carol reed directed the third man, are you sure you're not thinking of Touch of evil? both fantastic films, check them out. the opening shot of touch of evil alone is worth the price of admission i'd also recommend double indemnity and hitchcock's: strangers on a train, i love that film but my personal favourite is properly old school: "m" by Fritz Lang. utterly fantastic, really demonstrates the crossover between german and american film, how the german expressionist influence bled into hollywood and created film noir, its bloody awesome stuff.
after recently watch LA Confidential with my stepdad which he said was neo noir and explainng what that meant i have bought Gilda (i love rita hayworth's style and she's so sexy) and The Killers. having Sky Movies Classics at home i'll sky+ then when i see any more.
Last night I caught Dick Powell and Walter Slezak in Cornered [again]. Powell was predictably hardboiled and Slezak ever so witty and opportunistic. And Jack La Rue is admirable as the loyal Diego. Great film. - JKHolman
I've seen quite a few film noirs. Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid is a fun romp, not for the story but for the old footage. It's a spoof of film noir movies with Steve Martin as the gumshoe on the case. Characters from old film noir films are shown from the original movies, intercut into the story. Steve Martin interacts with the actors from the original clips. After watching the movie for the first time, I was eager to watch the movies from the clips. The end credits list the titles of the movies the clips were taken from.
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was great, I loved how Steve Martin interacted with the old movie stars. A funny scene was where Bette Davis is in the kitchen and Steve's voiceover says she was well-known for offering her guests the same stale old bread. Then sure enough, Bette's voice comes back from the kitchen asking if he wanted a slice of bread, ha!
I've seen Double Indemnity because I like Barbara Stanwyck but I haven't seen too many film noirs. I agree Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid was fun and clever. That was a funny scene, Basil. "The bread is a little stale, shall I toast it?" lol I snickered when I saw that part in the actual film again after seeing Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
Yes, that was a funny scene. I don't remember too many film references. There was one from Johnny Eager where the guy throws a dollar bill at Alan Ladd as he's leaving then tells him insultingly to pick it up. But here in the same scene he yells at Steve Martin to pick up some poop the dog left on the floor, ha! And there was a funny scene at the end of the film where as Steve Martin is trying to track down the culprit, Carlos the Mexican policeman is hollering after him, asking for the umpteenth time if he can press Steve's silk "payamas" for him. Silly stuff.
Those blasted "payamas". Didn't Steve retort at one point "enough with the payamas!" Or maybe that was me. That Touch of Evil clip was good! Watched it on eggshells! I'll have to add the movie to my list of must watches.
I just watched Kiss Me Deadly. It has been on my to watch list for years. As always there are a few unanswered questions. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048261/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HES8eEUaBL0
Our mom was a Dick Powell fan, but as a lil' tyke, I only knew him as a singer & host of his "Dick Powell Theater" anthology series. Then I saw "Cornered" & was duly impressed. Powell rivaled Bogart in the "snappy patter" dept. Another great "noir" was "Phantom Lady" (1944), about a guy trying to clear himself of murder; actually, his secy. trying, after he's convicted. It was produced by Joan Harrison, who later produced the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" series. Then there's "Night of the Hunter," an incredible Mitchum vehicle & the only movie Charles Laughton directed. Peter Graves appears briefly as the crook dad who's hidden the money. I enjoy all those sorts of movies, although in my old age I'm a bit more selective about which I'll spend 2 h watching.
Yes I enjoy the atmosphere of film noir.. .they feel kind of a dream... My all time favs are of course Mulholland drive and Alfred Hitchcock
Recently read an article on film noir in a magazine. The author wrote that even though we associate film noir with B&W film and the 1940s-1950s, in his opinion the greatest gangster movie of all time and the greatest film noir movie of all time were both in color and made within 2 years of each other in the early 1970s - THE GODFATHER and CHINATOWN. Yet somehow those two movies are rarely if ever mentioned in film noir discussions, most likely because we have been conditioned to think of film noir as black & white movies from the post-war 1940s & 1950s.
b"we have been conditioned to think of film noir as black & white movies from the post-war 1940s & 1950s." Which it is, you philistine!
Would Whatever Happened to Baby Jane count as film noir? What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) - IMDb
film noir /fɪlm ˈnwɑː,French film nwaʀ/ noun a style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. The term was originally applied (by a group of French critics) to American thriller or detective films made in the period 1944–54 and to the work of directors such as Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, and Billy Wilder. a film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. So , Baby Jane? Imho I would say no. It's a drama set set in 62 that happens to be shot in b&w. Great film none the less.