20 Unforgettable Crime Movies by Woody Haut

- Hells Highway. 1932. Directed by Rowland Brown, An expos of convict camps

that preempted I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. Brown made only two other
films, Quick Millions (1931) and Blood Money (1933). Hailed as a true original, his
demise was hastened by his politics (leftwing) and stormy relationships with
producers (he punched a studio executive on the set of Quick Millions). Brown was
set to direct and adapt Edward Andersons Thieves Like Us. Hed bought the rights
for a mere $500 for the rights, and had written the screenplay, the film, just prior to
going into production, was cancelled by RKO. Browns career would be briefly
resuscitated by tabloid director Phil Karlson who hired him to write Kansas City
Confidential. Nevertheless, Hells Highway remains a rarely seen classic, which,
along with his two other films and the likes of Wellmans Wild Boys of the Road,
effectively captured the era.

- Detour. 1945. Directed by Edgar Ulmer. The king of the Bs, Ulmer shot the film in
six days at the poverty row studio PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), and
edited it in three and a half days. The film looks like a series of black and white
Edward Hopper paintings. Ulmer also made films in Ukrainian and Hebrew, and was
a protege of F.W. Murnau. Tom Neal is perfectly cast as a dumb East coast musician
whose girlfriend leaves to become a Hollywood star. When she phones to say shes
only managed to become a waitress, he takes to the road in pursuit of her. He gets a
ride with a man who tells him that a female hitch-hiker has recently attacked him.
Finding that the driver has suddenly died, Neal, thinking the police will never believe

his story, hides the body and takes the car. He picks up the woman, played by Ann
Savage, not realising its the very same that the driver had spoken about. She
doesnt believe his story, but says shell stay silent if he does as she says. He finds
that his girlfriend is a waitress. The murder by telephone cord- murder by longdistance- is inspired. Ulmer was the model for the director in Theodore Rozaks
novel Flickers.

- The Gangster. 1947. Directed by Gordon Wiles. Produced by the King Brothers,
the most industrious of poverty row studios (Southside 1-1000, Suspense, When
Strangers Meet, The Gangster). The Gangster is poetic, if self-conscious film noir
with a script by the precocious Daniel Fuchs. Based on the latters novel, Low
Company, about Jewish life in Brooklyn, it stars Barry Sullivan as the gangster,
Shubunka. Also featuring a host of other well know actors- Akim Tamiroff to Henry
Morgan, Charles McGraw, Sheldon Leonard and John Ireland- this is a rare slice of
immigrant working-class life. Its poetic style- Fuchs might be likened to a 1940s
Jerome Charyn- might be overly theatrical (aided perhaps by Dalton Trumbos
uncredited contribution), but it somehow works. Unlike any other gangster movie.
Turning on a single event, the fall of Shubunka is inevitable and painful to behold.

- The Killers. 1946. Directed by Robert Siodmak and produced by Mark Hellinger,
who, prior to his early death, was also responsible for Brute Force, High Sierra and
The Naked City. The Killers stars Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner and Edmund
OBrien. It takes Siodmak a mere fifteen minutes to get rid of the Hemingway story
which then turns into the back story of the film. Enter OBrien, from which point the
noir complications begin. Lancaster plays the ignorant Swede, his first and, until

Atlantic City, perhaps his best role. Siodmak, along with his brother, Curt, came from
Germany and his expressionistic style, aided by Woody Bredells cinematography
(responsible for the camerawork on Lady on a Train and Phantom Lady) is a perfect
illustration of how film noir was often filtered through a European sensibility. The use
of separate flashbacks and overlapping time recalls Citizen Kane. Eighteen years
later Don Siegel would remake the film- it would be Ronald Reagans last celluloid
appearance- shifting the emphasis from the femme fatale to discovering why the
victim faced his death with such resignation.

- The Devil Thumbs a Ride. 1947. Directed by Felix Feist at RKO. Starring
Lawrence Tierney and Ted North. Based on a novel by Robert C. DuSoe. One of
only two decent movies made by Feist. Lawrence Tierney (The Rise and Fall of Legs
Diamond, Dillinger, Reservoir Dogs) at his most maniacal. After robbing a theatre
and murdering its manager, he cadges a lift with Ted North. At a gas station, they
pick up two women- an innocent one and a typical film noir bad girl. After running into
a roadblock, Tierney runs down a cop as hes putting on his sun glasses (its the
middle of the night, but one assumes a highway cop must always wear sun glasses).
Tierney ends up dragging the happily married middle class North down into his own
personal hell. When the cops come to get Tierney, he steals Norths wallet and i.d.,
and, with the bad girl, almost gets away. At just over an hour long, Feists film is
scarier than Lupinos Hitch-Hiker, and more warped but less artificial than Gun Crazy.

- Force of Evil. 1948. Directed by Abraham Polansky. Starring John Garfield and
Thomas Gomez. The soon to be blacklisted Polansky adapted this classic from Ira
Wolperts novel Tuckers People. About brotherly love/hate, and the forces that

create corruption. While most examples of film noir might sound like they were
written in blank verse, this one was actually was. A socially conscious indictment of
organised crime, in which Polanskys politics fit Garfields visage perfectly. Semidocumentary in style (Polansky gave a book of Hoppers Third Avenue Paintings to
cinematographer George Barnes and said, Thats what I want.), Force of Evil views
racketeering as capitalism in its purest form. Garfield plays a lawyer who insists that
hes working for organised crime because he wants to see the numbers racket turn
into a legal state lottery. This, of course, would not only remove him from his job, but
turn all concerned into legitimate criminals. Its only after the death of his brother that
the Garfield character becomes politicised. However, to get the film, with its radical
message, past the censors, Polansky had to alter the story, making it clear that
Garfield was on his way to the DAs office, to offer his cooperation. Garfield, who had
been responsible for hiring Polansky, hated the ending, but it has been interpreted by
some as a sign of his own willingness to testify in front of the HUAC three years
later.

-The Pitfall. 1948. Directed by Andre de Toth. Starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott,
Raymond Burr, Jane Wyatt. A portrait of the souring of the American Dream.
Powell plays an insurance agent and perfect husband whose life hasnt lived up to
his expectations. When his firm hires investigator Raymond Burr- genuinely
frightening in pre-Perry Mason mode- to investigate some stolen goods from a
robbery that Powells company has paid out on, the items are traced back to
Lizabeth Scott, a femme fatal who is about to turn Powells life every which way but
loose. Exposing the contradictions in the ideals behind the utopian vision of middle
class suburbia, The Pitfall is a precursor to films like The Big Heat, Bigger Than Life

and No Down Payment. Surprisingly, deToth would only make one other film noir,
Crime Wave (1954).

-They Live By Night. 1948. Directed by Nick Ray. Starring Cathy OConnell and
Farley Granger. Adapted from Edward Andersons evocative depression novel
Thieves Like Us. Unlike the book, Rays film romanticises the era and the young
couple, touchingly played by OConnell and Granger. Ray sought to depoliticise the
novel in order to convince studio head Howard Hughes, who had always hated the
project, that the film was really a love story, and was therefore harmless. They Live
By Night would never have been made had it not been for the intervention of John
Houseman and then Dore Schary, who, still in his twenties, had had just been hired
as head of production at RKO. Even after it was finished, the film would not be
released for a number of months because the director and studio executives could
not agree as to its title. In 1974 Robert Altman remade Rays film, reverting back to
the novel in name and mood. Starring Keith Carradine and Shelly Duvall, Thieves
Like Us is a more realistic view of the era and the young couple. While neither film is
entirely successful, Rays fairy-tale version, for me, remains the better of the two.
Unfortunately, Anderson would make next to nothing from either version. Instead, he
would grow increasingly eccentric, eking out a living working for various small-town
Texas newspapers.

- Gun Crazy- 1950. Directed by Joseph A. Lewis for the King Brothers. Uncredited
screenplay by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo. Young love, gangster style, Gun
Crazy is a companion piece to They Live By Night, released a year earlier, Langs
You Only Live Once and Bonnie and Clyde. Peggy Cummins and John Dall are

perfect as the young couple who, through their love of guns, move from innocence to
culpability. We go together like gun and ammunition, says Dall, whom Lewis chose
because he was gay and so projected a certain amount of vulnerability. Unlike They
Live By Night, there are no scenes of domesticity in this film. Here, as usual for
Lewis, its about guns, sex and violence. The single-take bank robbery scene is a
classic moment in film noir history. Gun Crazy was a big influence on French New
Wave films, particularly Godards A Bout de Souffle. Interesting that Gordon Wiles,
who directed The Gangster three years earlier was demoted to mere production
designer on Gun Crazy. The underrated 1992 remake, directed by Tamra Davis and
starring Drew Barrymore and James LeGros is also well worth seeing.

- The Set Up- 1949. Directed by Robert Wise, with Robert Ryan as the washed-up
boxer and existential hero, and Audrey Totter as his concerned but frustrated
girlfriend. Percy Helton (from Kiss Me Deadly) plays Ryans ringside second.
Adapted by Wise (who, eight years earlier, had edited Citizen Kane), with a script by
Art Cohn from Joseph Moncure Marchs epic narrative poem, The Set Up takes
place in real time and entirely at night. The camera movement from hotel to boxing
arena gives the film an enclosed feeling, from which there is no escape. This is a
grim and gritty world, with the boxers as just so much meat. Having done some
boxing in his pre-acting days, Ryan is convincing as the washed-up fighter. While
Totter has always been underrated, despite some fine performances, not only here,
but in Lady in the Lake, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Tension and The High
Wall.

- Thieves Highway. 1949. Directed by Jules Dassin. Starring Richard Conte,

Valentina Cortesa and Lee J. Cobb. Adapted by A.I. Bezzerides from his novel,
Thieves Market. About Salinas Valley truckers who drive to the Oakland/San
Francisco market to sell their produce, only to be a caught in a series of bad deals
and rip-offs. Bezzerides was dissatisfied with the changes made to his script (in the
novel the father is dead, but Zanuck wanted to portray the father as a cripple) and
casting (Bezzerides wanted Shelly Winters rather than Cortesa- apparently Dassins
girlfriend- to play the whore). Still, it remains one of the best examples of proletariat
film noir, and based on Bezzerides experiences in the trucking business.

-Tension. 1950. Directed by John Berry at MGM. Starring Richard Basehart, Audrey
Totter and Cyd Charisse. Screenplay by Allen Rivkin (Dead Reckoning, The Strip).
Like a number of other directors and writers of film noir, Berry would, a few years
later, be blacklisted. Basehart plays a drug-store attendant whose life is nearly
destroyed when his wife leaves him. Because he wants to kill his wife and her
sleazy boyfriend, he decides to assume a new identity. Having become a different
person, he falls in love with his new neighbour and photographer Cyd Charisse. He
goes to the beach house of his wifes lover only to find he has been killed by
someone else. Baseharts wife, played by Totter, is a classic femme fatale. The
husbands obsession over his wifes infidelity pushes him over the edge, while the
image of a taut rubber band represents the tension faced by just about everyone in
the film.

- On Dangerous Ground. 1952. Directed by Nick Ray film. Screenplay by

Bezzerides. Also produced by Houseman, who, along with Ray, botched-up the

ending. Still, it remains a great film. Essentially, a movie of two halves, the first with
Robert Ryan as a tough sadistic NY cop on the edge of a breakdown, who hates the
world in which he lives and works, reacts violently in every situation, and is on the
verge of meltdown. Why do you punks make me do it, he says before he beats up
some secondrate crook in a seedy hotel. In the second half Ryan, having been sent
up state to investigate a murder of a girl, meets the blind woman, Ida Lupino. He has
to trudge through the snow-covered countryside in pursuit of Lupinos young brother
who has apparently killed the girl. The contrast between the urban landscape and
the snow covered ground is a bit obvious, but its all well-acted, psychologically
interesting, and beautifully photographed by the noir master George Diskant (Narrow
Margin, Beware My Lovely, They Live By Night, Kansas City Confidential). With
music by Hitchcocks favourite Bernard Herrmann.

- The Big Heat. 1953. Directed by Fritz Lang. Starring Glen Ford, Gloria Grahame
and Lee Marvin. Arguably Langs most successful film noir. Based on William
McGiverns novel, the plot revolves around a cop, Dave Bannion, played by Ford,
and the destruction of his cozy post-war middle class existence. After gangsters kill
his wife, Ford sets out to bring the big heat down on organised crime and corrupt
politicians. In pursuing his personal vendetta, he continues to jeopardise the lives of
those close to him, including even that of his daughter. Notable for the moment
when Lee Marvin throws scalding coffee in Grahames face, an action which draws
her to Ford. When he meets her, Grahame- probably the only sympathetic person in
the film- wont show her face to Ford, who strikes back at Marvin, throwing scalding
coffee in his face. Clearly, not even suburbia can protect us from crime and
corruption.

- The Big Combo. 1955. Directed by Joseph Lewis for another poverty row studio,
Security-Theodora. Starring Cornell Wilde, Jean Wallace, Brian Donleavy, Richard
Conte and Lee Van Cleef. Another Lewis classic made on the cheap. But the
beauty of the film is in the way it was shot. Script by the ubiquitous Philip Yordan (the
man who, for a substantial sum, allowed his name to be used by blacklisted writers).
The Big Combo has it all: gay henchmen, nymphomania, obsessional fetishes. But
the real star of this film is cinematographer John Alton (T-Men, Border Incident,
Slightly Scarlet). His camera and lighting techniques are enough to make this the
quintessential film noir. Says Wilde upon hearing that Conte has been arrested a
dozen times and always acquitted, Its unnatural to be so innocent.

- Kiss Me Deadly. 1955. Directed by Robert Aldrich. Starring Ralph Meeker. Script
by A.I. Bezzerides. Fortunately, Alrdichs film is vastly different from Spillanes novel,
thanks to Bezzerides script. Meekers Hammer appears to be a character who has
just stepped out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. An automaton who drives an
MG, has an apartment filled with gadgets, yet cannot deal with the world around
him. Bezzerides and Aldrich set their film in LA rather than New York, and turn the
MacGuffin into the great atomic whatsit rather drugs. One of Truffauts favourite
films, one of his favourite directors and one of his favourite screenwriters.

- The Killing. 1956. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Script by Jim Thompson after
Lionel Whites novel, Clean Slate. Starring Sterling Hayden, Vince Edwards, Colleen
Gray, Jay C. Flippen, Elisha Cook Jr and the irrepressible Timothy Carey. Great
performances in a well-constructed crime caper film. Despite all their planning, the

robbery of the race track eventually falls to pieces. About the greed that
accompanies quick wealth and warped relationships, The Killing bears similarities to
Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Kubrick uses flashbacks to great effect, building the
tension of the story as well as adding substance to the plot. Filled with memorable
scenes, such as the first meeting of the various individuals, Cooks domestic life,
and, of course, the robbery, and Careys assassination of the race horse.

- Touch of Evil. 1958. Directed by Orson Welles. Starring Welles, Charlton Heston,
Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Mercedes McCambridge and Akim Tamiroff. Heston,
as Mexican cop on a honeymoon with his American wife, has never been better. The
film becomes a battle of wits between Heston and Welles. The former trying to
expose the latter (Welles should have played Thompsons Lou Ford) as a corrupt
cop, who wants Heston out of the way. The opening shot is magnificent, particularly
with the original soundtrack in the recently re-edited format. Choreographed to
perfection, with great camera angles and lighting. The eccentric Mercedes
McCambridge is hilarious as a lesbian Mexican hoodlum whose gang, in the hotel
room, comes down hard on the gringa Leigh, turning her on to some mary jane.
The scenes featuring Dietrich and Welles are particularly memorable. As Dietrich
says of Welles, He was a bad cop, but he was some kind of man.

-The Naked Kiss. 1964. Directed by Samuel Fuller. Starring Constance Towers.
About a prostitute who tries to become a respectable citizen. She meets a wealthy
and seemingly intelligent man to whom she relates her past. He asks her to marry
him. But, just prior to their marriage, she sees him in the act of molesting a young
girl. When he tells her they belong together because of their shared perversions, she

kills him. The town turns against her, unable to believe that a respectable citizen
could be a pervert. But she convinces a friend to find the young girl. Fuller doesnt
hold anything back in this film. If Shock Corridor portrayed post- war America as a
mad house, The Naked Kiss, concentrating on prostitution, perversions and physical
disabilities, takes an even bleaker and more nightmarish view of America. Told in a
series of startling images all of which are filmed superbly by cameraman Stanley
Cortez. Constance Towers, in the lead role, takes on all the attributes normally
associated with male film noir leads. Shes tough, cynical, violent and unrelenting in
her pursuit of the truth.

- Chinatown. 1974. Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Jack Nicholson, Faye

Dunaway and John Huston. Screenplay by Robert Towne. Exquisitely shot by John
A. Alonzo. Cited by many as the film that kick-started the neo-noir era, and one of
the few screenplays that can still be read like a novel. Set in 1937, in the midst of a
long drought, water becomes the key to the film and to the history of L.A.. Like
Karlsons Phenix City Story or Hammetts Red Harvest, Chinatown details a legacy
of corruption. With Nicholson investigating a case involving the diversion of water to
make land available for redevelopment, the title becomes a state of mind as much as
a spiritual landscape, synonymous with whatever is hidden. Polanski and Towne
disagreed over the ending. Towne wanted the Dunaway character to kill her father, a
robber baron played by John Huston, and be whisked away to Mexico by Nicholson.
Polanski opted for an even bleaker ending in which a handcuffed Nicholson watches
helplessly as Dunaway is shot, and Huston comforts his granddaughter who, in fact,
is his daughter.