I've been reading a lot of detective novels lately and now I want to satisfy my cravings for tough-talkin', hard-drinkin', cigarette-smokin' heroes and the women who love them in celluloid. Recommendations?
If your willing to go old school I would say the maltese falcon. It prefected the genre. there is always la confidental. I've alot of good ones but I just can't remeber their titles right now
There's always been a lot of debate as to what is or is not noir. IMDB lists 413 titles. Here's their noir page: http://us.imdb.com/Sections/Genres/Film-Noir/ A few of the best known: Out of the Past - Mitchum and Douglas The Big Sleep - Bogart and Bacall Dead Reckoning - Bogart without Bacall Lady From Shanghai - Orson Welles Force of Evil - John Garfield's greatest The Blue Dahlia - Alan Ladd The Asphalt Jungle - Marilyn Monroe in a bit part Double Indemnity - Edward G Robinson The Killers - Burt Lancaster The Killing - Kubrick's breakthrough Shadow of a Doubt - Hitchcock The Third Man - Vienna noir White Heat - Cagney The IMDB list has films as early as 1927 but I tend to think that the genre began in the early 40s and ended at some point in the 50s. Color films generally aren't regarded as noir, though IMDB lists Niagara. LA Confidential, Chinatown, and Mulholland Falls might be called neo-noir.
From an earlier thread of mine: Hard Boiled & Noir: the Frames Per Second List 1. Rififi 2. the Killing 3. Reservoir Dogs 4. Touch of Evil 5. Sweet Smell of Success 6. Hard Eight 7. Maltese Falcon 8. LA Confidential 9. Double Indemnity 10. A Bullet to the Head OG's list is quite good too.
Thanks, y'all! I'm going to have to have a noir film fest of some sort soon, I think it's necessary. I was surprised at how many I'd actually already seen. As a kid we watched black and white movies almost exclusively.
For a modern take on film noire, check out "the long goodbye", which features a famous baseball player/writer in a supporting role. A cookie to whoever can name him without using google. I may be going out on a limb, but I believe "The Big Lebowski" is very much an homage to Raymond Chandler. Of all the people who say they love that movie, I've never heard anyone say what seems so obvious to me.
"Murder My Sweet" starring Dick Powell is another good one from the old days I love Bogart movies so "Casablanca", "the Big Sleep", "Key Largo" and "The Maltese Falcon" are also right up there but for my money it doesn't get any better than "Chinatown" Disregard any movies by that runt, Alan Ladd
as is Bladerunner with a more typically traditional character set. And if you get bored of actual film noir, you can actually get back to the OG (Original German )Noir, otherwise known as German Expressionism. That's where all the imagery commonly associated with Film Noir started, but none of the actual thematic content. So I'm assuming you're all read up on James M. Cain?