Leave Her to Heaven
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:26 PM)
I haven't watched that one. I mostly just know Fonda from his (decidedly un-noir) work with John Ford, plus
Once Upon a Time in the West
obviously. I did watch all of the early Robinson, Cagney, and Muni crime films I could get my hands on several years ago and
The Roaring Twenties
, directed by the great Raoul Walsh, was my favorite of all of them.
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 19, 2025 05:33 AM)
fyi her noirs are:
Outrage
The Bigamist
The Hitchhiker
and she co-directed
On Dangerous Ground
Decided to start with
Outrage
since you rated it so highly. (And tbh because I was looking for something relatively short to watch before bed.) And, yes, this one was great. The performances Lupino pulls out of the two leads are what really sells it. I don't think I've seen Mala Powers before - maybe reruns of some of her TV guest spots when I was a kid - but she's very impressive here. Thematically, this definitely feels a bit ahead of it's time. The only unbelievable aspect is that the police would put forward so much effort to catch the rapist. I also felt like the dude at the party totally had it coming and she shouldn't have ended up in a courtroom at all, but then again that set up Tod Andrews' best scene in the film. So, yeah, I definitely liked this.
Oh, and how you mentioned that
The Naked City
was too documentary-like for your taste? Be sure to avoid
The Phenix City Story
. For the first fifteen minutes, I was literally convinced I'd turned on a very dull documentary by mistake lol
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:21 PM)
A few major (to me) omissions I noticed from the HMs:
Gilda
(1946)
The Naked City
(1948)
Riot in Cell Block 11
(1954)
Bad Day at Black Rock
(1955)
The Man with the Golden Arm
(1955)
Otherwise, a wonderful list, of those I've seen.
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Sophienoire — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:27 PM)
Gilda
is too misogynistic for my taste.
The Naked City
is too dry and documentary (for my taste).
Riot in Cell Block 11- not seen.
Bad Day at Black Rock
is not noir in my books, certainly not canon. other than that it's just pretty mid lol
The Man with the Golden Arm - i love it, but also not noir/canon.
the sound of your racing heart
- not seen.
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:33 PM)
I haven't seen
Gilda
in years, so I'll need to rewatch it with that criticism in mind. I'd consider both Black Rock and Golden Arm noir. Where I'd draw the line is at something like Robert Wise's
Blood on the Moon
or some of Anthony Mann's later work which I've seen people try to include under the umbrella.
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:44 PM)
Definitely watch
Riot in Cell Block 11
sometime! I know you're familiar with Don Siegel from your '70s crime film journeys and hopefully you've seen
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
as well?
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Sophienoire — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:48 PM)
i have seen
Body Snatchers
, yes, but i'm not really that interested in prison movies with an all-male cast 🥱 bc there's nothing more boring than that nor am i particularly interested in the director. i've also read it's not canon noir so… that's a nah, i'm afraid
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:59 PM)
Well, they're usually not as bad as prison movies with an all (or mostly) female cast lol. Ugh, I feel so bad for Pam Grier having had to make such ****. Her badass heroine phase was so much better. But yeah, I don't really like prison movies as a genre, just that one, Siegel's
Escape from Alcatraz
and
The Shawshank Redemption
. Sort of like
The Green Mile
too, but it's a little schmaltzy.
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Sophienoire — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 08:10 PM)
they're usually not as bad as prison movies with an all (or mostly) female cast lol.
sir, i beg to differ!
Caged
(1950) is amazing!
and i don't like
Shawshank Redemption
at all myself, so there!
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Sophienoire — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:47 AM)
see my reply in the other thread:
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/22750124/permalink/#p22750124
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Sophienoire — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:45 AM)
from those i've seen, probably…
Force of Evil
(1948) its director, Abraham Polonsky, was persecuted by McCarthy.
also:
Crossfire
(1947)
Body and Soul
(1948)
House of Strangers
(1949)
All the King's Men
(1949)
The Lawless
(1950)
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sheetsadam1 — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 12:24 PM)
A leftist magazine in the U.S. actually did a great article on this very topic recently:
https://jacobin.com/2025/05/hollywood-blacklist-criterion-lang-dassin
"All films about crime are about capitalism because capitalism is about crime." - Abraham Polonsky
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️ — 7 months ago(August 18, 2025 07:15 AM)