FILM-NOIR Movies

The Return of the Whistler 1948 On the eve of his marriage, a young mans fiance disappears He hires a private detective to help him track her down, but soon finds himself entangled in a web of lies, intrigue and murder revolving around his fiances dead ex husband and his wealthy, corrupt family

Mysterious Intruder 1946 The fifth entry in the Columbia series based on the CBS radio program, The Whistler, opens with kindly old music store owner Edward Stillwell Paul E Burns hiring private detective Don Gale Richard Dix to find a girl Stillwell hasnt seen in seven years Gale sends Freida Hanso

Flamingo Road 1949 Carnival dancer Lane Bellamy finds herself stranded in a southern town ruled by corrupt political boss Titus Semple Lane becomes romantically involved with sheriff Fielding Carlisle, a weakling whose career is being driven by Titus Seeing Lane as a liability to his own political a

Moonrise 1948 Danny Hawkins, who lives in a psychological shadow because his father died by a hangmans noose, accidentally kills a man in a fight over a girl, Gilly Johnson, and is afraid to notify the police He wins the love of the girl but when she tries to influence him to admit his guilt, he run

Illegal 1955 Ambitious D A Victor Scott zealously prosecutes Ed Clary for a womans murder But as Clary walks the last mile to the electric chair, Scott receives evidence that exonerates the condemned man Realizing that hes made a terrible mistake he tries to stop the execution but is too late Humble

Night Has a Thousand Eyes 1948 After heiress Jean Courtland attempts suicide, her fiance Elliott Carson probes her relationship to John Triton In flashback, we see how stage mentalist Triton starts having terrifying flashes of true precognition His partner, Whitney Courtland, uses Tritons talent to

Knock on Any Door 1949 Andrew Morton is an attorney who made it out of the slums Nick Romano is his client, a young man with a long string of crimes behind him After he lost his paycheck gambling, hoping to buy his wife some jewelry, she announced she was pregnant, Later he finds her dead from suici

The Amazing Mr X 1948 On the beach one night, Christine Faber, two years a widow, thinks she hears her late husband Paul calling out of the surf then meets a tall dark man, Alexis, who seems to know all about such things After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and younger sister Janet become en

Clash by Night 1952 The bitter and cynical Mae Doyle returns to the fishing village where she was raised after deceptive loves and life in New York She meets her brother, the fisherman Joe Doyle, and he lodges her in his home Mae is courted by Jerry DAmato, a good and naive man that owns the boat wh

Among the Living 1941 Paul Raden Albert Dekker, hopelessly insane son of Maxim Raden, hated owner of the Radentown mills, is in a strait jacket in a secret room in the family mansion, while the body of his father is lowered into a grave Twenty five years earlier, the brutal father had hurled Paul ag

Fury 1936 Based on the story Mob Rule by Norman Krasna Joe Wilson and Katherine Grant are in love, but he doesnt have enough money for them to get married So Katherine moves across the country to make money But things go disastrously wrong for Joe when he stops in a small town and is mistaken for a

The Woman on the Beach (1947) Scott, a troubled Coast Guardsman assigned to a fog-bound station on a remote stretch of beach, suffers from Post Traumatic Stress when he survives a mine explosion that sinks his ship. Although he is engaged to a beautiful young woman who loves him, he becomes involved

Caught (1949) It was Leonora Eames' childhood dream come true. She had married Smith Ohlrig, a man worth millions. But her innocent dream became a nightmare once she realizes the truth about her husband - he is power mad and insane! Since he will not grant her a divorce, she leaves her life of luxur

The Brothers Rico (1957) Eddie Rico, the erstwhile bookkeeper for a big Mafia boss, is now making a living as an honest merchant in Florida with his family. Things go sour when the police start a search for his syndicate-linked brothers who are on the lam after a big hit, forcing Eddie to get involv

Gun Crazy (1950) Since he was a child, Bart Tare has always loved guns. After leaving the army, his friends take him to a carnival, where he meets the perfect girl; Annie, a sharp-shooting sideshow performer who loves guns as much as he. The 2 run off and marry, but Annie isn't happy with their fina

Johnny Eager (1941) Ruthless hood Johnny Eager is pretending to his parole officer that he has chucked the rackets and is working as a taxi driver. In fact, he's as deep into crime as he ever was and desperately needs official permission to open his new dog racing track. When he meets up with Lisbet

The Accused (1949) Wilma Tuttle, psychology professor, lets aggressively brash student Bill Perry drive her home. Big mistake. After an attempted rape, Perry is dead; panicked, Wilma hides her traces and flees. As time passes, she watches the investigations of Homicide Lt. Dorgan with painfully conc

The Window (1949) At the age of 9, Tommy Woodry has a reputation for telling tall tales -- the latest one being that his family is moving from Manhattan to a ranch out west. When the landlord interrupts the Woodrys at dinner to show their about to be vacated apartment, the Woodrys tell Tommy enough

The Face Behind the Mask (1941) Janos Szaby is a kind, innocent immigrant to America. Just after he arrives though, he is caught in a fire and his face is horribly burned and disfigured. Although a skilled craftsman his hideous features make it impossible for him to get work, and driven by despair h

Alias Nick Beal (1949) Righteous district attorney Joseph Foster's main goal in life is to rid his city of the gangsters infesting it. In order to be even more efficient in his war against crime he plans to run for governor. One day he meets a strange, shadowy man, Nick Beal, who offers to help him

The Tattered Dress (1957) When top lawyer James Blane gets an acquittal for a man who killed another man for sexually roughing up his trophy wife, the murderous town sheriff frames him for bribing a juror in the case.

Act of Violence (1948) War veteran Frank Enley seems to be a happily married small-town citizen until he realises Joe Parkson is in town. It seems Parkson is out for revenge because of something that happened in a German POW camp, and when a frightened Enley suddenly leaves for a convention in L.A.,

Affair in Trinidad (1952) When Steve Emery arrives in Trinidad at the urgent request of his brother, he is stunned to find that his brother has not only been murdered, but that his brother's wife Chris is succumbing to the seduction attempts of the man who quite possibly is the murderer. His feeling

Ruthless (1948) Horace Vendig shows himself to the world as a rich philanthropist. In fact, the history of his rise from his unhappy broken home shows this to be far from the case. After being taken in by richer neighbours he started to exhibit an obsessive and selfish urge to make more and more mon

The Second Woman (1950) In flashback from a 'Rebecca'-style beginning: Ellen Foster, visiting her aunt on the California coast, meets neighbor Jeff Cohalan and his ultramodern clifftop house. Ellen is strongly attracted to Jeff, who's being plagued by unexplainable accidents, major and minor. Bad lu

This Gun for Hire (1942) Hit man Philip Raven, who's kind to children and cats, kills a blackmailer and is paid off by traitor Willard Gates in

Murder by Contract (1958) Claude is a young man with a regular job, no history of trouble with the law and no chance of making any real money. He also has the brains and emotional detachment to make the big bucks as a hit man, and that becomes his new job title. A string of successful hits gets him

They Drive by Night (1940) Brothers Paul and Joe Fabrini run a trucking business in California mainly shipping fruit from farms to the markets in Los Angeles. They struggle to make ends meet in the face of corrupt businessmen and intense competition. They are forced into driving long hours and one n

Death of a Scoundrel (1956) When Clementi Suborin is found murdered, his secretary recounts to the police the story of his rise from Czech refugee to ultra-rich New Yorker. The tale of betrayal, womanising and fraud confirms that almost everyone who knew him wanted him dead.

The Garment Jungle (1957) The struggle of a lady's garment workers' organization to unionize a New York clothing sweat shop; the owner of which is determined to keep the union out of his business at any cost.

Ransom! (1956) When his son Andy is kidnapped and held for ransom, David Stannard liquidates his assets to meet the half-million dollar demand. A casual remark by newspaper reporter Charlie Telfer makes him change his mind. Despite the pleas from his wife Edith and brother Al, and the resultant cond

The Mob (1951) Police detective Damico, outwitted by mob killer Blackie Clay, is nominally suspended; actually he goes undercover (as Tim Flynn, ex-con longshoreman) to find Clay and expose the waterfront rackets. In character, Damico throws his weight around so much that the mobsters try to get rid

5 Against the House (1955) Four college buddies enjoying a night at a Reno casino are told by a cop that robbing the casino

San Quentin (1937) Ex-Army officer Jameson takes a job a prison guard at San Quentin. Joe, the brother of his new girlfriend May, is sentenced to the prison for robbery. When Jameson tries to separate lawbreakers from hardened criminals, badguy Hansen tries to stir up trouble by telling Joe about Ja

The Maltese Falcon (1931) Sam Spade is quite the womanizer. When his secretary tells him the new customer waiting outside his office is a knockout, he wastes no time before seeing her. It turns out she's a knockout with money. And she wants to spend it on his services as a private detective. She has

Appointment with Danger (1950) Relentless postal inspector Al Goddard is set to Gary, Indiana, when another officer is murdered. He must find the nun who witnessed the murder, then infiltrate the gang by convincing them he is a postal inspector gone bad.

Code of Scotland Yard (1947) Descius Heiss is a French expatriate, and former Devil's Island prisoner, with two passions; driving shrewd bargains in antiques at his Sly Corner Shop, and the care of his Beautiful ...

Union Station (1950) Secretary Joyce Willecombe grows suspicious of two men boarding her train and is referred to 'Tough Willy' Calhoun, head of the Union Station police. The all-seeing, no-nonsense Calhoun is initially skeptical, but the men (who escape) prove to be involved in a kidnap case. Calho

Black Widow (1954) A married Broadway producer is taken with an innocent young woman who wants to be a writer and make it on Broadway. He decides to take her under his wing, but it's not long before the young lady is found dead in his apartment. At first thought to be a suicide, it is later discover

Summer Storm (1944) In this filmed Chekhov adaptation, Olga is an alluring peasant woman who lures cynical aristocrat Fedor away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.

Make Haste to Live (1954) Crystal 'Chris' Benson, a single mother in a small New Mexico town, senses a shadowy menace stalking her in the night. She acquires a gun and makes arrangements anticipating her own death, tape-recording a message for her teenage daughter which (in flashback) tells of her i

Murder Is My Beat (1955) A police detective helps a singer heading to prison for the murder of a man she claims is still alive.

The Lawless (1950) Former big city newsman Larry Wilder is tired of fighting the powers that be and just wants to enjoy his new life as a small-town newspaper editor. He thinks his bucolic new home will provide him with an easy and unconflicted life. But when a young Latino farmworker is goaded into

Touch of Evil (1958) Mexican Narcotics officer Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas has to interrupt his honeymoon on the Mexican-US border when an American building contractor is killed after someone places a bomb in his car. He's killed on the US side of the border but it's clear that the bomb was planted o

The Gun Runners (1958) Remake of

Bullets or Ballots (1936) After Police Captain Dan McLaren becomes police commissioner former detective Johnny Blake knocks him down convincing rackets boss Al Kruger that Blake is sincere in his effort to join the mob. "Buggs" Fenner thinks Blake is a police agent.

The Docks of New York (1928) Bill Roberts works as a stoker on a coal-red barge. It's dirty, hard work and the men have to put up with a foreman, Andy, who seems to enjoy making their life miserable. When finally off the ship, Bill sees a young woman struggling in the water - apparently trying to co

A Strange Adventure (1956) A trio of thieves make their getaway by kidnapping a young hot-rodder, and take over a mountain cabin for a hideout after overpowering its occupants.