griggs's - Noirvember 2024 (Ranked) List
-
Based on the smash Broadway hit, the gritty and gripping drama of Detective Story explodes onto the big screen under the capable direction of William Wyler. Set amidst the hectic activity of a New York City police station, Kirk Douglas stars as the principled, rigid detective whose personal code has become twisted from dealing with too many criminals. Eleanor Parker is his wife, tormented by a guilty secret. While the business of the precinct swirls around them - from cases involving a frightened shoplifter (Lee Grant) to an amusing burglar (Joseph Wiseman) - the couple's personal conflict reaches an explosive, unforgettable climax. - Director:
- William Wyler
- Cast:
- Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix
- Formats:
-
-
Out of the Past (1947)Build My Gallows High
Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas star in this quintessential film noir which catapulted Mitchum into superstardom and set the standard for the genre for years to come. When Kathie Moffett (Greer) shoots her admirer, Whit Sterling (Douglas), a big-time gambler, and absconds with $40,000 of his money, Starling hires private detective Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) to find her. Bailey leaves New York and catches up with Kathie in Mexico. Kathie denies taking the money and after falling for her charms, Bailey notifies Sterling that he could not find her. - Director:
- Jacques Tourneur
- Cast:
- Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
- Formats:
-
-
L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a blackmail case...and follows a trail peopled with murderers, pornographers, nightclub rogues, the spoiled rich and more. But Raymond Chandler's legendary gumshoe solves it in hard-boiled style - and style is what 'The Big Sleep' is all about. - Director:
- Howard Hawks
- Cast:
- Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely
- Formats:
-
-
Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Its iconic performance by Joan Crawford as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by the bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations. Recasting James M. Cain's rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional. - Director:
- Michael Curtiz
- Cast:
- Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott
- Formats:
-
-
"Why do you make me do it?" New York cop Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) asks the hoodlum he's about to smash senseless. Jim has seen it all on the city's shadowy streets: killers, thugs, pimps, sadists. And the experience has cost him his soul. Ironically, his redemption may come in his next case, a brutal murder that brings him into the open sky and white light of the countryside...and into the arms of a beautiful blind woman. - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond
- Formats:
-
-
Humphrey Bogart stars as Dixon Steele, a screenwriter who is faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy best-seller. He enlists hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson to tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humour implicate him. Fortunately, lovely neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame) gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed. and their friendship ripens into love. m Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them? - Director:
- Nicholas Ray
- Cast:
- Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy
- Formats:
-
-
Experience Orson Welles' timeless masterpiece, 'Touch of Evil', complete and uncut with restored footage for the first time ever! This exceptional film noir portrait of corruption and morally-compromised obsessions stars Welles as Hank Quinlan, a crooked police chief who frames a Mexican youth as part of an intricate criminal plot. Charlton Heston plays an honorable Mexican narcotics investigator who clashes with the bigoted Quinlan after probing into his dark past. A memorable supporting cast including Janet Leigh as Heston's inquisitive wife, Akim Tamiroff as a seedy underworld leader, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Marlene Dietrich as an enigmatic gypsy complete this fascinating drama engulfed in haunting cinematography and a magnificently eerie score by Henry Mancini. - Director:
- Orson Welles
- Cast:
- Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh
- Formats:
-
-
The film tells the tale of shady pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) who steals a wallet belonging to Candy (Jean Peters) who, unbeknownst to her, is carrying microfilm containing government secrets. Anxious to recover the film, Joey, Candy's ex-lover and the man using her as courier, convinces her to find the thief. - Director:
- Samuel Fuller
- Cast:
- Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter
- Formats:
-
-
Claude (Vince Edwards) is a young man with a regular job, no history of trouble with the law and no chance of making any real money. He also has the brains and emotional detachment to make the big bucks as a hit man, and that becomes his new job title. A string of successful hits gets him sent to Los Angeles for his latest job. There he is accompanied by two goons: one who is perpetually nervous and the other who quickly worships the young man as a hero. The cold, ruthless hit man finally becomes unglued when he finds out that his latest target is a woman. She's a witness, set to testify against his boss, and guarded day and night by the police. It's her femininity that worries Claude: women are unpredictable, they don't do what you expect. Claude eventually proves that he is the unpredictable one and his own worst enemy. - Director:
- Irving Lerner
- Cast:
- Vince Edwards, Phillip Pine, Herschel Bernardi
- Formats:
-
-
Tennis star Guy Haines (Farley Granger) half-jokingly muses about killing his wife with a stranger he meets on a train, unhinged playboy Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), who'd prefer his father be deceased. In theory, each could murder the other's victim. Crisscross. No motive. No clues. No problem... except: Bruno takes the idea seriously, with deadly consequences. - Director:
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast:
- Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman
- Formats:
-
-
In the story of Gilda, Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) goes to work for Ballin Mundson (George MacReady), the proprietor of an illegal gambling casino in a South American city, and quickly rises to become Mundson's "main man". All is well until Mundson returns from a trip with his new bride, Gilda - a woman from Johnny's past. Mundson, unaware of the previous love affair, assigns Farrell the job of ensuring that Gilda is a faithful wife. Fraught with hatred, Gilda does her best to antagonize, intimidate, and instill jealousy in Farrell - until circumstances allow him to get even. - Director:
- Charles Vidor
- Cast:
- Anita Ellis, Glenn Ford, Rita Hayworth
- Formats:
-
-
Murder, My Sweet (1945)Farewell, My Lovely
They say crime doesn't pay. Private detective Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell) knows better. The fat wad of folding money warming his breast pocket is the kind of thing that keeps him going through thick and thicker as he wades chin deep into a mystery involving a missing necklace and a missing hoodlum's moll named Velma. - Director:
- Edward Dmytryk
- Cast:
- Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley
- Formats:
-
-
Having Graham Greene's riveting and authentic novel about the leader of a Brighton based gang of hoods and ne'er do wells as source material was an obvious advantage, but the Boulting Brothers (John directed, brother Roy produced) still managed to conjure arguably the finest British thriller ever in what is a genuine and evocative film noir. Expressively shot by veteran cinematographer Harry Waxman (The Wicker Man), for many the film's most abiding quality is the outstanding, intense performance of a young Richard Attenborough as the emotionally and physically scarred gang leader Pinky Brown, who courts and marries a local waitress (Carol Marsh) he detests in order to stop her testifying against him. Beautifully scripted by Greene and Terence Rattigan (The Browning Version), whose eye for detail and atmosphere is astounding, Brighton Rock is utterly hard bitten in tone and abundant in cruel ironies, right up to its well-judged, refreshingly cynical ending. - Director:
- John Boulting
- Cast:
- Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell
- Formats:
-
-
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)Take This Woman / Black Irish
Hired to work on a yacht belonging to the disabled husband of femme fatale Rita Hayworth, Welles plays an innocent man drawn into a dangerous web of intrigue and murder.- Director:
- Orson Welles
- Cast:
- Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane
- Formats:
-
-
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)The Asphalt Jungle (The City Under the City)
You have a lot of time to think when you're locked away seven years. So criminal mastermind Doc (Sam Jaffe) conceives what he believes is the perfect heist. As in 'The Maltese Falcon' and 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre', director John Huston explores the feverish grab for the big score and how it unravels in 'The Asphalt Jungle', a renowned tale of dishonour among thieves whose cast includes Sam Jaffe as Doc and Sterling Hayden as Doc's unflappable gundel. Louis Calhern portrays Emmerich, the shady lawyer for whom "crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour". And rising star Marilyn Monroe grabs everyone's attention as the doxie who briefly provides Emmerich with the most gorgeous alibi ever to reach the screen. - Director:
- John Huston
- Cast:
- Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen
- Formats:
-