Underrated 1940s Film Noir: 15 Classic Gems Deserving An Audience

If you do a cursory search on the hashtag #Noirvember, you’re bound to find a plethora of content. Because although not necessarily universally well-known, film noir – this notoriously difficult style to pigeon-hole – has a diehard following. Social media and classic film fans are an obvious testament to this. (I am currently slowly working through a list of 200 definitive film noir from the classic period.)

True, most people are aware of the prototypical hallmarks, including gumshoes, femme fatales, chiaroscuro lighting, cigarettes, booze, voice-overs, flashbacks, and, of course, fatalistic doom. Most movie aficionados can easily rattle off a few exemplary titles like The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and Out of the Past. We even have some fine resources to dip your toes into the black pool.

But part of what makes film noir so enjoyable are all the nooks and crannies it exists in. We have low budget pictures, genre benders, and mini masterpieces from up-and-coming craftsmen on the cusp of greater prominence. This list takes it for granted you know the most renowned entries in the noir canon. While we’re not exactly culling the darkest recesses of the barrel, nevertheless, here are a few slightly less heralded noir that deserve a wider audience. Enjoy at your own peril.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

There are two true reasons to watch this melodrama that functions as an early example of noir. Carole Landis plays an opportunistic femme fatale looking to turn her beguiling good looks into a lucrative career. She uses everything and everyone at her disposal to get there. Then, Laird Cregar gives an unhinged turn as a heavy, providing an early indication of his formability as a character actor. Victor Mature is also featured, as well as Betty Grable in one of her most prominent dramatic roles.

Phantom Lady (1944)

Here we have what might be one of the first great female-driven noir, with intrepid working girl Ella Raines quickly becoming the driving force behind the film. Her task is to exonerate her boss (Alan Curtis), who is tottering on the edge of death, accused of murdering his wife. His only alibi is a mysterious woman who has vanished into thin air. With its melange of tight-lipped bystanders, hot jazz, and ominous circumstance, Phantom Lady asserts director Robert Siodmak as a noir stalwart, with Raines exalted as one of the genre’s undisputed heroines.

Hangover Square (1945)

It would be just as easy to pick The Lodger, a nominally similar picture also boasting a standout Laird Cregar performance and directed by John Brahm. However, in this follow-up feature, we have the benefit of a tortured musical genius, a fiery Guy Fawkes funeral pyre, and a particularly vitriolic dance hall dame portrayed by Linda Darnell. It all adds up to an exhilarating Edwardian experience. If he had not died so suddenly, Cregar might have been well on his way to stardom. His impression even in the smallest of spots is frequently arresting. I encourage you to peruse his filmography.

Fallen Angel (1945)

So we just talked about Linda Darnell, and she’s back again up to her old tantalizing tricks, this time joining forces with a fast-talking schemer (Dana Andrews) who soon gets an entire town eating out of his hand. While it will always be unfairly compared with the prior year’s Laura, Otto Preminger‘s next picture is a peculiar entry in its own right, loaded with quacks and curious characters. Alice Faye might be promoted as our heroine but Darnell and Andrews steal the show. Because in noir it’s always good to be bad.

My Name is Julia Ross (1945)

Yes, B-movie maverick Joseph L. Lewis is best remembered for the incendiary Gun Crazy or the stylized Big Combo, but he has another earlier offering too delicious to pass up. It concerns itself with a familial conspiracy, and what better ringleader for a coverup than patriarch Dame May Whitty, who turns a young woman’s life (Nina Foch) into a living nightmare. It proves a fine exercise in gothic atmosphere and economical filmmaking. You don’t need a lavish budget to make a chilling thriller.

The Dark Corner (1946)

Noir can always be counted on for evocative mental images. This Henry Hathaway-directed noir is the same cut as The Maltese Falcon, private eye et al. But our gumshoe (the generally forgotten Mark Stevens) just happens to be an ex-con, and the murder he’s trying to uncover is being pinned on him. He has a very personal stake in the case. Beyond layers of sumptuous shadow and light, the story is infused with an oddly dissonant strain of high culture, from jazz music to fine art. It proves darkness can truly seep into any echelon of society.

The Web (1947)

At times it feels like we have four actors playing their ever-handy archetypes. Emond O’Brien is the astute lawyer, Ella Raines a flirtatious working girl, Vincent Price the glowering businessman hiding behind his charisma, and William Bendix a straight-laced cop. The paces seem standard and unadorned. And yet The Web is a joy for not only the actors on hand but their playful patter and the impending doom engulfing them. In one respect, it’s utterly ludicrous but in another, it lives up to its name quite spectacularly.

Born To Kill (1947)

Rightfully so, we’re always talking about femme fatales, because the movement gave women some of their juiciest roles to date. But if there was ever an homme fatale, Lawrence Tierney is the epitome of it swaggering, tough, and seething with murderous rage. Claire Trevor, normally called upon for a seductress part, instead plays the foil to her bad boy, slowly getting whisked away by his deadly lifestyle. It’s an intriguing tweak of noir convention directed unflinchingly by Robert Wise. The movie ends with a line straight out of Proverbs, “The way of the transgressor is hard.” 

The Woman On The Beach (1947)

What a delightfully strange assortment of talent. We have noir regulars like Robert Ryan and Joan Bennet (in another bewitching role), cast in a Jean Renoir picture. His auteurism is somewhat tainted by Hollywood tampering, and yet the Frenchmen still manages a vivid exploration of psychological duress and artistic self-destruction, set against a more traditional love triangle. The project is exactly what you might imagine a marriage of Renoir and American film noir to be. There’s a certain dissonance but also a mesmerizing quality in such cross-pollination.

They Won’t Believe Me (1947)

Joan Harrison was one of the few female producers during her era and she was subsequently behind a handful of gripping noir. (I’ll leave it to you to decide what two other films on this list she was involved with.) Though Robert Young is central to this drama about a husband charged with murdering his wife (Rita Johnson), it is the women, radiating out like spokes from his life, who are the most interesting. The strong supporting roles for Jane Greer and Susan Hayward in particular, are signifiers of their future career successes.

Ride The Pink Horse (1947)

The merry-go-round, central to the plot, also becomes a handy metaphor for Gagin’s (Robert Montgomery) outlook as he brusquely noses around town to avenge a pal’s death. While not the most sympathetic protagonist, he is placed in an exquisite environment symbolized by The La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe. It cultivates a melting pot for all sorts to coalesce. The likes of Thomas Gomez, Art Smith, and Fred Clark help color in-between the lines of this Ben Hecht-penned adaptation of Dorothy B. Hughes‘ original novel.

The Big Clock (1948)

Ray Milland proves a wonderful lead in this thriller as he is the antithesis of a hardboiled noir hero, getting caught up in a murder plot where he is simultaneously being chased and looking for the real culprit. While Charles Laughton seamlessly becomes the heartless newspaper magnate Earl Janoth, his real-life wife, Elsa Lanchester, lends some lovely levity to the proceedings. Meanwhile, John F. Seitz‘s photography for director John Farrow is on point, maneuvering through space and developing truly atmospheric climate for the drama.

Road House (1948)

Most any picture with two such genre mainstays as Richard Widmark and Ida Lupino is bound to pique interest, and Road House is no exception. Over time, a love diamond forms with Cornel Wilde and Celeste Holm also involved — fireworks included free of charge. Lupino is titanium-strong and full of smoky allure, even providing a rendition of “One for My Baby (And One More for The Road).” For a story set against the backdrop of a roadside diner and a secluded cabin, there’s no shortage of rage supplied by Widmark as the happy-go-lucky proprietor, Jefty, who is overcome with waves of vindictive malice.

The Big Steal (1949)

Out of The Past is like a litmus test for whether you like noir or not. But fewer people have visited this follow-up directed by a young Don Siegel. The stakes are far lower, the chiaroscuro less severe, and the plot transposed to Mexico. It’s nearly a tongue-in-cheek caper comedy, where Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer seem to be having the time of their lives just ribbing each other. The renewed chemistry is infectious and miraculously, The Big Steal hits its ending out of the ballpark.

Reign of Terror (1949)

It can almost be assumed any picture joining the talents of Anthony Mann and cinematographer John Alton is an instant classic. Because in pairing gritty, in-your-face thrills with tight angles and shadowy interiors, you get low-cost, punchy entertainment of the highest order. Set against the backdrop of The French Revolution and cloaked with the shadowy milieu of German Expressionism, there is no better noir hybrid. With fresh-faced Robert Cummings and the ravishing Arlene Dahl taking the leads, the claustrophobic mise en scène around them only serves to ratchet up every harrowing cloak-and-dagger moment.

Do you have a personal definition of what you think encapsulates ‘film noir?’ What is your favorite film noir from the 1940s or one that you think is deserving of more recognition?