The document provides information on several influential neo-noir films from 1941 to 1958. It summarizes key plot details and directors for The Maltese Falcon (1941), Murder My Sweet (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), Detour (1945), Spellbound (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), The Killers (1946), The Big Sleep (1946), Out of the Past (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950), The Big Heat (1953), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), and Touch of Evil (1958). The films established themes and styles that came to define the neo-noir genre.
2. Maltsese Falcon (1941)
● Directed by: John Huston
● Based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett it depicts the mystery of the
murder of Archer (private investigator) and a suspect Thursby and also of the ‘black figure
of a bird’ (Maltsese Falcon).
● Before the murder a women of the name Ruth Wonderly claims that her sister is missing and
was involved with Thursby. Archer agrees to help her get her sister back but is later found
murdered and so is Thursby.
● Archer’s partner Sam Spade is framed for the murder of Thursby and it is suspected that
Thursby killed archer.
● Spade then meets up with Wonderly who is now calling herself Brigid O’shaughnessy, she
claims that Thursby was her partner who killed Archer but she has no idea who killed
Thursby.
● Back at his office Spade is confronted and offered $5,000 to find the Maltsese Falcon.
● He finds the Falcon and is offered $10,000 for it by someone else, Spade agrees but
demands that part of the price is to have someone to turn in for the murders.
● A man named Wilmer is turned in for the murders but Spade soon realises the Falcon he has
is a fake - during the tumult, Wilmer flees.
● Spade then confronts O’Shaughnessy angrily declaring that he knows that she killed Archer
to implicate Thursby. She confesses but emphasizing their love for one another pleads that
Spade doesn’t hand her over. But he does.
3. Murder My Sweet (1944)
Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Gumshoe Philip Marlowe is hired by Moose Malloy to
track down his former girlfriend. He is also hired to
accompany an playboy buy back some jewels. When
the exchange ends in the playboy’s murder, Marlowe
can’t leave the case alone. Marlowe soon finds out it’s
related to Malloy’s. He then gets drawn into a complex
web of intrigue by a mysterious blonde. The
detective then finds his own life in jeopardy.
4. Double indemnity (1944)
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Walter Neff (Insurance salesman) gets roped into a
murderous scheme when he falls in love with Phyllis
Dietrichson. Phyllis has the intention of killing her
husband and making a living off the fraudulent
accidental death claim. Prompted by Lola (the late Mr
Dietrichsons daughter), Barton Keyes (insurance
investigator) looks into the case and gradually begins
to uncover the sinister truth.
5. Detour 1945
Directed by: Edgar G. Ulmer
Based on the 1939 novel Detour: An Extraordinary Tale by Martin Goldsmith
Synopsis - Al Roberts (character) has to work in a New York nightclub, his
girlfriend Sue Harvey (character) leaves to seek fame in Hollywood, he doesn't
like it so he has to hitchhike his way there.
(character) Charles Haskell Jr gives him a lift, on a rainy night, the sleazy
gambler he’s with mysteriously dies, Al Roberts is scared of the police, so he
takes the man’s identity, and dumps his body on the side of the road.
Al picks up another hitchhiker, Vera, at a gas station. It turns out that the
femme fatale had also been picked up by Haskell earlier, she scratched him
deeply in the arm and got out after he tried to become too friendly. When Al
identifies himself as Haskell, she blackmails him by threatening to turn him
in. Al accidently strangles Vera, he goes hitchhiking again but it picked up by
the police.
6. Spellbound - 1945
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
The head of the Green Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison is retiring to
be replaced by Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and
is immediately attracted to be the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance
Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact
a paranoid amnesiac impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who
tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the
real Dr. Edwardes.
7. Postman always rings twice- 1946
Director- Tay Garnett
Synopsis: A married woman and a
drifter fall in love, then plot to
murder her husband… but even
once the deed is done, they must
live with the consequences of
their actions.
8. The Killers - 1946
Director: Robert Siodmak
Synopsis: Hit man kills an unresisting victim
(‘The Swede’), an investigator by the name of
‘Reardon’ uncovers the victim's past
involvement with a deadly women named
‘Kitty Collins’.
9. The Big Sleep - 1946
Director: Howard Hawks
Synopsis: Private detective Philip Marlowe is
hired by rich family. Before the complex case
is over, he’s seen a murder, blackmail and
what might be love.
10. Out of the past
Date: 1947
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Synopsis: A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him.
Now he must return to the big city world of danger.
11. In a lonely place.
Date: 1950
Director: Nicolas Ray
Synobsis: Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart)
and his neighbor Laurel (Gloria Grahame) are just getting to know each
other romantically when the police begin questioning Dixon about his
involvement in the murder of a girl he met once. Certain her new love
interest is innocent, Laurel stands by Dixon, but as the police continue
pressing him, Dixon begins to act increasingly erratically. The blossoming
love affair suffers as Laurel begins to wonder if Dixon really might be a
killer.
12. The Big Heat
Synopsis:
A brutal crime drama centers on a street-toughened
detective's quest for vengeance after his wife is
accidentally killed by the gangsters who have been
assigned to murder him. Working outside the law's
confines, the detective's obsessive search for the
culprits leads him into the labyrinthine bowels of
mob-corrupted city politics.
Director - Fritz Lang
Date - 1953
13. Kiss me deadly
Synopsis:
‘unrelentingly brutal crime drama centers on a street-toughened detective's quest for
vengeance’
One evening, private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker)
picks up a strange woman, Christina (Cloris Leachman), who's
standing on the highway wearing only a trench coat. They're
stopped farther on by strangers who knock out Mike and
murder Christina. Although warned not to investigate by the
police, Mike and his girlfriend and assistant, Velda (Maxine
Cooper), become ensnared in a dark plot involving scientist Dr.
Soberin (Albert Dekker) and Christina's terrified roommate, Lily
(Gaby Rodgers).
(Arguably one of the best L.A. Noir films ever created)
Director - Robert Aldrich
Date: 1955
14. Sweet Smell of Success
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Date:1957
Synopsis: A New York newspaper columnist
tries desperately to split up his sister with an
aspiring Jazz guitarist with any means possible
15. Touch of the evil
Director: Orson Welles
Date:1958
Synopsis: A car bomb blowing up on the wrong
side of the border gets two cops involved with
the suspicion of a shady partner, leading to
the protagonist being put in danger as an
innocent man is being framed.
