In honor of Noir City 2020 I thought it would be nice to set aside this site’s preference for post-’60s fare and list some of my favorite noir films from the classic 1940s-’50s time period. Here are eight terrific films to hunt down that range from top-notch pantheon titles to a few that are more obscure but no less thrilling.

See you at the Castro!

The Letter (1940, directed by William Wyler, Warner Bros) An unconventional noir in many ways, since most of the film’s action takes place in well-lit rooms that are comfortably furnished, and the film is helmed by Bette Davis, a woman whose pictures scream melodrama heroine more often than femme fatale. It’s these cloying, deceptive trappings of The Letter that make the blackness of Bette’s deeds all the more surprising and unforgettable. A true classic in every sense of the word!

Fallen Angel (1945, dir. Otto Preminger, 20th Century Fox) The delightfully tawdry setup: a drifter blows into a sleepy California seaside town and falls for the hottest woman around, with murder and deception to follow. Dana Andrews is an affable heel and would-be con man, and Linda Darnell is excellent as the knows-what-she-wants dame that’s just short of being a femme fatale. I think Fallen Angel is far superior to Preminger’s much-lauded Laura, which feels claustrophobic and moth-eaten when compared with this film.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946, dir. Tay Garnett, MGM) Perhaps the “best” noir in my opinion, top-shelf all the way. Based on a novel by James M. Cain, and starring John Garfield and Lana Turner in a classic story of love, lust, and murder. The two melt the celluloid with their smoldering passion and Turner’s all-white outfits are white hot. If you haven’t seen this one yet, of all the films on the list this is the most-must.

Tension (1949, dir. John Barry, MGM) There’s something about Tension’s everydayness that makes this film my all-time favorite noir. Richard Basehart plays a workaday pharmacist who is saving hard to buy a little piece of the American dream for himself and his wife. However, Basehart’s wife is Audrey Totter, which is where the trouble begins and ends. Co-starring Barry Sullivan and Cyd Charisse, Tension is a sweetly dark story of what happens when a normal guy gets pushed over the edge.

Clockwise from top left: Scandal Sheet, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Letter, and The Sleeping City

The Damned Don’t Cry (1950, dir. Vincent Sherman, Warner Bros) My favorite Joan Crawford movie and an underrated noir set partially in sunbaked Palm Springs. One of Crawford’s final incarnations of her perennial shopgirl-makes-good character, with her new rich alter ego in this picture getting ensnared in Syndicate-flavored gangsterism and a torrid romance with Steve Cochran. 

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950, dir. Gordon Douglas, Warner Bros/Cagney Productions) Cagney’s entry in the noir guidebooks usually reads “White Heat,” but in this essay I argue that Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a film he made a year after his turn as last-gangster-standing Cody Jarrett, is far more sinister. Based on a novel by Horace McCoy and starring real-life fallen angel Barbara Payton, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is finally crawling its way up the noir canon into the place of prominence it deserves thanks to a Bluray/DVD release by Olive Films. 

The Sleeping City (1950, dir. George Sherman, Universal) One of the most obscure and brutally sad noirs of the ’50s, shot entirely on location of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Richard Conte is a detective who goes undercover at the hospital in order to sniff out a killer, and gets much more than he bargained for. A film with an unforgettable ending, one that’s enriched by the downbeat on-location vibe that underscores the grim, prisonlike conditions of the live-in medical residents and Bellevue patients.

Scandal Sheet (1952, dir. Phil Karlson, Columbia) A sleepy B-picture that skyrockets into the rank of awesome by a source novel written by former newshound and future auteur director Samuel Fuller. In a nutshell: scandal rag newspaper chief (played by Broderick Crawford) encourages his ace reporter John Derek to run with a lurid story about the “Lonely Hearts Murder,” a murder that Crawford himself committed. Rather than steering his protégé down blind alleys, Crawford encourages Derek to follow every clue, damn the consequences!

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