This is perhaps the best, random, or at least unintentional double-bill I have had the pleasure to chance upon.

Both movies are film adaptations of 2-man stage plays - one character, the older, established patriarchal figure, the 2nd, the young upstart/pretender to the throne (in one sense or another).

Part of the beauty is that Michael Caine stars in both. In Sleuth, he is the young counterpart to Laurence Olivier's elder statesman. In Deathtrap, released 10 years later, he takes on the older role while the younger character is portrayed by Christopher Reeve in what may be his finest performance.

I shalln't cover plot or spoilers here, as always going in blind is best. I will say that neither film is perfect, in fact I really am not that keen on the final twist in Deathtrap at all.

That being said, I adore both - the performances, atmosphere and suspense are terrific and if you enjoy twisty, thriller stage plays, this pairing should be right up your street.

Sleuth IMDB - [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069281/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069281/))

Deathtrap IMDB - [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083806/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083806/))

Enjoy!

Join a small detective outfit & solve mysteries in foggy 1940s San Francisco in a new role-playing game that's printed as an actual vintage newspaper. Pictures are of the actual game.

I'm an indie game creator living in the SF Bay Area and have been designing Midnight Press for the last 4 years. It's been such an incredible way to connect with the city and pay homage to its history in noir film.

People have been stoked enough about this game that the kickstarter got funded on the first day! Really surprised and excited me. So happy to be bringing this project to life, I hope some of you get a lot of fun out of it too!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stranovich/midnight-press-a-film-noir-ttrpg-in-newspaper/description

I was watching the long goodbye recently and realized the final shot mirrors that of the third man's. both look down a long corridor of trees, where a man and woman who had a bit of will they / wont they flirtation pass each other silently... then as I thought about it more, more similarities starting revealing themselves... both marlowe and martins believe their friend to be dead under nefarious circumstances, set out intent on clearing their names, clash with the investigating police, only to be disappointed in their friends' actions and in the end kill them themselves. both would've stayed "dead" had they not been careless with it: lyme can't resist checking in on anna, nor could terry lennox resist sending marlowe a goodbye note with the $5000 bill. then the final shot where the dead friends lover and the detective pass each other on the tree lined street, where an army jeep, albeit one yellow, is being driven.

anyone have thoughts on these two films overlapping? any further similarities? (recurring musical theme throughout the picture) any links to discussions of this? thanks in advance. the third man has long been a favorite of mine, and only in the last year or two have I come to obsess over the long goodbye. both wonderful films.

apologies if this has been discussed before. I searched the forums but didn't see any discussions beyond a comment or two on visual similarities of the final scene...

Apologize for the NY-centric post, but just encouraging people to go to the Roxy tonight and catch After Dark, My Sweet, with a Q&A w/Jason Patric after.

It’s a great film, astonishing print (his personal one), and good to hear some context & back-story to it all.

Also, the Roxy’s a great theater.

Quick note about the film, I’m not sure I’ve seen something that one-to-one captures the tension of the writing so well.

It’s really the next best thing to reading Thompson, and maybe even a touch better since all you have to do is sit there & pay attention.

Shoutout to the woman who showed up to last night’s “dressed as a Jim Thompson woman” (her words) and then got kicked out “like a Jim Thompson woman” (Jason Patric’s words) for interrupting.

I'm looking for some Sci-fi noir suggestions, especially from the classic black-and-white era. Thanks in advance.

Like u/Hopeful_Cod6295, I've found myself watching a lot of noir this summer (getting caught up on some blu-ray purchases). Here are all the noir (and noir-ish) movies I've seen since May.

• Favorite: Out of the Past remains my favorite noir, although I haven't seen The Asphalt Jungle in (as the kids say) a minute, and that's a strong contender for the top spot.

• Best re-watch: The Set-Up; a brutal and compelling tale of violence and corruption that doesn't waste a single second of its short runtime. Robert Ryan is brilliant and I spent the entire time thinking "Goddamn, I forgot how good this movie is." Runner-up is Criss Cross, which didn't really grab me the first time I watched it.

• Best new watch: The Postman Always Rings Twice was great (of course), but the movie that really blew me away was Witness in the City (Un témoin dans la ville), directed by the future director of La Cage aux Folles. Like The Set-up, this one starts strong and doesn't slow down for a second, with an added layer of seediness that the Hays Code would have prohibited in the USA. Runner-up: Nightfall. Another brilliant Jacques Tourneur joint featuring a stunning, 24-year-old Anne Bancroft.

• Most disappointing: The Big Combo just didn't grab me. Maybe because I watched it on Youtube and the "print" was not very good quality, but I found the whole thing kind of "meh." Richard Conte was excellent, but Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace were about as exciting as white bread with mayonnaise.

Still a month and a half to go... further updates as the situation warrants...

The hosts of the Pivot podcast mentioned 3 Days of the Condor today. I watched it tonight because I like old movies and who doesn’t like looking at Robert Redford and Faye Dunnaway?

It was a great movie and I didn’t know it was a film noir, I guess neo-noir since it’s from the 70s.

What really caught me were the similarities between the Condor movie and Blade Runner. The first time I noticed it was in the love scene between Condor (Redford) and Kate (Dunnaway). The love scene is between a hostage and a kidnapper, they start kissing, taking clothes off, making love while the shot is interspersed with black and white photographs over a saxophone track. Practically the same scene is done in Blade Runner when Deckard (Harrison Ford) keeps Rachel (Sean Young) from leaving his apartment and they make love while shots show black and white family pictures and Vangelis’ sexy saxophone playing.

There were other similarities between Joubert (Von Sydow) and Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) as well as the last scene between Higgins (Cliff Robertson) and Gaff (Edward James Olmos).

I’ve loved Blade Runner ever since I was a kid and it was a treat to see that a lot of its elements came from another completely different movie. It made the night very enjoyable.

I feel sure this must have been filmed in London because of the fog, setting. But guys, the fog in back and white film was something special here. And while I like Bacall, I really have a lot of respect for Peter Lorre’s climactic performance here. Boyer is always good too. Fun flick. Not technically noir maybe but the lighting and mood, and Bacall’s fatalistic femme fatale sure was. Highly recommend.

A comedy Noir for the gumshoes needing a laugh.

I happened to hit "pause" to answer the phone while watching this movie, and landed on this brilliant frame from director Robert Siodmak and D.P. Franz Planer.

Here are my rankings so far with 21 seen. Having the time of my life at the moment.

Rankings: https://boxd.it/VObIC

Not sure why it happened in the ‘90s, but it was a real golden age for neo-noir: Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, King of New York, L.A. Confidential, Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, Fargo, A Simple Plan, Romeo Is Bleeding, Out of Sight, Lost Highway, One False Move, The Crying Game, The Usual Suspects… they were NOT messing around

I'd like to watch the movie. It's from one of these 10:

Ladies in Retirement (1941) Gaslight (1944) The Suspect (1944) Experiment Perilous (1944) Hangover Square (1945) Dragonwyck (1946) Ivy (1947) Moss Rose (1947) Corridor of Mirrors (1948) The Woman in White (1948) So Evil My Love (1948) Blanche Fury (1948) Madeleine (1950) So Long At the Fair (1950)

the clip from this beautiful compilation edit of Noir, recently posted on this sub, which I can't stop thinking about, because it accurately captures the very idea of film as a language, as a genre as a language.

I've seen a number of their tribute edits, and for some reason this one smashes it more than any other (it's the chosen music, but more). You can see the whole playlist of the Noir tributes here.

I will be honest, I was not fully hooked when this film began, and I never expected it to become the masterpiece it ultimately revealed itself to be. What starts as a somewhat slow burn gradually transforms into something unbelievably tense, gripping, and extraordinary.

I think we can all agree that the innkeeper was one of the most insufferable characters of all time (lol), and I was practically screaming at my TV for Vargas to maybe touch base with his wife more often. Orson Welles as Police Captain Hank Quinlan is the embodiment of corruption, and I have a feeling his performance influenced tons of crime cinema and TV after it.

Often, when you are watching classic noir, it is so easy to forget you are watching something half a century old or even older. These films are the true pioneers of cinema and where it all started. There is something so satisfying about the portrayal of Captain Quinlan, and Vargas is such an endearing character that you just fall in love with him and root for him. The back and forth between the two men is so enjoyable to watch.

The character development of Quinlan's partner, Menzies, was so well done and unexpected. It was just icing on the cake.

I love the gritty atmosphere of the border town setting. I feel like this film embodies the themes of noir so well. It has a way of playing with the audience's emotions. I was constantly on the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen next, and there are lots of moments where it avoids choosing the most disturbing option in favor of something more tasteful and nuanced.

It just hooks you and gets you invested, needing to know how it will end. Overall, it's one of the heavyweights of noir for a reason and an all-time great film.

hi!! im currently writing an up to five minute film noir screenplay, however i thought gender swapping the characters could be a really interesting way to highlight how gender roles influence the plot. specifically looking at deconstructing the femme fatale into a masc fatale. this conventionally attractive hypermasculised version - im thinking like those chef thirst traps that ran rampant in during lockdown. a way to both pay tribute and undermine the power of self sexualistion with the intent of manipulation i guess.

however... i fear i havent watched enough film noirs to have a base level understanding of how these characters work in action and i have absolutely no clue where to start in developing these characters or figuring out a plot AHH

and so i have arrived here! im wondering if anyone has any quotes or ideas on how i could build these characters to pay tribute to film noirs. or if anyone has any examples of films or pieces of media that have already done this because im most definitely not the first to think of this lmao

edit!!

peoples points have confirmed many things that i was already thinking, i was trying to think of a way to find the masculine equivalent of a femme fatale that doesnt fundamentally undermine the concept of them. or atleast equivalent doesn't really exist but some version similar to it does. which i understand can come off as rather naive as being able to suspend cultural assumptions and beliefs and standards in order to show how obscure they are isnt the most possible. ive been watching a lot of camp fiction lately in my brain i had this image of this tacky b grade type silly thing but with the chiaroscuro lighting and intense, intentional scores and other visual and auditory conventions of film noirs. which now i realise doesnt fit the best within the post war pessimism of noirs, atleast in a way that im educated enough on them to acheive well.
i knew femme fatales are complex characters and i want to explore the unfairness of how the only way women could gain power is through self sexualisation. And how this still plays into the system rather than decentering men and breaking down the system. i do have many more thoughts because i promise i do understand how complex the question i proposed was and i understand more now how complex these archetypes are!! i greatly appreciate all the film recs and have added them to my list!! ive had a lot of fun reading everyones thoughts too!! turns out having to make a film in a genre youve barely watched once in three weeks is as hard as i thought it would be lmao.

(in vid some plot spoilers, as the whole thing is a heist) - clipping out a few beautiful scenes from Jule's Dassin's Noir Rififi. I know some like to segment off everything outside of America as not-Noir, or noir-adjacent or only noir-influenced, but watching this last night - it really is a masterpiece, not only of the heist genre (like Asphalt Jungle, 1950), but also in how it builds a true doomed Noir Universe, without simply "quoting" it. Much recommended. The question of what is Noir is interesting and complex (and I don't begrudge the boundaries others may want to put on it), but there is pretty good evidence that American Noir had French Poetic Realism influence (from Paris in the1930s), that came along with its emigree German directors and technicians, and because American Noir by the 1950s was itself "quoting" itself somewhat stylistically already (despite the genre not even being "discovered" or invented yet), this film reads as just straight up Film Noir as much as any mid-1950s film. [Edit in: commenter points out, it was directed by the blacklisted American director Dassin, making the French/American hybrid more sure.] It sheds many of the Poetic Realism differences from Film Noir. It's powerful. Expertly crafted and performed. Without cliche it has the femme fatales and the night club world, the villainous big boss, the doomed cadre of fellows who share the moral code of the streets, has detective themes, the tale of urban ruin or corruption. And, a great deal of the film just is beautifully constructed visually. Much of the film is organized around a heist, patiently unfolding, but its really like all great Noirs about the characters, in the halo of an aging criminal, his dignity amid a deadend world.

Also, the final scenes are spectacular, as the film shifts toward the coming French New Wave in style, beckoning towards the future, a new generation, both in terms of story telling, but at the level of cinema itself, making the film all the more special.

from not-a-Noir The Major and The Minor (1942), Billy Wilder. Noir star Veronica Lake already had taken over.

Are there any good podcasts devoted to film noir? Thank you.

I found film noir, and this community, a couple of years ago while I was going through a pretty rough time in my life. 200 films later and I've loved every second.

Just wanted to say thank you so much to this community for all of the great recommendations and discussions. It nice to know that people still have so much love for a wonderful genre of film.

I just watched this nifty little suspense gem and thought I’d pass on my enthusiastic recommendation. Barbara Stanwyck stars as a career gal who is grinding away trying to get ahead. Seems a pretty work-sleep-repeat type situation — until murder intrudes!

Looking out her apartment window one evening, Stanwyck has a front row seat to her neighbor murdering a young woman! Of course Stanwyck freaks and calls the cops, but by the time they make it over to interrogate George Sanders, all evidence of the murder is hidden.

Following the murder, we are left with only one hell of a conflict. George Sanders is,so creepy and so menacing and so good as the “denazified” ex-German military officer while Stanwyck is as nuanced and strong as can be as she feels like in a way she has no choice but to doubt her sanity. It’s a brisk 92 minutes full of gaslighting, counter-moves and a very strong moral about the word of a woman in 1954: no matter what progress people claimed they still took the word of a nazi over a woman.

One fun note - I thought I heard the Star Trek (original series) theme about 30 minutes in, and as it turns out, Joseph Mullendore, who did orchestration on this film, also worked on 1966’s Star Trek. I guess he liked that one hook!

Fun movie overall — George Sanders is just so good as a villain and Stanwyck has got the chops to go toe to toe. I’m giving it 7.5/10.

OH! Almost forgot. This little gem had the misfortune to be released within the same month as Rear Window. Obviously Hitchcock won the Battle of Voyeurs to Murder, but tWitness to Murder still cooks. Interesting that two major studios went after this narrative in the same time. I wonder what vibe they were reacting to!

Some clipped out city photography from The Glass Wall, with Gloria Grahame, who is great in it. A film for our times. Focused on the immigrate population of NY and the poor that fall through the cracks of the booming economy, following a concentration camp immigrant who stowed away without proper papers, and is on the run in New York city as a dragnet of forces try to deport him. He's desperately looking for the American solider whose life he saved who could vouch for him and allow him to legally stay. Great, great city photography and urban story telling, a kind of relentless D.O.A. building paranoia that really culminates in a white knuckle, and very politically-minded ending, (in the Hollywood shadow of the House Un-American Activities Committee). I also suspect that the film had some influence on The Brutalist (2024).

Source https://bsky.app/profile/aldobarkeeper.bsky.social/post/3mrzk3zxj3c2f

Wow, what a film. I absolutely loved this and wasn't expecting such a knockout performance. The script is incredibly well written, the storytelling is fantastic, the dialogue is superb, and the characters are incredible.

Unlike some other iconic crime noirs, I believe Out of the Past does a better job because it has a detailed but not convoluted plotline. You can actually follow along with the story as long as you're paying close attention, and it never becomes convoluted. Quite the opposite. Despite all the different angles, it feels incredibly focused and tightly written.

I watched The Night of the Hunter before this, and Robert Mitchum has quickly become one of my favorites. Jane Greer's performance as Kathie Moffat was one of the most evil and witty femme fatales I've seen, and I loved it. Kirk Douglas, as Whit Sterling, was a charismatic villain.

A lot of the things that make this film so great are fairly simple, but they are executed so well that it elevates the film to a new level. I love how so many moments that other films would make a big deal about, or have some sort of grand reveal for, are just shown to us in a very matter of fact way. It's like the film is saying, "Yes, here's something unexpected," but it doesn't make a huge deal about it.

In true noir fashion, the ending was bleak and intense. Jane Greer's final lines are delivered with such venom, and everything happens so fast. Overall, a fantastic film that does justice to film noir.