I have discovered a cool DVD catalog site which has many hard-to-find noirs at very reasonable prices Yammering Magpies Cinema Film Noir Catalog.

These films noir can be viewed legally for a limited time (in US only) at hulu.com:

A Blueprint For Murder (1953)
Boomerang! (1947)
The Night of The Hunter (1955)
The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Tomorrow evening the University of Maryland will host a debate headlined The Un-Americaness of Film Noir. The background provided by the University is certainly interesting:

“Jonathan Auerbach’s book in progress Dark Borders offers a political reading of American film noir as a Cold War genre centrally concerned with redefining citizenship. It begins with questions of affect and aesthetics–the strange tone of disenfranchisement or non-belonging that haunts so many of these mid-century crime movies. Freud’s notion of the unheimliche links the uncanny mood of these important films with fears that “Un-Americans” and un-American values might overtake or undermine the homeland. These anxieties surface during a series of wartime and post war emergency measures, beginning with the anti-sedition Smith Act (1940), the Mexican migrant worker Bracero Program (1942), the domestic internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry (1942), and the HUAC hearings in 1947 that sought to criminalize native-born communists (the CPUSA). This talk will be discussing one key scene in the anti-communist film The Red Scare (1949) in conjunction with a little-known but very striking movie (arguably the first film noir) Stranger on The Third Floor (1940), starring Peter Lorre, that imagines the rule of fascist law in the USA and that conceives of madness as a foreign country.”

Wild stuff!  More info here.

I have been tagged by Dark City Dame for the latest meme doing the rounds and started at Blog Cabins. You basically compile a list of 26 favorites films from A to Z, and then tag another 5 film bloggers.

My random list which is not limited to noirs follows, and my tags are named below the list.

American Friend, The (Germany 1977)
Bicycle Thieves (Italy 1948)
Casablanca (1942)
Duck Soup (1933)
Enfants du Paradis, Les (France 1945)
Fight Club (1999)
Gattaca (1997)
High and Low (Japan 1963)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Jules e Jim (France 1962)
King of California, The (2007)
Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, The (Germany 1975)
Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
Now Voyager (1942)
On The Waterfront (1954)
Padre Padrone (Italy 1977)
Quiet Man, The (1952)
Red Sorghum (China 1987)
Seduced and Abandoned (Italy 1964)
Trouble In Paradise (1932)
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The (1988)
Viridiani (Spain 1962)
Wages of Fear, The (France 1955)
X-Men (2000) eXistenZ (1999)
Yellow Earth (China 1984)
Zorba the Greek (US/Greece 1964)

My tags - please don’t feel obliged and my apologies if you are annoyed by it all:

the dancing image
mardecortesbaja.com
the motley view
precious bodily fluids
wonders in the dark

Check out this page for links to all the articles on film noir published by the Bright Lights Film Journal, and these articles from their latest issue: a profile on noir regular Dana Andrews, and a review of Louis Malle’s 1958 noir  Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour le Chafaud).

Michael Shepler, cultural coordinator for  PoliticalAffairs.net, has written an interesting article on noir westerns, Sagebrush Noir: The Western as ‘Social Problem’ Film. Schleper traces the origins of film noir from German expression through to the 50’s, and cites some Hollywood films of the 30s that are not usually referred to in discussions of film noir:

“There were some pioneer American noirs such as Rowland Brown’s Beast of the City and Mamoulian’s City Streets and even a few embryonic westerns such as Wyler’s exceedingly grim version of the much filmed ‘Three Godfathers’ story, ‘Hell’s Heroes’ , shot in 1930. “

He then goes on to review four western movies which he labels ‘Sagebrush Noirs’: Raoul Walsh’s Pursued (1947), Robert Wise’s Blood on the Moon (1948), and two early westerns by Anthony Mann,  The Furies (1950) and Devil’s Doorway (1950).  Other films noted by Shepler include Ramrod, Springfield Rifle, and Day of the Outlaw by Andre de Toth;  Jubal, 3:10 to Yuma, Cowboy and The Hanging Tree by Delmer Daves; Budd Boetticher’s Randolph Scott westerns  7 Men From Now (1957) and Comanche Station (1960);  Little Big Horn (1950) by Charles Marquis Warren; Sam Fuller’s I Shot Jesse James and Forty Guns; and two low budget Anthony Quinn films, The Man From Del Rio and The Ride Back which, were associated with Robert Aldrich’s ‘Associates and Robert Aldrich’ studio and produced during the same period as Kiss Me Deadly.

The full article is highly recommended.

Coleman’s Corner in Cinema from Alexander Coleman is one of the more original film blogs on the Web. His substantial essays on important films are fascinating reading.

Noiristas will find his reviews of these major films noir particularly rewarding:

The Big Combo (1955)
The Big Heat (1953)
The Narrow Margin (1952)
Out of the Past (1947)
Point Blank (1967)
Thieves’ Highway (1949)
Vertigo (1958)

Thanks to Dark Cty Dame for advance details of the program for NOIR CITY 7, the 2009 San Francisco Film Noir Festival, to be held January 23–February 1, 2009, at the Castro Theatre, and which will have a newspaper theme:

Friday, January 23
Deadline USA (1952)
Scandal Sheet (1952)

Saturday, January 24
Matinee:
Chicago Deadline (1949)
Blind Spot (1947)
Evening show (with Arlene Dahl):
Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Wicked as They Come (1956)

Sunday, January 25
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Cry of the Hunted (1953)

Monday, January 26
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
Night Editor (1946)

Tuesday, January 27
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)

Wednesday, January 28
While the City Sleeps (1956)
Shakedown (1950)

Thursday, January 29
The Big Clock (1948)
Strange Triangle (1946)

Friday, January 30
The Unsuspected (1947)
Desperate (1947)

Saturday, January 31
Matinee:
Two O’Clock Courage (1945)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
Evening show:
One False Move (1992)

Sunday, February 1
Shock Corridor (1963)
The Killers (1946) (newly restored)

Full details to be announced.