Top 10 BEST Classic Film Noir

what's going on everyone my name is Daniel eppler and this is the YouTube channel where we celebrate all kinds of movies and today we're going to be talking about my top 10 classic noir films and when I'm talking about classic Noir I'm talking about that string of movies that came out in the black and white era the 1940s and the 1950s in particular and basically what these movies are is they are crime films to put it the most simply they could be about a private investigator who is investigating crime could be about criminals who are pulling a heist or maybe on the run from the law they could be about people having an illicit Affair and planning to murder a spouse or something like that basically they are movies that uh show the cynicisms of the World War II era both during World War II and afterwards and I really like these movies because they're coming out during the time of the haze code right during the time when movies are censored and they're only supposed to be about and display certain things and these are the movies that are sneaking through that are telling you some realities about what were people afraid of at this time what were the anxieties of this time what were they feeling cynical about so I find them to be very real feeling but they're also great escapism because they're so much fun with the hard-boiled dialogue the great movie stars that great photography that's black and white in almost all cases and it's just showing a lot of Shadow and darkness they tend to be really visually beautiful movies and they tend to have a lot of good jazz music I tend to be a jazz fan so I love these movies and right now it is November and over on my podcast the cobwebs podcast I just put out an episode on a Noir film and I think I said on the episode at some point um I said like I should really sit down and figure out what my top 10 noir films are is because before today I haven't actually done that so these are my personal 10 favorite noir films this is not the generally accepted list if you look up like what are the classic uh the Turner Classic Movies experts say are the 10 greatest noir films of all time it's gonna look different from my list gonna be some crossover but it's gonna be different so this is my personal list I would love to see what your list is though if you've got a top 10 classic noir films please drop them down below and when I say classic Noir I do mean classic we're not going to be talking about Neo Noir today no Blade Runner no Chinatown nothing like that these are movies from I believe all of mine are from the 40s and the 50s all black and white films my 10 favorites so let's kick things off a number 10 spot is always difficult because there's so many movies that could slide in there any of those honorable mentions but I'm gonna go with a recent discovery one that I have found that I'm a big fan of and that is I Walk Alone from 1947. this one is directed by Byron Haskin and it's starting Burt Lancaster Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Scott now what it's about is Bert Lancaster is a convict who just got let out of prison after 10 years in prison and we come to find out that him and Kirk Douglas were Bootleggers during the prohibition era they got chased by cops when they're hauling some whiskey at one point Kirk Douglas gets away Bert Lancaster does not and he takes the fall so Kirk Douglas becomes this very successful man a bit of a criminal but like a socially acceptable criminal who's got accountants and lawyers on his side and such and Bert Lancaster wants his piece of the pie and maybe Kirk Douglas is not going to give it up so easily what I love about this movie is Bert Lancaster is such a cannonball in this movie he has got so much raw energy and passion and he's just ready to bash up Kirk Douglas's life Elizabeth Scott plays a love interest for Burt Lancaster I find her to be kind of an unsung hero of Noir she's really great and it's actually a really romantic Noir film which is something that I really enjoy their romance is the main thing that makes Bert Lancaster likable because otherwise he's not a good guy and that's something that I like about noirs you get a lot of anti-heroes people here like I don't know if I I can quite root for you morally but I really like watching you and this Kirk Douglas over here is a slime ball there's actually another movie where Kirk Douglas plays uh second tier to another star in which he's kind of a bad guy um this ends up being the one that makes my personal list next up one of the most classic films on here and that is the Maltese Falcon from 1941. this one is directed by John Houston an absolutely quintessential Noir because if you want to ask me what is the first thing I think of when I think a hard-boiled private detective in a black and white movie I'm thinking of Humphrey Bogart as detective Sam Spade Bogart is phenomenal in this movie because again like what I was talking about with the last movie he's a bit of an anti-hero he is your Pi your main character you going through the movie with he's not a good person and I love the darkness that Humphrey Bogart puts off it's got an amazing Supporting Cast all around him it's actually a movie that I didn't love the first time I saw it but I have come to really really appreciate a lot of its beautiful photography and that really hard-boiled dialogue that Humphrey Bogart is giving off in while he's trying to figure out the mystery of the quintessential McGuffin of Cinema The Maltese Falcon at number eight we have got I'm crazy from 1950 directed by Joseph H Lewis and this is one of your classic lovers On The Run stories he's throwing Peggy Cummings and John Dahl uh John Dahl is as well they're both as the movie suggests gun crazy he's this incredible Marksman just recently released from the military and there is a kind of traveling carnival going that he uh visits and he meets Peggy Cummings who is their Sharpshooter attraction he's the only one who's able to beat her in a short shooting uh competition and there's this attraction that Sparks between them and pretty quickly they are married and she starts talking him into a lot of criminal dealings let's use our gun skills to get rich essentially and they start robbing some places there is an amazing Heist sequence of them robbing this company's payroll and they go on the run from there it is a terrifying movie I think like when I want to think about like the the scary various scenarios I can think of just being sucked down this bad path when John Dahl is not a bad guy really but he sucked down this bad path by a classic Femme Fatale and she and suddenly he's this criminal and he never meant to be a criminal and he's not a bad person but now he's forced into the situation where the cops are going to get him in any seconds he might even have to shoot people just to be able to survive and it's a really really scary movie does not lead to a happy place that's another thing with Noir not a lot of Happy Endings coming in at number seven is a movie that despite the fact that it has one of the most iconic shots in all of Cinema I consider it to overall be an underrated Noir and that is Gilda from 1947 directed by Charles Fedor this movie is starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford yes this is the movie where you see Rita Hayworth flip her red hair back and ask me uh you've probably seen it in I think it's in the Shawshank Redemption actually or if you search this movie be on any GIF uh website but anyway this movie is starring Glenn Ford as a gambler who starts working for this super rich guy at a casino and he meets the rich guys boss who is Gilda played by Rita Hayworth realizes she's an act actually an old flame of his and they now hate each other but it's a really great Noir what makes it so fun is that Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford's dialogue is so hateful and biting between the two um because they hate each other but they're still that attraction so it ends up being a movie with a ton of sexual attention and maybe they start coming back together maybe they want to overthrow the rich guy and be together but also get rich but also build as a classic them fatal so what are her motives it's a really fun movie with a lot of twists and turns Glenn Ford is one of my favorite movie stars of all time actually he hasn't quite stood the test of time in the public Consciousness like Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant or someone like that but I find him to be one of the grumpiest movie stars of all time and this movie is uh in a good way and this movie is a great example of that number six is a massive classic surely one if you haven't seen it you've heard of it that is Stanley Kubrick's the killing the killing is from 1956 it is starring Sterling Hayden one of my favorite people to star in a Noir and it this movie is all about a heist it is deep in the weeds of being about a heist guys who are planning one of robbing a racetrack the movie is about planning the heist and then executing it and what do you do even if you succeed uh it is a master class in tension Stanley Kubrick is of course known as one of the greatest directors of all time this is one of my favorite movies from him one of that that is so effective in what it is setting out to do and it has one of the greatest endings of all time so what can I say the killing is amazing you should totally watch it and actually I have an episode of my podcast dedicated to this movie so you can check that out I'll put the link down below number five is another fairly recent discovery for me and that is in a lonely place from 1950. it's directed by Nicholas Ray one of my favorite directors for Noir as you will see a little bit later on this list and this is another bogey movie it's starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Graham Humphrey Bogart is an author who is not he's our protagonist we like him he's not unlikable but he has a really bad temper if he gets angry and it comes to uh we come to find out that a young girl who was recently in Humphrey Bogart's company turns out to be murdered and Humphrey Bogart is a suspect did he do it did we not we as the audience don't know Gloria Graham doesn't either who is his neighbor who starts a romance with him and we watch their romance Blossom him become a better person while being with her and all the while we don't know if he killed this girl the cops don't know if he did it Gloria Graham doesn't know if he did it and so much of this movie is about her loving him but her tension of not knowing that and it it raises to such dramatic Heights it is such an intense movie by the end one of my favorite noirs by far that's in a lonely place number four is the big heat from 1953 directed by Fritz Lang Fritz Lang is an iconic director uh who directed M with Peter Laurie one of the most classic serial killer movies ever made and the big heat is it's so much fun this is another movie starring Glenn Ford he is a tough cop who is taking on this whole criminal Syndicate but he's also a family man and what happens if these criminals also come after him Glenn Ford is this is probably my favorite Glenn Ford performance he's so intense in this movie and this is just kind of your classic cops versus criminals movie with amazing dialogue scenes it also has Gloria Graham it has Lee Marvin uh Gloria Graham is Lee Marvin's girlfriend Lee Marvin is a criminal and she is undergoes a terrible tragedy at the hand of these criminals that she hangs out with goes to try to help Glenn Ford it's such a fun movie I love the big heat also did a podcast on this movie uh linked down below at number three the most recent discovery for me on this list and is already shot up to number three it is the sweet smell of success from 1957 directed by Alexander mckendrick and this is another Burt Lancaster movie Bert Lancaster and Tony Curtis and it's an unusual plot for a Noir we're not in so much dealing with cops and criminals here we're dealing with um a very corrupt Power Media political system in New York in the 1950s Bert Lancaster is a gossip columnist who at this at this time in history a person who just writes a column in a newspaper could be enormously powerful and he is and Tony Curtis is a publicist and Tony Curtis is basically this movie describes him as a dog to Bert Lancaster and that Lancaster is total control of him because he has total control over his finances Tony Curtis relies on him to put his clients into his column as a publicity exchange and all the while Bert Lancaster's sister is trying to marry this guy and Bert Lancaster wants to ruin that relationship and is using Tony Curtis to do it it's got some of the greatest performances I've ever seen in the Noir film with Tony Curtis especially but also Lancaster some of the most biting dialogue just so many incredible iconic lines all throughout this film the sweet smell of success is one of the best movies out there I think and it's my third favorite Noir film of all time at number two is the first Noir film I can remember having a big impact on me and it was my number one for a very long time until last year actually my number two is Double Indemnity from Billy Wilder this movie is from 1944 probably the most iconic Noir film it's starring Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwick and this is one of those illicit Affair movies uh where they're having an affair she has a very rich husband and she floats out the idea what if we murder him and take all his money and the movie is their descent into figuring out how can they go through with this how can they get away with it Go and eventually it goes through that process and then it's how do we get away with it and that is something that Noir gets into quite a bit is the idea of even if you can be a criminal can you get away with it or will the guilt and the the tension of looking over your shoulder will it ruin your life that's much what this movie is about but it's one of the most fun movies like ever because the dialogue is so much fun it's probably the most sexual of the classic noirs when it comes to the innuendo thrown back and forth between McMurray and Stanwick uh one of Barbara stanwick's best performance is absolutely and Fred McMurray is so cool in this movie but gotta get some major props to Edward G Robinson as an insurance investigator who knows there's just something not right with his death it's got to be murder and he's got to figure out what's going on so Double Indemnity is one of my favorite movies that's my second favorite film Noir but at number one it is the Noir I I'm the most emotional about and it's the only Noir film to ever make me cry and if they live by night from 1948 directed by Nicholas Ray who also directed in a lonely place and this movie is starring Farley Granger as a man who is on the run from a prison escape with a bunch of other criminals but he's with a bunch of hardened criminals because they're the ones who helped him to escape but he's not really that guy we never really find out why he was in prison but we get the idea that he was just a good guy who made a mistake wrong place wrong time sort of situation and he starts to fall for the daughter of one of these criminals in the his house where they're holding up who's played by Kathy O'Donnell and she's a little bit odd very socially awkward but he is too and it's really a movie about two kind of strange flawed people finding each other and running away together and the whole world is constantly crashing down on them and ruining their life at every turn so they just want to be happy together they want to have a normal life they want that 1950s picket fence fantasy that everyone was going after in the 50s and the TV shows especially were really pushing in that decade they want all of that but they can't have it because he made this one mistake and he escaped from prison and at any point the cops are going to find them and the cops the police force feel like this overwhelming powerful horror force in this movie that's actually pretty scary so it's a very intense movie it's a very romantic movie for when their their romance and their relationship is going well but when Things Fall Apart things get very um antagonistic and there's a lot of tension so it's very much a very real feeling relationship under these kind of circumstances so they live by night it's my number one Noir film of all time the most emotional on Noir has ever made me and if you haven't seen it because it's not quite as classic as like The Maltese falcon or something like that I I definitely recommend checking it out it's it's my number one so that's my top 10 film Noir movies I would really love to see what your list is leave in the comment down below uh leave a like and a subscribe as well because we got more videos coming on the way and I'll see you next time guys

Channel: The Cobwebs Channel

Views: 33,601

Keywords: movie review, noirvember, noir, classic noir, classic film, film review, blu ray, blu ray collection

Id: rIjvamgMxDs

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 30 2022