Nourish Your Netflix

Because everything’s better in black-and-white

By Daiana Feuer
Published: Apr 23, 2008

Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Stars: crooner Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, former wrestler Mike Mazurki
Based on novel: Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler (1940)

Dick Powell trades the microphone for the notorious trench coat of Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s archetypical seedy detective. Some call this movie the purest translation of Chandler’s fiction ever to cast shadows on the screen. As the characters fall into an ever-widening Chandlerean gorge of deceit, it becomes a sudoku puzzle of connections that’s finally unraveled with a bullet hole through its seam. The dialogue is smooth as a fedora crease.

The Third Man (1949)
Dir: Carol Reed
Stars: Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
Based on novel(la): The Third Man, by Graham Greene (1950)

This film has been called “the best British film of the 20th century.” It’s Graham Greene’s ferris-wheel narrative rendered in abstract camera angles and haunting compositions. Holly Martins (Cotton) uses his Western writing skills to unearth a real killing, but might he become a cog in someone else’s mystery? You’ll fumble in the dark on that question until the very last scene. Oh, and Orson Welles’s on-camera time is short, but chilling enough to freeze a popsicle. This film will keep your noir meter at level 10.

Le Doulos (1962)
Dir: Jean-Pierre Melville
Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani
Based on novel: Le Doulos (“The Hat”), by Pierre Lesou (year unknown)

Melville’s Le Samourai (1967) and Le Cercle Rouge (1970) are better known, but Le Doulos is the real neo-noir masterpiece. In this tale of bizarre underworld etiquette, killing is, if done at the right time, considered polite. Surreal shadows cut the screen at impossible angles as meditative shots bait you into the narrative. Since it’s subtitled, you can mouth the hard-boiled dialogue and make-believe you’re a smooth jewelry thief.

Scarlett Street (1945)
Dir: Fritz Lang
Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea
Based on novel: La Chienne (“The Bitch”) English title: Poor Sap (1930), by Georges de La Fouchardière

This is not your typical murder-mystery. Then again, what is? Sharp-nailed Kitty (Bennett) seduces lumpy middle-aged clerk Chris Cross (the inimitable Robinson), encouraging him to steal from his job and set up his wife with an ex-lover. Meanwhile, Kitty gets rich off his painting hobby, behind his back, of course. The kitchen scene where Robinson’s apron-clad character has the proverbial brain snap is creepy, slightly funny, and infinitely rewindable. Lang’s expressionist camerawork captures a bleak, ironic tone.

The Big Sleep (1946)
Dir: Howard Hawkes
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall
Based on novel: The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (1939)

You could try to diagram the complications in this Philip Marlowe caper. But you’d run out of paper. During the making of the film, the director called the screenwriters (William Faulkner among them) to discuss who killed the chauffer. Even Raymond Chandler—who wrote the book—was lost. The last third of the film points a finger in every direction until a resolution finally appears on the lips of the tiniest pistol. Off-screen couple Bogie and Bacall make this picture easy on the eyes, reminding us it’s not how we arrive at the story’s end, but how steamy it gets on the way down.

Daiana Feuer's novel-in-progress, The Green Seed, about a waitress with a detective problem, has required an avid addiction to noir-flixing. She knows that Double Indemnity is not on this short list of greats, but it's next in her queue!

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