The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939)

Narrator: Today, while the earth shakes beneath the heels of marching troops, while a great portion of the world trembles before the threats of acquisitive power-mad men, we of America have little time to remember an astounding era in our own recent history. An era which will grow more and more incredible with each passing generation until someday people will say it never could have happened at all.

The movie - based on a story by Mark Hellinger and brilliantly directed by Raoul Walsh - opens in this documentary style which will portrait two important decades of American history.
War veteran Eddie Bartlett (James Cagney) finds difficulties when he returns home: he has no job, the prohibition era has started and soldiers are no longer heroes:

Fletcher's Garage Mechanic: (After the war Eddie is asking to get his old job back) That guy thinks he's gonna' get my job just because he's got a uniform on. He used to work here.
Fletcher's Garage Mechanic: Yeah, those monkeys are gonna' find out what a picnic they had on Uncle Sam's dough while we stayed home and WORKED!

After some frustrated attempts to get a job he enters the bootlegging business almost by chance and he meets speakeasy hostess Panama Smith (Gladys George) and former war colleague, the ruthless George Halley (Humphrey Bogart).
The film portrays the rise of Eddie in the prohibition and jazz age (in the soundtrack we can hear many songs of that time as My Melancholy Baby, It had to be you or Bye bye Blackbird).
Eddie is not portrayed as an evil gangster but as a character caught between the need to survive and a good natured heart: He helps Jean (Priscilla Lane) though she will never love him: They live in different worlds and in fact she will take some advantage of his good will…

As other gangsters Eddie Barlett was also bound to fall: After 1929 things changed deeply in the Depression era, the prohibition was over and the gangster world had changed…

Panama: It's over for all of us: you, me, and George. Eddie, something new is happening, something you don't understand.

The words of Panama echo the ending of an era, the ending of gangster movies, the ending of characters like Eddie – killed on the steps in front of a church:

Panama Smith: He's dead.
Cop: Well, who is this guy?
Panama Smith: This is Eddie Bartlett.
Cop: Well, how're you hooked up with him?
Panama Smith: I could never figure it out.
Cop: What was his business?
Panama Smith: He used to be a big shot.

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

Spade: We didn't exactly believe your story, Miss O'Shaughnessy, we believed your 200 dollars. I mean you paid us more than if you had been telling us the truth, and enough more to make it alright.

Sam Spade’s words to Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) are an example of the tone of this hard-boiled detective story. There is an atmosphere of moral emptiness surrounding the main characters. Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) is investigating the murder of his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) and will find himself involved in a dangerous quest for a precious ancient statue of a falcon. Several double-faced, weird characters are after the “bird”:

Detective Tom Polhaus: [grabs the falcon] Heavy. What is it?
Sam Spade: The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.

The artists playing the roles of the intriguing characers are big names too: Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, Elisha Cook Jr as Wilmer Cook or Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman. It’s a film with great performances, witty dialogues, an iconic gem of early film noir.

The movie – based on Dashiell Hammett’s novel - would also be a turning point in Bogart’s career: he had mainly been given roles of gangster until this film. In The Maltese Falcon he became a hard-boiled, cynical, individualistic character.

Sam Spade: I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks 1946)

General Sternwood: Ugh. Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.

The rotten sweetness of corruption – like an orchid perfume – is present all along this film. This Howard Hawks film is one of the most powerful and complex noir movies of all times. A number of murders make it almost impossible to figure out the full plot of the story, we – like the hard boiled private eye Philip Marlowe - are lost in a world of ambiguity and chaos (it was said that even Raymond Chandler couldn’t explain some of the details of the plot).

The characters – gangsters, femmes fatale - and their confrontations are also a key part of the movie the story. Philip Marlowe has find out about the activities the Sternwood sisters are into: “I assume they have all the usual vices, besides those they've invented for themselves” their father says.

This interaction between the main characters is dotted with witty, sharp dialogues, often filled with sexual connotations – especially in the Bogart – Bacall scenes:

Marlowe: You've got a touch of class, but I don't know far you can go.
Vivian: A lot depends on who's in the saddle.

The chemistry between these two stars is one of the strong points of the film:

Vivian: You've forgotten one thing - me.
Philip Marlowe: What's wrong with you?
Vivian: Nothing you can't fix.

But The Big Sleep is much more than a Bogart – Bacall movie. It’s one of the noir masterpieces with a superb atmosphere and great supporting performers. From Martha Vickers (Carmen Sternwood), Elisha Cook Jr (Harry) or Charles Waldron (General Sternwood) to such a minor role as Joy Barlowe’s as a taxi driver:

Taxi driver: If you can use me again sometime, call this number.
Philip Marlowe: : Day and night?
Taxi driver: Uh, night's better. I work during the day

Besides the afore mentioned performances I have always liked the Dorothy Malone part in her brief appearance as a bookstore manager

High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1941)

Marie: …”just rushing toward death”

Marie's remark to Roy defines his doomed character. Gangster Roy Earle is taken out of prison by Big Mac, an old colleague who wants him to participate in a hold-up.

Just out of the prison Earle wants to go to the park to see “if the grass is still green and the trees still grow”. There is a big contrast between country and city in all the film: The country stands for freedom and the purity of man while the city is a symbol of corruption – an idea that will be present in other noir films.

Humphrey Bogart plays the role of Roy Earle – a hardboiled gangster with good feelings (the movie was a turning point in Bogart’s career). In fact we see him as a good-hearted man longing for purity – in nature, in his vision of Velma – the lame girl he helps…

Roy has to take part in a robbery in Tropic springs – then he will be able to return to the simple life he lived as a boy in Indiana. However things go wrong and he ends up chased by the police in the high sierra. His final companions, Marie (Ida Lupino) and Pard – a dog that brings bad luck to his owners - see him die and also become "free" in a dramatic ending.

The film was produced by Mark Hellinger and the script was written by John Huston and William Ripley Burnett. These names would be important in future noir films. In the same way actors like Cornel Wilde (Mendoza) or Barton McLane (Kramer) would appear in other noir movies.

Maybe High Sierra is not strictly a noir film but it was one of the key movies in the transition from gangster pictures to noir movies.