Being new to film noir , any recommendations for something to watch to ease me into the genre?

Hey everyone. Hope you’re all having fantastic days!

A friend of mine recently launched his own film noir podcast so I thought I’d share it with all you fine folks. It’s called Tipping My Fedora. Sergio’s a film and TV academic who previously wrote for Sight & Sound and has contributed to numerous DVD/Blu-Ray commentaries, booklets, etc. He’s pretty new to the technical aspects of podcasting so still finding his feet in some ways, but he’s a very engaging speaker and absolutely knows his stuff, so you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or two.

You can find it on Apple Podcasts and here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7oTHwRL7c4tcFp9geb4VGy?si=aaQIlSeMSpevGOpzNR3Yyg

Here’s his blurb:

“Join host Sergio Angelini and his guests every 10 days for the podcast where they uncover the secrets behind 100 years of crime movies, radio dramas, hardboiled fiction and thousands of television episodes.

The cast of characters includes hit men and femmes fatales, flawed cops and psychopathic gangsters, women in peril and cynical private eyes - all of them well over their heads. All part and parcel of the noir iconography - a black and white world painted in shades of grey.”

Thanks for reading, and if you decide to check it out I hope you enjoy it!

It might be one that struck you as funny, horrifying, simply smart, or smart-ass.

I remember watching it and it had a killer ending. The plot was he was a bomb diffuser in a ruinous city during World War 2. I tried chatgpt and it suggested Attack but that's not it.

I always enjoy finding lesser known noirs-some surprisingly enjoyable. My list of some lesser known but very enjoyable noirs: Nocturne; I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes; The Locket; Strangers In the Night; Blonde Ice; My Name is Julia Ross.

What are yours?

This Noirvember, I decided to finally dig into Lang. Apart from The Big Sleep, I never really watched his other films and gave several of them a chance (still going through his filmography tho). I knew that William Friedkin praised him endlessly and that's another reason I began digging into his filmography. I was expecting to be blown away but I've so far watched 7 of his films and Fury (1936) got a very visceral reaction outta me. It's so damn good and amazing, it's become one of my favorite films of all time. I also think its one of the greatest films of all time.

The other 2 films I really loved but not nearly as much were Secret Beyond The Door and Manhunt. Both are excellent, great characterization and compelling storyline and acting. Apart from these 3 films, the others I've seen have been either ok, so-so, silly to really boring and lame (Ministry of Fear). Apart from Metropolis and M and I get how radically influential they are and the three I mentioned from his Hollywood Studio years, I just don't think many of his other films are that good and basically kind of lame. Maybe it mostly has to do with the scripts but he was definitely a master at directing his actors and actresses because you can really see them giving their all. I was just expecting one amazing film after the next and zero disappointment like I did with Fury. I can't say he's one of the greatest after seeing 7 of his films and only loving one so much that its now become one of my favorite films of all time.

What are some of your favorite Lang films/least favorite and why do you think that is?

PS: I meant The Big Heat and not The Big Sleep, just got the titles mixed up.

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Noir, in itself, is an intensely “natural” film genre. Just as Pavlov discovered feeding reflexes through studying dogs, noir filmmakers uncovered the survival reflexes by studying people.

But unlike survival in an epic film or historical drama, in noir, the characters survive not in a natural environment but in a “progressive” society governed by strange laws. The entire noir aesthetic revolves around this fallen progress.

In Touch of Evil, this idea is delivered with striking sharpness. 

In one of the film’s most remarkable scenes, the sheriff has a conversation with an old acquaintance, a fortune teller:

– (he enters the room) What's my fortune? You've been reading the cards, haven't ya?
– I've been doing the accounts.
– Come on, read my future for me. 
– You haven't got any.
– What do you mean?
– Your future is all used up.

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Here are my full review: https://nushtaev.substack.com/p/touch-of-evil-a-noir-tale-of-fallen

An obscure little indie called Trouble Is My Business starring Vernon Wells and Brittney Powell.

i saw a noir years ago, i only remember one scene, please tell me what movie it was. the scene is: a man walks into a house, a woman is sitting in a chair in the dark holding a gun.

thanks!

Ava Gardner must be the most beautiful woman who ever lived 😍

1940s noir films (preferably set during the war but doesn't have to be) showing a lot of family dynamics! Thanks.

I was looking for a decent print of this one for a long time, then miraculously I stumbled onto this one which was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Hats off to them for the work they do, and for putting it all in the public domain as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x1u5PZ2\_wo.

This is a story of a counterfeiter played by Lloyd Bridges who gets released from prison to help track down some other bigger counterfeiters. Of course, he has plans of his own. There are some major and surprising twists and turns along the way which kept me guessing. There are also some serious lough out loud moments (including an unexpected mother in law joke).

It fits well within the tradition of other undercover Treasury agent stories of this era like T-Men. I can't say it tops that classic, but it's quite good.

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I do action figure photography as a hobby. Today I kept thinking of a famous shot from 1955’s “The Big Combo” and decided I’d pay my respect to cinematographer John Alton.

Tonight’s Noir movie at the Circle Cinema was The Web. Funny. Misogynistic. Vincent Price. What more can I say.