Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 5 (Cornered / Desperate / The Phenix City Story / Deadline at Dawn / Armored Car Robbery / Crime in the Streets / Dial 1119 / Backfire)

Product Details

Out of the vaults and into the light: a fascinating 4-Disc Set showcasing 8 genre gems rich with the intensity and diversity of noir! Disc 1 wreaks revenge, with Dick Powell on the hunt in Cornered and Steve Brodie on the lam in Desperate. Caught-in-the-act immediacy highlights Disc 2’s corruption exposé The Phenix City Story and the hostage drama Dial 1119. Disc 3 turns procedural with noir ace Charles McGraw bulldogging the perps of an Armored Car Robbery then turns to social-conscience filmmaking with Crime in the Streets (John Cassavetes and Sal Mineo star). An unfatale femme is rare in noir but invaluable when strong dames help their men out of jams, as do Disc 4’s Susan Hayward in Deadline at Dawn and Virginia Mayo in Backfire. Step into the shadows and suspense.

Customer Reviews ::

Good Films, But Hardly Classics - The Movie Man - Maywood, New Jersey USA
The film noir genre emerged right after World War II and flourished into the early 1950's. French for "black film," movies of this type were usually low-budget, shot in black and white, featured seamy characters from the underside of life, and were set in dark streets, cheap hotel rooms or boarding houses, and back alleys. Although they were made largely as programmers to fill the bottom half of a double feature, many have stood the test of time because of their edginess, vivid characters, and gritty plots.

"The Film Noir Classic Collection, Volume 5" is a four-disc box set containing eight film noir pictures. Though all are decent movies with strong plots, vivid characters and better-than-average performances, they don't quite live up to the term "classic," despite the title of the collection.

"Cornered" (1945) stars Dick Powell -- who had made the transition from musical juvenile to more dramatic fare the year before in "Murder My Sweet" -- as an ex-RAF pilot stalking the Nazi collaborator who murdered his bride. One fact constantly surfaces during his search: no one can describe the elusive man.

"Desperate" (1947) stars Steve Brodie as a post-war Everyman who accepts what he thinks is an honest trucking job only to discover he's the driver in a foiled heist that puts him and his bride on the run from both the cops and the convicts who planned the job. Raymond Burr plays the chief thug.

In "Armored Car Robbery" (1950), director Richard Fleischer ("Fantastic Voyage," "Tora! Tora! Tora!") serves up a tale about a deadly robbery and the battle of wits and firepower between a fugitive gangster (William Talman) and his stripper moll (Adele Jurgens) and a tough cop (Charles McGraw) out to avenge his partner's death, who uses hidden microphones, lab work and his own well-tuned instincts and intuitions to close the net on the perpetrators.

"Crime in the Streets" (1956) focuses on the aftermath of a turf rumble between two gangs. One of the leaders (John Cassavetes) orders his gang to do what they've never done before: kill a snitch. Reginald Rose (TV's "The Defenders") wrote and Don Siegel ("Dirty Harry") directed this screen version of a story that first aired on TV with James Whitmore and Sal Mineo starring.

The other movies in the collection are "The Phenix City Story" (1955), a tale of corruption in the deep South; "Dial 1119" (1950), about an escaped insane asylum inmate on the loose; "Deadline at Dawn" (1946), featuring a young Susan Hayward as a goodhearted dime-a-dancer; and "Backfire" (1950), which follows a recovering war veteran's quest to prove his pal is innocent of murder. The only bonus extras are theatrical trailers for "Cornered" and "Dial 1119."