September DVD Spotlight: Film Noir

As a new academic year begins here at Seton Hill, our students have bright, late-summer days and even brighter futures to look forward to, but we're taking a path toward gloom and darkness instead, with our first DVD display of the year: film noir.  One of the most celebrated of American film genres, film noir gained prominence in the 1940s and 1950s, as a certain style of crime films became commonplace in Hollywood during and after World War II.  Often characterized by a stark, shadowy lighting scheme, and a cynical preoccupation with fate, it's a genre that has proven influential up through the modern era.  We've got classic early examples like the proto-noir The Maltese Falcon (1941), Scarlet Street (1945), and The Set-Up (1949), as well as more recent neo-noirs like the Coen brothers' great directorial debut, Blood Simple (1984), and Christopher Nolan's breakout Memento (2001).

Other featured titles include:

The Big Combo (1955)
Director Joseph H. Lewis teamed with the great film noir cinematographer John Alton to make this superb crime drama, about a police lieutenant working to bring down a crime syndicate.

Crossfire (1947)
Three Roberts (Mitchum, Young, and Ryan) headline this pointed film about a police investigation into the brutal murder of a Jewish man by an American soldier during World War II.

Detour (1945)
This ultra-low-budget gem, about a drifter who becomes embroiled in blackmail and murder, is one of the film noir genre's most memorable meditations on fate and chance.  This film is available as part of the library's 5 Film Noir Killer Classics box set.

On Dangerous Ground (1952)
This quintessential film noir stars Robert Ryan as a cop who travels to the country to solve a brutal murder, only to fall in love with the suspect's blind sister.

Out of the Past (1947)
Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca helped establish the archetypal look of film noir with his work on this film, about a former private detective whose past comes back to haunt him. Jane Greer gives an iconic performance in one of the genre's great femme fatale roles.

Touch of Evil (1958)
One of cinema's great opening shots starts off this classic noir, about corruption and murder in a seedy border town.  Orson Welles directs, and also stars as the villainous Police Captain Hank Quinlan.

Take a walk on the dark side, and check one out at the library today!