Official Film Noir on Blu-ray Thread

[Akijama]

[chrisron]

Great work! This thread will really come in handy.

[Le Samourai]

Thanks for doing what I was too lazy to do, there are a few missing which I'll round up at some point soon and post again

[Le Samourai]

Originally Posted by Le Samourai

Thanks for doing what I was too lazy to do, there are a few missing which I'll round up at some point soon and post again

Captain Carey U.S.A
The File on Thelma Jordan
Vertigo
Body and Soul
The Strange loves of Martha Ives
Strangers on a Train
A Double Life

Plus German blu rays of 'Brute Force' and 'Night and the City'

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Le Samourai

Captain Carey U.S.A
The File on Thelma Jordan
Vertigo
Body and Soul
The Strange loves of Martha Ives
Strangers on a Train
A Double Life

Plus German blu rays of 'Brute Force' and 'Night and the City'

Great, thanks!. Vertigo and Strangers on a Train were on my undecided list. They both have noir elements, but I just wasn't sure if it was enough to qualify them as such.

What would you say about Night of the Hunter? That's another that's I was on the fence about, but a few people had on their top 10 film noir list.

[Le Samourai]

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

Thanks. Vertigo and Strangers on a Train were on my undecided list. They both have noir elements, but I just wasn't sure if it was enough to qualify them as such.

What would you say about Night of the Hunter? That's another that's I was on the fence about, that some people had on their top 10 film noir list.

All three you mention are widely regarded as noir, I usually place Hitchcock in his own genre, but I think most would describe Vertigo and Strangers as noir.

[BouCoupDinkyDau]

You can also put Wild Things and Basic Instinct in the neo-noir category. How do people in here feel about Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?. It's got very strong noir ties, but it's also an animated comedy hybrid.

[GoldMotel]

Originally Posted by BouCoupDinkyDau

You can also put Wild Things in the neo-noir category. How do people in here feel about Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?. It's got very strong noir ties, but it's also an animated comedy hybrid.

I would agree with it being a neo-noir. It has many of the tropes of a classic noir, and heck even Jessica Rabbit was modeled after Veronica Lake, Rita Hayworth, and Lauren Bacall, who were all noir actresses at one time.

[NoirFan]

If you're including Naked Kiss as neo-Noir, you might as well add Shock Corridor.

[NoirFan]

There's also Lost Weekend, which is very much noir in terms of look, if not content.

[Arkadin]

thread looks great!!
perhaps a separate section for all the foreign language noirs since there are so many of them. Certainly Noir developed as an American form, but to limit the list to US made films would be needlessly limiting imo. Every list I see of greatest film noirs inevitably includes a few of the more well known foreign examples.
I own the excellent BFI film guide 100 Film Noirs which actually includes a main list and another 100 list in the appendix. Some of the films included in this volume include:

36 (2004)
La bete humaine (1938)
Brighton Rock (1947)
The Castle of Sand (1974)
Death of A Cyclist (1949)
High and Low (1963)

(to be continued.....)

[smoss469]

Originally Posted by Arkadin

thread looks great!!

I own the excellent BFI film guide 100 Film Noirs which actually includes a main list and another 100 list in the appendix. Some of the films included in this volume include:

Did you really leave us hanging?

[kaseaver]

That's exactly how I feel. Hitchcock is often his own genre/category, although many of his films are film noir for sure. Night of the Hunter is very much film noir imo.

[kaseaver]

"Rififi, not being an English-language film, shouldn't count. Noir (as Ebert is quoted noting), at least in its purest form, is strictly an American genre."

I don't agree with this. Rififi, along with most of Melville's films, reflect the style and substance of classic film noir. Rififi was directed by Jules Dassin, who also made many American films, including Naked City and Brute Foece. I'm pretty sure you would include these in your film noir universe. Rififi was made in France iirc due to Dassin being involved with the Hollywood blacklist at the time.

[grundy]

Amazing job!

Leave Her To Heaven (1946)
"A Film-Noir in color" -Martin Scorcese

TT made a point to put that quote on the back cover lol

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by grundy

Amazing job!

Leave Her To Heaven (1946)
"A Film-Noir in color" -Martin Scorcese

TT made a point to put that quote on the back cover lol

Yeah, I was reading up on that title earlier today. Definitely sounds like an interesting film. It'l be on my list of titles to add, thanks

[spanky87]

Olive films is giving a blu-ray upgrade to this excellent Barbara Stanwyck film-noir in 2014:

[KOQ24]

GOAT of one of my fave genres

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Good job, except that Rififi, not being an English-language film, shouldn't count. Noir (as Ebert is quoted noting), at least in its purest form, is strictly an American genre. (The Third Man excepted.)

I had no reservations about classifying Rififi as a film noir in my user review, because it draws upon the strengths of Jules Dassin's American films, and even manages to outdistance them. I regard this one as "An American Noir in Paris", so to speak.

There are a handful of foreign films that brilliantly capture the essence of American film noir, although they just happen to take place in a different setting with a different language. Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, and The Bad Sleep Well are three films that I would gladly place on my shelf next to my American noir films.

It's a tough call. I think of film noir as an American genre specific to the American socioeconomic climates during World War II and during the postwar years, but this American phenomenon also draws many of its conventions from German Expressionism, and America certainly did not have a monopoly on uneasy socioeconomic dynamics in the years following World War II.

Originally Posted by MifuneFan

What would you say about Night of the Hunter? That's another that's I was on the fence about, but a few people had on their top 10 film noir list.

In the past, I have always named The Night of the Hunter as one of my favorite film noirs. The more that I delve into films from the classic noir era, though, I am inclined to think that The Night of the Hunter is a noir with a question mark. The movie certainly qualifies as a noir when it comes to the visual styles, because of the use of light and shadows to create an ominous feeling. In thematic terms, however, The Night of the Hunter veers outside of the fatalist elements normally associated with noir. On the other hand, it does hold true to noir theme of people creating traps for themselves because of avarice and worldly wants. It also examines the noir conventions of moral ambiguity in the form of a God-fearing religious character who is not quite what he seems.

The Night of the Hunter is one of my all-time favorite movies, regardless of whether or not I decide to file it under film noir, and the uncertainty about the classification just goes to show that there was never another film quite like this one, and there probably never will be another film quite like it.

[Edward J Grug III]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Good job, except that Rififi, not being an English-language film, shouldn't count. Noir (as Ebert is quoted noting), at least in its purest form, is strictly an American genre. (The Third Man excepted.)

I've not heard that before. Why is The Third Man then excepted?

What about http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039677/ ?