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Powerhouse Indicator’s first foray into the Universal library yields six noir thrillers, all crime-related and all different: the list introduces us to scheming businessmen, venal confidence crooks, black-market racketeers, a femme fatale, a gangster deportee and baby stealers. The B&w features are enriched with some of the best actors of the postwar years, and the titles themselves are a litany of vice and sin: The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported and Naked Alibi.

Universal Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

The Web, Larceny, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, Abandoned, Deported, Naked Alibi

Powerhouse Indicator

1948-1954 / B&w / Street Date November 14, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, Vincent Price, William Bendix; John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelly Winters, Dorothy Hart; Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton; Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Raymond Burr; Marta Toren, Jeff Chandler, Marina Berti, Richard Rober; Sterling Hayden,...

It’s smooth noir sailing with this polished noir from Universal-International and its choice cast of pros — Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines and William Bendix, plus Vincent Price doing an excellent turn as a Machiavellian businessman, a ‘frame’ expert with a side specialty in double-dealing. Director Michael Gordon earns an early credit at Universal-International with a nice look: almost all exteriors are richly photographed nighttime scenes. Ella Raines is particularly good — despite the cover illustration, she’s not a femme fatale, just a cautious independent woman.

The Web

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1947 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer, John Abbott, Fritz Leiber, Howland Chamberlain, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: Irving Glassberg

Production Designer Art Directors: Bernard Herzbrun, James Sullivan

Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth

Original Music: Hans J. Salter

Written by William Bowers, Bertram Millhauser...

It happens every time: we want to cruelly betray somebody, but Love keeps getting in the way. When evil Dan Duryea sics con-man louse John Payne on the saintly war widow Joan Caulfield, three other women come tagging along as well, ’cause Payne is just too attractive. The swindle in George Sherman’s unsure noir gets uglier and then loses its way in the third act, with clunker dialogue and a climax that dissolves when it should resolve. Look out for super femme input from Shelley Winters, Dorothy Hart and Patricia Alphin. It’s an early featured role for Winters, and she doesn’t hold back.

Larceny

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 89 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: John Payne, Joan Caulfield, Dan Duryea, Shelley Winters, Dorothy Hart, Richard Rober, Dan O’Herlihy, Nicholas Joy, Percy Helton, Walter Greaza, Patricia Alphin, Gene Evans.

Cinematography:...

The UK disc purveyors Powerhouse Indicator are back with a second installment of Region B Film Noir goodies from the darker end of the Columbia Torch Lady’s film vault. This time around we have a couple of Femme Fatale thrillers (does she or doesn’t she?), a trio of organized crime mellers, and a hit man saga so minimalist, it’s almost avant-garde. The icing on the noir cake is the curated selection of extras, plus the absurd counter-programming of Three Stooges short subjects. Why did nobody think to cast Moe, Larry and Shemp as cold-blooded Noir hit men?

Columbia Noir #2

Region B Blu-ray

Framed, 711 Ocean Drive, The Mob, Affair in Trinidad, Tight Spot, Murder by Contract

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen & 1:37 Academy / Street Date February 15, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Edmond O’Brien, Joanne Dru, Broderick Crawford, Richard Kiley, Rita Hayworth,...

When Hollywood from time to time reinvented the western the results were sometimes sensationally good, as attested to by this superior neglected classic. We’d call it the first psychological western if the term weren’t so limiting. Gregory Peck once again proves how good he can be when well cast and he’s surrounded by fine characterizations, not typical oater walk-ons. The screenplay and direction are so pleasing that the downbeat finale isn’t a drawback — it doesn’t strain to enforce an irony, or to sell a deep-dish ‘author’s message.’ This one’s just a winner in all categories.

The Gunfighter

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1053

1950 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 84 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date , 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Skip Homeier, Anthony Ross, Verna Felton, Ellen Corby, Richard Jaeckel, Alan Hale Jr., Mae Marsh, James Millican, Kim Spalding.

When did Hollywood’s deconstruction of the American Western myth officially break through? Depending on which aficionado you look to, the answer given may be Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), or Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952), or another venerated film amid the 1950’s great run of what’s come to be recognized as the “psychological Western”. Lurking alone out on the untenable dusty plains, however, is what is quite likely the true candidate, Henry King’s The Gunfighter (1950, written by William Bowers and William Sellers from a story by Bowers and Andre de Toth). Gregory Peck (whose name is as big as the title on the Blu-ray’s cover- an unusual graphic decision for Criterion) plays Jimmy Ringo, the fastest and most feared gun in the West. But the macho pursuit of...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Today’s noir forecast is vice, kidnapping, murder, suicide, narcotics and a sleazy stolen baby racket! Kino’s third volume of Universal-International pix contains two seldom-screened quality urban noirs. Expect genuine dark themes in these sizable-budget location noirs filmed before Universal pulled most production back onto its one-size-fits-all backlot sets. Barbara Stanwyck dominates one show, while noir stalwarts Richard Conte and Dennis O’Keefe anchor the other two dramas, with dynamic showings by Coleen Gray, Edith Barrett, Peggy Dow, Jeanette Nolan, Meg Randall and especially Gale Storm.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema III

Abandoned, The Lady Gambles, The Sleeping City

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1949-50 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 79,99,86 min. / Street Date June 9, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.99

Starring: Dennis O’Keefe, Gale Storm, Jeff Chandler, Meg Randall, Raymond Burr, Marjorie Rambeau, Jeanette Nolan, Mike Mazurki, Will Kuluva, David Clarke; Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Preston, Stephen McNally, Edith Barrett, John Hoyt,...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

By John M. Whalen

In MGM’s 1958 Western “The Law and Jake Wade,” Robert Taylor rides down from the Sierra Nevada mountains early one morning into a small town and busts his old partner-in-crime, Clint Hollister (Richard Widmark), out of the hoosegow. Hollister is a nasty guy. Not satisfied with escaping a hanging, to Jake’s dismay, he clubs the sheriff and shoots a couple of people out in the street while he and Jake make their getaway. Jake has to take his rifle away from him to keep from killing more people.

Back up in the mountains Clint wants to ride on with Jake but Jake says no. He busted Clint out of jail because he figured he owed him for doing the same thing for him once. Now they’re even. Clint doesn’t agree. There’s that matter of the $20,000 they stole on their last job together.

Many of MGM’s productions were scraping bottom in 1958, yet the studio found one more acceptable western vehicle for their last big star still on contract. Only-slightly corrupt marshal Robert Taylor edges toward a showdown with the thoroughly corrupt Richard Widmark in an economy item given impressive locations and the sound direction of John Sturges.

The Law and Jake Wade

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, DeForest Kelley, Henry Silva, Burt Douglas, Eddie Firestone.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Written by William Bowers from a novel by Marvin H. Albert

Produced by William B. Hawks

Directed by John Sturges

As the 1950s wore down, MGM was finding it more difficult to properly use its last remaining big-ticket stars on the steady payroll, Cyd Charisse and Robert Taylor. Cyd...

The world’s largest solo theater festival has once again broken its own record of one-person performances. Running now through Nov. 22 at NYC’s Theatre Row on 42nd street, the 6th annual United Solo Festival features 150 solo productions from around the world. The 10-week run will stage between two and five shows each day; tickets for all offerings—which span drama, comedy, dance, music, stand-up, and even mime—are $19.25 and available now. Highlights from this year’s festival include the return of Japanese solo artist Yokko in “Butoh Medea,” a retelling of the Greek myth through Butoh dance, as one of United Solo’s 25 Encore program performances. Festival vet Bill Bowers will perform a new coming-of-age story, “Beyond Words,” while Eric Samuelsen’s dark cautionary tale “The Kreutzer Sonata” will star Robert Scott Smith. Among the newcomers for solo theater fans to keep an eye on are Kate Fuglei, Nick Rafello,...

Cry Danger

Written by William Bowers

Directed by Robert Parish

USA, 1951

The road that ultimately leads creative people in the filmmaking business to the highly coveted director’s chair is rarely the same from one candidate to the next. Some are fortunate enough to direct a feature from the get-go. The number of directorial debuts from stunningly young men and women premiering at festivals is a testament to that journey. Others take the long road, filling in a great many roles on movie sets, learning the ropes of many trades before they finally helm a project. Robert Parish’s journey began at age 11, when he appeared in the 1927 short Olympic Games. After years of acting and editing, his directorial debut finally came in 1951 with the mobster film Cry Danger.

Unexpectedly released from prison after 5 years courtesy of an alibi from someone he has never met, infamous hoodlum Rocky Mulloy (Dick Powell...