The MoFo Top 100 Film Noir Countdown

A Strange Variety of Film Reviews | The New Flesh: A David Cronenberg Club
Letterboxd

I placed this right up there at #3. As one of the earliest examples of noir I recall seeing it had a defining impression on my perception of the genre. As I've said in the past I went through a phase of video taping tons of old late night movies. Being young and very naive I didn't even bother to check a tv guide - just started a 4 hour tape going around midnight. The very first haul from this method yielded this exact film followed by Armored Car Robbery (1950). I was hooked!

It wasn't at the time though that I thought this film was particularly well made or anything. I was tapping into a new genre of film that I'd had little exposure to and for all I knew was otherwise unobtainable. Even beyond the film noir genre or being a classic movie, it was a connection with another side of American culture from that period. I'd seen Hitchcock stuff and similar from that era but this was different. This was rain-soaked night-time alley ways, city hardened cops working the streets in a '49 Ford, listening for a radio call and looking out for a cop killer, cheap bars with women of questionable age or profession, hoodlums around every corner, and a cop whose hatred for it all was boiling over into an all out private war on the city. Really great atmosphere in that first 30 minutes.

When the main character is re-assigned out into the countryside it's almost like a sequel rather than the same movie. It's a stark contrast between the heavy night-time darkness of the city and the predominantly daylight exterior scenes in the snow covered wilderness. Through his own self-reflection the relationship that begins with Ida Lupino's character makes for a surprisingly innocent romance, despite the tension of impending drama in a chase for yet another killer. My own sentimentality towards the film can forgive any shortcomings the ending may have had.

'A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.'
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'A crook arrested for a jewelry heist initially refuses to give up his accomplices, but he changes his mind once his wife dies under worrying circumstances.'
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