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Summary
Beyond its obvious cultural significance as the only classic film noir directed by a woman (actress Ida Lupino), THE HITCH-HIKER is perhaps better remembered as simply one of the most nightmarish motion pictures of the 1950s. Inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook, THE HITCH-HIKER is the tension-laden saga of two men on a camping trip (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). He...
Author
Summary
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Flourishing in the United States during the 1940s and 50s, the bleak, violent genre of filmmaking known as film noir reflected the attitudes of writers and auteur directors influenced by the events of the turbulent mid-twentieth century. Films such as Force of Evil, Night and the City, Double Indemnity, Laura, The Big Heat, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly and, more recently, Chinatown and The Grifters are indelibly...
Summary
A powerful film about a ruthless journalist and an unscrupulous press agent who'll do anything to achieve success, this fascinating story cuts deep and sends a chilling message. It's late at night in Times Square, and everything's buzzing with nervous energy. But press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is oblivious to it all as he nervously waits for the early edition of The Globe. Whose career did gossip columnist J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster)...
5) No Escape
Summary
An innocent couple, seeking to clear themselves of a homicide charge, discover that a jealous enraged detective is the murderer.
6) The Bigamist
Summary
An amazingly sympathetic portrait of a figure historically given very short shrift: the title character is not only a two-timer—he’s a traveling salesman as well. But, as embodied by that perpetually pressured everyman of the 1950s, Edmond O’Brien, the bigamist comes across as a victim of his own sensitivity. Caught between two complementary spouses, O’Brien’s dazed indecisiveness dominates the narrative. As always in Ida Lupino’s directorial...
7) Shelter
Summary
Naomi, an Israeli Mossad agent is sent to Germany to protect Mona, a Lebanese informant recovering from plastic surgery to assume her new identity. Together for two weeks in a quiet apartment in Hamburg, the relationship that develops between the two women is soon exposed to the threat of terror that is engulfing the world today. In this game of deception, beliefs are questioned, choices are made, and their fate takes a surprising turn in this suspense-laden,...
8) Impact
Summary
A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding, and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.
9) Hit and Run
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A prosperous junk-car dealer sees his ex-convict twin brother murdered and assumes his identity to trap the killers.
Summary
Set in Post-World War II Los Angeles, a criminal shoots and kills a police officer in the middle of the night. Without any leads, the chief of the LAPD assigns Sgt. Chuck Jones and Sgt. Marty Brennan to investigate the murder and apprehend the culprits. When the dealer of electronics devices, Paul Reeves, is caught selling a stolen projector, the police identifies the criminal, and connects him to other unsolved robberies. Using the witnesses of his...
11) The Big Combo
Summary
A noir classic about a police lieutenant who comes under pressure from a gang headed by a vicious thug. He is helped by the gangster's wife, jealous at her husband's affair with another woman, who supplies him with information to help him close the net on his foe. "*Where the usual noir takes place in a nightmare world, this one seems to inhabit a dream: there's no longer fear in the images, but rather a distanced, idealized beauty.*" - Dave Kehr,...
Summary
After boxing manager Doc Woods accidentally kills a reporter, he frames his champion fighter, Johnnie Bradfield (John Garfield), who changes his identity and flees to Arizona. There Johnnie takes refuge at a ranch run by a kindly older woman known as Grandma (May Robson), who has also opened her home to delinquents the Dead End Kids. With the help of Peggy (Gloria Dickson), Johnnie and the Kids struggle to overcome their distrust, just as Detective...
13) The Naked Kiss
Summary
A former prostitute attempts to assimilate in suburbia after fleeing her pimp. She soon falls in love with a member of the town's wealthiest family, but shortly before her wedding, finds out that her philanthropic fiance has a horrific secret. A searing melodrama thematically ahead of his time, Samuel Fuller's classic film dares to explore taboo subjects with unique style and unforgettable performances. *"THE NAKED KISS finds Sam Fuller's tabloid...
Summary
In this noir-thriller, three convicts are contracted by a mysterious benefactor to pull a bank heist. The four men, having worn masks during the crime, are complete strangers and are anonymous to one another, but plan to meet up in Mexico to divvy up the loot. Part of their master plan is to frame the robbery on Joe Rolfe, an ex-con himself--but little do they know, Rolfe has convinced the police of his innocence and has now been hired to catch the...
17) Raw Deal
Summary
Once freed, gangster Joe Sullivan and his girl friend Pat set off to find the mobster who set him up. The kidnapping of Ann Martin, the social worker who wrote to Joe in prison, leads the fugitive into a romantic triangle.
18) Detour
Summary
From Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist finds himself with a dead body on his hands and nowhere to run--a waking nightmare that goes from bad to worse when he picks up the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history, Ann Savage's snarling, monstrously conniving drifter Vera. Working...
19) The Chase
Summary
Returning a lost wallet gains unemployed veteran Chuck Scott a job as chauffeur to Eddie Roman, a seeming gangster whose enemies have a way of meeting violent ends The job proves nerve-wracking, and soon Chuck finds himself pledged to help Eddie’s lovely, fearful, prisoner-wife Lorna to escape. The result leaves Chuck caught like a rat in a trap, vainly seeking a way out through dark streets. But the real chase begins when the strange plot virtually...
20) Trapped
Summary
A young Lloyd Bridges stars as hardboiled hood Tris Stewart, a convicted counterfeiter doing time in the Atlanta pen. When a fresh batch of fake bills starts circulating, treasury agents bail Stewart out to help lead them to the maker of the fake plates. Although long sought by the Film Noir Foundation, TRAPPED was believed to have suffered the unfortunate fate of many B-films of the era—oblivion. But when a private collector deposited a 35mm...
