5. The Big Heat (1953)
During his years in Germany, Fritz Lang made many dark, emotionally intense, yet distant and brutal pictures that fitted the tone of pre-war Europe. After fleeing his home country, Lang came to Hollywood and slowly began to incorporate his style to America movies. This coincided with the advent of Film Noir, which was greatly influenced by Lang's German films such as M (1931) and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933). Lang was able to slip easily into Film Noir, and made some very good ones in the 1940, but it wasn't until the genre was showing the first signs of wane the Lang made his masterpiece Noir.
In The Big Heat, Glenn Ford plays Detective Sergeant Dave Bannion, who begins investigating the suicide of Tom Duncan, a fellow officer. While Bannion is investigating, he interviews Duncan's on-the-side girlfriend, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) an action which leads to her death. Driven by guilt over Lucy's death, he begins a war against the corrupt officials and crime network running the city. Bannion's primary antagonist is mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his muscle Vince Stone (Lee Marvin), who is equally intimidating and psychotic. Also involved is Stone's girlfriend, Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame), who turns informer and helps Bannion. Throughout the course of the picture, Bannion is presented as the classic hardboiled Noir hero, punching and shooting his way inside and out of the law for what is right. However, Lang focused on the negative aspects of that and turns into a twisted version of a cliche. Bannion's persistence only brings death, pain and terror to the innocence around him. Chapman, Debby, Bannion's wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando), his daughter Joyce all suffer in one way or another because Bannion is unwilling to give up the case. We are taught by movies to admire those who hardheadedly do whatever it takes for "justice," but The Big Heat shows the consequences of taking the law into your own hands.
The Big Heat is unflinchingly brutal, from the very first scene of Duncan's suicide throughout the whole movie it portrays violence as gritty and scaring, both literally and figuratively. This is very different from the romanticizing of violence and killing that many films, mostly modern, revel in. Nor is it gleeful or stylized, it is presented as what it is, horrible.
4. Double Indemnity (1944)
By 1944, Film Noir had been around for a couple years, but had yet to produce a true masterpiece, not just of the genre but in general. This all changed with the release of Double Indemnity, which turned out to be one of the best movies ever made and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, bringing critical legitimacy to the genre.
The plot is simple and his been imitated countless times since. Insurance salesmen Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is seduced by housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) who convinces him to help her murder her husband (Tom Powers) so they can be together and collect the insurance. Neff's actions bring about the suspicion of his friend, insurance investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), who begins to look into the case. While by today's standards this plot may not seem all that unusual, in 1944 it was unheard of, and controversial. Double Indemnity brought together a tremendous collection of talent. It is based on a novel by James M. Cain (Mildred Peirce, The Postman Always Rings Twice), co-written by Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely) with director Billy Wilder (Ace in the Hole, Sunset Boulevard) and shot by John F. Seitz (This Gun For Hire, Sunset Boulevard). Interestingly enough, Wilder chose to have his three leads playing against type: MacMurray and Stanwyck were usually cast as heroes and heroines, while Edward G. Robinson was a gangster, not a hero. Stanwyck especially was a huge star, and not only did she play a villain, but did so in a blond wig, covering, her signature red hair, which many people complained made her look cheap, but that was purposeful: Phyllis is a cheap character. Wilder was unafraid of portraying his main characters in a bad light, which is key to the seedy world of Noir, where heroes are hard to come by.
There isn't a movie that exemplifies classic Noir more than Double Indemnity: the voice over narrations, Stanwyck's femme fatale, the razor sharp back-and-forth dialogue, moody black and white cinematography, and a plot so bawdy that Wilder had trouble getting it past the censors. It is a shinning example of when a great story is turned into a great script and executed by a master director with pitch-perfect actors. While some movies simmer under the surface, Double Indemnity wears it's salaciousness on his sleeve.
3. Touch of Evil (1958)
It can be argued that Orson Welles both began and ended the classic Noir period, Citizen Kane's influence started it off and Touch of Evil brought it to a close. As film advanced into the 60s, the studio system was dying and filmmakers were starting to get more and more creative freedom. Unfortunately for Welles, the studio was still in control when he made Touch of Evil and it's final cut was taken out of his hands, as had happened so many times in his career. Whether in it's butchered theatrical version or the (mostly) restored 1998 cut based on Welles notes, Touch of Evil is an amazing movie.
The story is set in a Mexican-American border town, as Mexican drug enforcement officer Mike Vargas (Charleton Heston) investigates a bombing on the American side of the border. His investigation puts both himself and his American wife (Janet Leigh) in danger from the local gangs. Vargas also begins looking into the local police captain Hank Quinlan (Welles), who he suspects may be corrupt. Based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson, Touch of Evil is full of great side characters, which are portrayed by numerous great character actors like Ray Collins, Joanna Moore, Akim Tamiroff, and Joseph Calleia while big stars of the past (Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joseph Cotten) and the future (Dennis Weaver) fill in for minor roles. Aesthetically, Welles, the production crew, and veteran cinematographer Russell Metty create a gritty, dirty, dark border town that is devoid of Hollywood flash and polish. As always, Welles is a master of the camera and continued to experiment with long takes and drastic angles. In all respects, it is a very well crafted movie. Touch of Evil is the last of Welles big pictures, but it is a high point not only in his career but in the history of film.
Touch of Evil is the last great Film Noir and it is a fitting close to the era because of how well it captures the themes, vibe, and look of the genre while also being in the upper-echelon of production, direction. writing, and acting standards.
2. The Third Man (1949)
Despite the big influence of German expressionism in Film Noir, and the fact that the name itself is French, it seems to be a predominantly an American genre. While streets of Los Angeles and New York City became synonymous with Noir, it is not a genre that is restricted to those places, or even America. Case and point is The Third Man, which is set and shot in post-World War II Vienna, Austria, yet is one of the truest-to-it's-roots Noirs ever made.
Written by novelist and screenwriter Graham Greene, The Third Man focuses on American pulp-western writer Holly Martins as he arrives in Vienna to accept a job offer from his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). He is disappointed to find Lime was supposedly killed recently in a traffic accident, yet Martins doesn't buy it and begins to look into it, attempting to find the mysterious "third man" at the scene of the accident. Martins begins to dig into the case, where he encounters Lime's suspicious friends Baron Kurtzu (Ernst Deutsch), Popescu (Siegfried Breuer), and Dr. Winkle (Erich Ponto), as well as his girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli). Also complicating things is Major Calloway (Trevor Howard), who was looking into Lime's black market connections and wants Martins out of the way before he can muddle up the investigation. Whether Lime is alive or dead is the mystery of the first half of the movie, while the second half takes the plot in a different direction. The story is well crafted and the dialogue perfect, both capture the moral ambiguity of post-War Europe while the lesser know European actors filling the ancillary roles adds to the immersion in the setting. The on-location shooting and terrific use of local scenery also aides this. Director Carol Reed liberally uses harsh camera angles and unbalanced shots to give the viewer a feeling of the uneasy atmosphere of Vienna at that time. The Third Man makes you feel like Martins, like a foreigner in a strange city, by using Anton Karas's famous and bizarre zither music and putting in a lot of dialogue in non-English languages without subtitles. The audience is just as confused as Martins. Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker (Brief Encounter, Odd Man Out) create the most terrifically shot Noir in movie history, using the natural shadows of the bombed out Vienna rubble and wet stone streets for a completely unique looking visual experience. This includes the outstanding final chase scene in the sewers below the city which uses shadows and sound as well as any movie in history.
The Third Man is not only a unique Noir, but unique in all of film, it has all the vibes of a Noir but is transplanted to a new, fascinating local that is taken full advantage of by Reed and Greene. Both the big American stars and the lesser known foreign actors give terrific performances which gives the movie an international feeling, much like post-War Vienna, divided by the Allies.
1. Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Whether it be in the hardboiled fiction that inspired it, or the films themselves, nothing quite says Noir like Los Angeles and Hollywood. The city produced so many of the films as well as serving as their setting. They are as much a part of the genre as the femme fatale. No Noir captures this better than Sunset Boulevard, where the city of Los Angeles and the world of Hollywood are as much characters as William Holden and Gloria Swanson.
Holden plays Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who can't sell a script and is on the run from repo men after his car. He takes refuge in an old, seemingly abandoned, mansion from Hollywood's old days. He soon discovers that it is not empty, but is in fact inhabited by former silent movie star Norma Desmond (Swanson), who has now faded into obscurity, and her loyal butler Max (Erich von Stroheim). Desmond hires Gillis to clean up the script she has write as her comeback film, though he soon moves into the house and become more than just an employee to Desmond, who dotes on him with both love and gifts. Gillis soon desires escape from Norma's clutches, something he finds in fresh-faced screenwriter Betty Schaefer (Betty Olson), who wants to collaborate on a screen play with him. Gillis tries to keep both women ignorant of the other, but Desmond eventually finds out and descends into a jealous madness, aided by the stress of her "comeback." Expertly directed by Billy Wilder and written by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D.M. Marshman Jr, Sunset Boulevard is full of classic, crackling dialogue and cynicism. It is one of the most quotable movies in history, though it never sacrifices meaning for a clever line. One of the things that makes the movie special is the depth Wilder goes to in add realism to the story. For example, When Desmond shows one of her old movies, it is Queen Kelly (1929), which starred Swanson and was directed by von Stroheim, who plays Desmond's former director and current butler in the movie. When Desmond plays cards with her old silent movie friends, they are real silent stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H.B. Warner. Director Cecil B. De Mille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper also play themselves in the movie. Wilder puts this and many more touches into the film, including using real life Los Angeles locals and the actual Paramount lot for scenes at the studio. It is a film that wants you to believe the story it is telling, and does a perfect job executing it.
Sunset Boulevard attacks much of the Hollywood structure and was not well received by the parts of the industry it criticized. By those within the industry who could relate to the harshness of Hollywood, it drew passionate praise. Barbara Stanwyck kissed the hem of Swanson's dress after the premier and many old silent film stars were so overcome they didn't appear in public after seeing it. Today, it is still one of the best looks into Golden Age Hollywood while also chronicling the unraveling of a fragile mind and the effects the cold-hearted industry has on those it discards.
