Heart of Noir

14/12/2024

A near-perfect noir composition from George King's The Shop at Sly Corner (1947).

06/12/2024

Erich von Stroheim plays yet another psychologically tormented illusionist in The Mask of Diijon, 1946

A bottom-of-the barrel director at a bottom-of-the-barrel Poverty Row studio (Producers Releasing Corporation), Lew Landers’ single film in this collection rises above his standard fare because of one giant asset: Erich von Stroheim. In one of his many noirs playing an illusionist of some sort, St...

08/11/2024

The greatest Raymond Chandler screen adaptation of all time?

While its plot isn’t quite as convoluted as that other Chandler adaptation two years later (The Big Sleep), Edward Dmytryk’s Murder, My Sweet still requires attentive viewing to keep on top of all its moving parts. Considered by some to be the greatest Philip Marlowe portrayal on film (Bogart fa...

26/10/2024

Born on this day in 1881, Margaret Wycherly played the "Ma" Cagney finally impressed from the "Top of the world!" in Raoul Walsh's "White Heat" (1949). HBD, Ma.

https://heartofnoir.com/film/white-heat-1949/

18/09/2024

"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) marked the end of one of classic Hollywood's most enduring collaborations. Donald Brackett explains how producer Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder arrived at creative divorce.

Read Donald's piece here👇

Donald Brackett on "Sunset Boulevard" and the fractured relationship of its creators.

26/08/2024

In memory of the great Charles Boyer, who died on this day in 1978, pictured here in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944).

Best known for his “women’s pictures,” director George Cukor struck gold with Gaslight, based on Patrick Hamilton’s play, but even Cukor couldn’t have anticipated that his film (and, to be fair, the earlier British film adaptation in 1940) would have such a lasting impact that 80 years lat...

30/07/2024

Spotlighting the revolutionary T-Men (1947) in honor of noir stalwart Charles McGraw (1914-1980) who died 44 years ago today.

Director Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton collaborated on T-Men, a near perfect representation of the “look” of film noir, the camera floating through baroque compositions of shadows and light shaped by industrial confines like warehouses, boats, dark alleys, fire escapes, and city st...

23/06/2024

This stylized shot is from which late-in-the-cycle classic film noir?

Hint: The film was re-made a few decades later.

https://heartofnoir.com

31/05/2024

Remembering Dorothy Patrick, who died on this day in 1987, shown here about to meet a grisly fate in Fritz Lang's "House by the River" (1950).

www.heartofnoir.com/film/house-by-the-river-1950/

20/05/2024

Even film noir caught the love bug sometimes. Here's a video montage recognizing some of our favorite noir love stories, even the ones that ended in blood.

Most of us are drawn to film noir for the dread and despair, the rage and revenge, but noir makes plenty of space for romantic love too, even if it often dis...

05/05/2024

Missing winter? Check out the top ten snowiest noirs from the classic era. Then come visit at www.heartofnoir.com 😎

02/05/2024

Have you ever thrown your dancing shoes out the window at a cat in heat and ended up on Death Row? Don Castle does just that in "I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes" (1948), a minor noir based on a Cornell Woolrich yarn.

https://heartofnoir.com/film/i-wouldnt-be-in-your-shoes-1948/

11/04/2024

This stylized shot is from which classic noir?

https://heartofnoir.com

20/03/2024

As we say goodbye to winter, here are ten snowy noirs that will leave you bitter cold. ❄️❄️

Counting down the best film noir titles featuring snowfall for an extra chill.

19/03/2024

Inger Stevens is ready to kill her ra**st in Andrew L. Stone's "Cry Terror!" (1958).

Film noir #1,008

Cry Terror, 1958

06/03/2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGkPJmnUxtA

Foster Hirsch quite literally wrote the book on film noir. A legendary film scholar and author of the pioneering "Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen" (19...

06/03/2024

A tidy murder in Cast a Dark Shadow (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert, who was born on this day in 1902. This film capped a string of low-budget British noirs Gilbert directed early in his career: Once a Sinner (1950), The Slasher (1953), and The Good Die Young (1954). https://heartofnoir.com