Rosenberg Photography Irving Glassberg Editor Edward Curtiss Music Milton Schwarzwald Cast Richard Basehart, Marilyn Maxwell, Signe Hasso, Dorothy Hart, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, Harry Morgan, John Hoyt, Mickey Knox, Harry Antrim.
"This is a solid crime picture, even if it isn’t a full-bodied film noir… Outside the Wall is cheap, enjoyable, unspectacular, and entertaining. It has too much brotherly love for a bona fide film noir, but it offers a rare glimpse at the mid-century streets of one of America’s great cities (Philadelphia), and it serves up plenty of what crime and noir fans get jazzed on: prisons and parolees, bad girls, torturous thugs, and killers who pull heists with hand grenades. Everything about it may have been done better in some other picture, but what’s not to like?" - Mark Fertig (Where Danger Lives)
Over-Exposed
Over-Exposed
1956, USA, 80m, BW, Crime-Drama
Screenplay Gil Orlovitz, James Gunn (based on a story by Richard Sale and Mary Loos) Producer Lewis J. Rachmil Photography Henry Freulich Editor Edwin Bryant Music Mischa Bakaleinikoff Cast Cleo Moore, Richard Crenna, Isobel Elsom, Raymond Greenleaf, Constance Towers, James O'Rear, Donald Randolph, Dayton Lummis, Jack Albertson, Barbara Aler.
"This is the rare Cleo Moore outing minus Hugo Haas, and it’s refreshing to see the actress with her name above the title and out from under the big Czech’s pervasive lack of self esteem and his bittered pleas for Hollywood recognition… Although Over-Exposed is ostensibly a crime film, it’s a stretch to call it a film noir. There’s no doom, dread, or angst, and with the exception of a scene near the end involving pock-marked love interest Richard Crenna, there’s little in the way of visual style. Most of the scenes are flooded with light, giving viewers a never-ending eyeful of a decked-out Moore, in spite of otherwise cheap production values. In trading Haas for Seiler we get to finally see what Moore could do in an unabashed star vehicle, but at the expense of Haas’s weird, and inherently noirish psychological peccadilloes." - Mark Fertig (Where Danger Lives)
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Ox-Bow Incident
● WESTERN NOIR
1943, USA, 75m, BW, Western-Drama
Screenplay Lamar Trotti (based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark) Producer Lamar Trotti Photography Arthur C. Miller Editor Allen McNeil Music Cyril J. Mockridge Cast Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn, Mary Beth Hughes, William Eythe, Harry Morgan, Jane Darwell, Frank Conroy, Francis Ford, Matt Briggs.
"This celebrated indictment of lynching remains a brave and unorthodox piece of film-making, based on the novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark and pushed through the studio system by director William A. Wellman as a personal project. It is a western only in setting (the exteriors are largely created on studio sound stages) and its grim tale lacks any heroes - Henry Fonda and Henry "Harry" Morgan are passing cattlemen who observe rather than intervene. The lynch mob mentality is tellingly explored but the letter so beautifully read out by Fonda is far too literate and philosophical to be the last testament of a humble cowboy." - Allen Eyles (Radio Times)
100 Essential Noirs (or the 100 films most often referred to as noir) The 100 Most Cited Noir Films
Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT) Recommended Viewing (by TSPDT)
Introduction
The 1,000 Noir Films: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - Y - Z
View by: Title / Director / Year / Country
More Noir(ish) Films / 50 Key Noir Directors / Updates / Links