Any Film Noir fans here?

Some definite classics in the genre - Kiss Me Deadly, The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Gilda, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Touch of Evil, Murder, My Sweet, to name but eight. There are plenty more.

RegarRAB

Mark
 
Yes, me!

Double Indemnity is an all-time fave. Also love The Big Heat, The Woman In The Window, In A Lonely Place and many more. Hitchcock doesn't usually count as noir but I adore Hitch films.
 
yes Mark, Ah double indemnity an all time fave of most noir fans. Touch of evil is another one i love and and since you like it then you must like night and city. Another one you mentioned I like is gilda then i think you'd like Sunset Boulevard. like you said the list is endless but i have to add Detour, The Killing, They live by night, The Third man... ok i'll stop
 
Well actually some of Hitchcock movies are regarded as film noirs, strangers on a train being a great one, shadow of doubt and then the wrong man. Hitchcok is in my top 3 best directors of all time. I think I have watched all his flicks - well most :)
 
Yeah The Last Seduction(1994) is an excellent film - although I suppose you would class it as neo noir! It is a sort of homage to The Double Indemnity! Plus Bridget Gregory is crazy ****!

You should also mention The Big Sleep. Which features Bogie and Bacall and sexual innuendo and drug taking in a PG rated film!

Plus I suppose you should add Chinatown(1974) as sort of neo noir as well.
 
A favorite of mine, which I also picked up on DVD recently, was The Fountainhead.

Starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal and Raymond Massey.

Cooper stars as a modern, idealistic and very stubborn architect who wants to build art-deco style buildings, but comes up against massive opposition from the traditionalists. Coopers character is extremely driven and uncompromising, and would rather starve than see any of his plans changed or adapted to suit the traditionalists.

Based on a best selling Ayn Rand novel, it's central theme is one of conformity. Of course there is a torrid romance with Neal's character, and to be honest it is fairly cliched and overblown at times.

But what marks it out for me is that it is a movie I saw back on TV in the 70's as a child, and despite it's seriousness and subject matter I somehow found it captivating.
 
Well then...here's a little gem for you then...

Never Let Go. A little gem of a movie from 1960, directed by John Guillermin.

It stars Richard Todd as a struggling freelance salesman who manages to scrape enough money together to buy a brand new Ford Anglia (!), which he hopes will help to improve his chances of making a living.

But...his pride and joy is stolen by a group of youths (led by Adam Faith) who are employed to steal cars to order by vicious garage owner Meadows, played by Peter Sellers.

The movie revolves around the determination of working man Todd, prepared to go to any lengths to get his prized possession back.

It's real gritty, kitchen-sink, slice-of-life stuff. Very dark and uncompromising.

What makes it unique is a very uncharacteristically villainous role for Sellers. And he really is quite menacing. There is a fight between him and Todd in a garage involving all sorts of chains, iron bars etc that is quite brutal for a film of it's day.

Add to this the uncompromising determination of Todd's character not to give in to intimidation, and the lengths he is prepared to go to to reclaim his property and this is indeed a very, very dark and gritty movie indeed.

And one that very few people will have ever heard of...I remember catching it on tv one afternoon about 15 ywars ago, and being completely fascinated by it.
 
Hell Is A City (1960).

Hammer Films, with Stanley Baker. Based on the acclaimed 1950's novel by Maurice Proctor.

Gritty, dark British film which has dated very well. The original novel is also superb.
 
Love film noir and the great thing is I got to spend last year studying it as part of my course. When you actually really analyse many film noir's the iconography, the stock situations, the stock characters but most important the camera work just blwos you away. The simple little nuances are what make film noir's great and I for just love film noir's

The Third Man
Maltese Falcon
Build My Gallows High
Dead Reckoning
Farewell My Lovely
The Reckless Moment
Gilda
and many many more
I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon/evening than sticking a boir film on and just losing myself in a morally conflicted world!
 
Just watched Fritz Lang's 1931 masterpiece 'M', starring Peter Lorre. A very interesting film, and certainly one that had a lot of influence on the 'noir' genre.
 
Double Indemnity, of course>The book is even more insanely dark than the film
Isn't there a film Triple Indemnity - where there's a triple payout when someone falls off a train, and then drowns in a lake?
Kiss Me Deadly
The best Phillip Marlowe adaptation is Murder, My Sweet (Farewell My Lovely) with Dick Powell IMO
There's a really great one that's a bit obscure- OdRAB against Tomorrow, starring Harry Belafonte (!)
DOA - the remake was good too
 
Very pleased to find a forum with so many people who like film noir. Was beginning to think that I was the only person left who liked these films..

Talking about more recent examples of the genre, haven't had tme to read through all the post here, so forgive me if someone has already mentioned Body Heat, 1981, written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan, with Katherine Turner and William Hurt. It's a sort of remake of Double Indemnity, I suppose...

My personal favourite is The Big Sleep, for the sexual chemistry and innuendo, the great wisecracks, and the total impenetrability of the plot!
 
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