Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis 1950)

Annie Laurie Starr: Bart, I've been kicked around all my life, and from now on, I'm gonna start kicking back.

At the beginning of the film we are introduced to the early life of Bart Tare (John Dall) – a sharpshooter. He meets Annie Laurie Star (Peggy Cummings), a strong-willed and ambitious woman.

They begin a series of bank robberies - a special mention should be made to the bank heist sequence which was shot in just one long take. Gradually they become outcast characters blinded by they desire to be together and their ambition - there is a strong relationship between guns and sex all along the story: As Bart states - We go together, Annie. I don't know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together

Annie Laurie could seem a femme fatale – the original movie title would point in that direction - in the sense that she drags Bart to destruction, - as Bluey-Bluey says: she ain't the type that makes a happy home. However she also feels love for him. It’s their passion that leads them to destruction.

Therefore the fugitive couple are doomed by their destructive love, by the spinning violence. Bart tries to go back to his hometown, to his childhood but he can’t find salvation there either.

As in other noir films nature is the last shelter where the characters try to escape from the corruption of the city. However trackers manage to follow them and they die there – just like Roy Earle in High Sierra or Eddie and Jo in You Only Live Once

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur 1947)

Ann Miller: She can't be all bad. No one is.
Jeff Bailey: Well, she comes the closest.

Few films are more representative of the noir style than Out of the Past. Most of the subjects we can find in the Film Noir can be traced in this movie.

The film – based on the novel Build My Gallows High by Daniel Mainwaring – highlights the contrast between the city (associated with corruption and evil) and the purity of the countryside.

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) tries to start a new life in the countryside and escape from his past. However one of the gunmen sent by Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) finds him and a long flashback – another key element in noir films – will show us the troubles Jeff had been into. The day-lit countryside will soon be replaced by the night and the city.

The past will get into his present life just as his angelical girlfriend Ann (Virginia Huston) will soon be overshadowed by Kathie (Jane Greer acting as a fascinating femme fatale).

Soon we can feel that everything is lost for Jeff and that he is just spinning to his final fate – a naturalistic approach is also quite common in noir movies. Kathie drags him – there is a romantic and fatalistic quality in their love - to his end in a destructive passion “We deserve each other” Jeff tells her.

The photography by Nicholas Musuraca highlights the poetic, naturalistic aspects of this film. The dialogues are witty and sharp and the performances are superb. Out of the past is the best remembered movie by Jacques Tourneur: We are facing a masterwork full of the essence of film noir.

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.