A recent production from Leva FilmWorks on film noir, with a lot of talking heads and movie clips. A fair effort with well selected clips, but too focused on a limited selection of movies: no mention of Robert Siodmak or his pictures, and way too much attention paid to the inferior b-noir Decoy (1946).

The talking heads reprise established commentary and are settled in their views, but the contributions of James Ellory, who opens the film, are refreshing and challenging. He speaks with intense respect for the genre and careful precision: [film noir] exposited one great theme, and that great theme is “your fucked”.

Warner Home Video presents Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light as a bonus disc in their Film Noir Classic Collection: Vol. 3 box-set, with five 20-min. programs from the MGM series “Crime Does Not Pay” — “Women In Hiding” (1940), “You, the People” (1940), Fred Zinneman’s “Forbidden Passage” (1941), Joseph Losey’s “A Gun in his Hand” (1945), and “The Luckiest Guy in the World” (1947).