Directed by Robert Florey • 1941 • United States
Starring Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe
Directed with striking expressionist flair by French émigré filmmaker Robert Florey, this poisonous tale of the American dream turned sour stars Peter Lorre as Janos, a Hungarian immigrant who arrives in New York City full of hope—only to be horribly disfigured in a hotel fire. With his scars making it impossible to find work, Janos falls in with the criminal underworld, rising through the ranks as he raises the money to create a mask in the form of his own face. When tragedy strikes again, the now disillusioned Janos sets out on a self-destructive quest for revenge.
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Double Indemnity
Directed by Billy Wilder • 1944 • United States
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. RobinsonHas dialogue ever been more perfectly hard-boiled? Has a femme fatale ever been as deliciously wicked as Barbara Stanwyck? And has 1940s Los Angeles ever looked so seductively sordid? Wo...
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Laura
Directed by Otto Preminger • 1944 • United States
Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton WebbOne of the most sophisticated noirs of the 1940s, Otto Preminger’s classic mystery stars Gene Tierney as Laura Hunt, a Manhattan advertising executive who is murdered just before she is set to mar...
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Detour
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer • 1945 • United States
Starring Tom Neal, Ann SavageFrom Poverty Row came a movie that, perhaps more than any other, epitomizes the dark fatalism at the heart of film noir. As he hitchhikes his way from New York to Los Angeles, a down-on-his-luck nightclub pianist ...