kornboy

What does Film Noir mean? I was looking at some peoples 20% Off DDD buy list, and saw some were Noir titles, so I looked them up on DDD, and by the descriptions these look interesting to me.

Panic In The Streets
Call Northside 777
House Of Bamboo
Nightmare Alley
The Street With No Name
Somewhere In The Night

Are these good Noir titles to start out with?

Tscott

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

RockyMtnBri

I would say yes - I have them all and I'm waiting on the next wave. Other good examples are The Maltese Falcon, Night and the City, and many others.

Johnny Zhivago

First thing I was going to post... Nice, quick summary without getting into a long discussion.

Start here and read for the long discussion. > http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=260301

I have a lot of noir in my collection if you want to browse, linked in my sig... As far as good titles to start with, they are all good but I would probably start with a few of the "holy grails" of Film Noir... The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Blvd, The Third Man, Kiss Me Deadly, any Hitchcock noir. Other favorites of mine... Notorious, Out of the Past, Gilda, Key Largo, Mildred Pierce, Pickup on South Street, Night and the City, Kansas City Confidential, The Killing.

natevines

The DVDs you mentioned are part of Fox's film noir line. However, you neglected to mention the best one: Laura. I'd easily recommend the entire line (there are only nine so far, with 3 more coming out early december). I'd also pick the Warner Film Noir boxes Vols. 1 & 2.
These are the noirs I own, and I recommend almost every one of them: http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.ht...999&id=evstein

eXcentris

There are a few good definitions (involving style and themes) but "Film Noir" is sometimes used as a "catch all" category that often includes films that don't even belong. In a word, the definition of Film Noir seems to be extremely elastic. Some of the Fox titles aren't even considered Film Noir by experts and historians of the genre.

Cameron

also check out http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/Film%20Noir.html

Noir is french for black...the french critics coined the phrase... think "black film" not even so much for the stark shadows and lighting, but for the dark storytelling. murder and death...without happy ending. These films didn't play into the cookie cutter formula of hollywood endings...however they became their own sort of cookie cutter mold in later years.

check the fox film noir link in my sig...that will lead you to reviews and what not.

kornboy

Wow, you have quite the noir collection!

Ron G

And of course the irritatingly unreleased Double Indemnity.

Don't forget The Postman Always Rings Twice, either.

didyounotice

Touch of Evil, anyone.

That's one hell of a wise look on the Noir Aesthetic.

eedoon

Well I haven't saw Touch of Evil yet, but The Third Man is one of the most beautifully photographed film noir there is.

RockyMtnBri

Touch of Evil is awesome - it's a very detailed character study, especially Orson Welles' character.

CKMorpheus

I have Double Indemnity... It's not unreleased, it's just OOP

chente

Get the Warner's Film Noir Box #1, it is great. I don't like Box #2 nearly as much.