Vacation Noir
13 Episodes
Unlucky vacationers discover that crime doesn’t take a holiday in these deceptively sunny, seductively dark thrillers set amid scenic beaches, luxury resorts, and picture-postcard locales. Honeymooners find themselves caught up in a disturbing domestic drama in the lurid, Technicolor Marilyn Monroe sizzler NIAGARA. Languorous days by the pool with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider take a deadly turn in the sultry suspense master class LA PISCINE. And a Mediterranean cruise is the setting for a most delicious murder mystery in the diabolically entertaining, all-star whodunnit THE LAST OF SHEILA. With gorgeous scenery, swimsuit-clad stars, and shadowy intrigue, these lusciously overheated entertainments are the perfect summer escape—no sunscreen required.
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00:58Episode 1
Vacation Noir Teaser
Episode 1
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1:15:45Episode 2
Dangerous Crossing
Episode 2
Directed By Joseph M. Newman • 1953 • United States Starring Jeanne Crain, Michael Rennie, Carl Betz
All aboard for suspense in this eerily atmospheric, fog-shrouded maritime thriller in which newly married heir...
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1:50:19Episode 3
Leave Her to Heaven
Episode 3
Directed by John M. Stahl • 1945 • United States
Starring Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne CrainNovelist Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde) seems to have found the perfect woman in Ellen (Gene Tierney), a beautiful socialite who initiates a whirlwind romance and steers him into marriage before he...
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1:57:36Episode 4
Purple Noon
Episode 4
Directed by René Clément • 1960 • France, Italy
Starring Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Marie LaforêtAlain Delon was at his most impossibly beautiful when PURPLE NOON was released and made him an instant star. This ripe, colorful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s vicious novel “The Talented Mr. R...
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1:59:18Episode 5
The Last of Sheila
Episode 5
Directed by Herbert Ross • 1973 • United States Starring Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn
Wittily scripted by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, this eccentric, all-star whodunnit is a ...
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2:03:47Episode 6
La piscine
Episode 6
Directed by Jacques Deray • 1969 • France
Starring Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice RonetThe bright sun of the French Riviera is deceptive in this alluring work of slow-burn suspense from thriller specialist Jacques Deray and legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière. Formerly one of Euro...
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Inferno
Episode 7
Directed by Roy Ward Baker • 1953 • United States
Starring Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William LundiganMegawealthy industrialist Donald Carson III (Robert Ryan) breaks his leg while on a trip through the Mojave desert, and rather than find help, his scheming wife (Rhonda Fleming) and her lover...
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1:39:34Episode 8
Kansas City Confidential
Episode 8
Directed by Phil Karlson • 1952 • United States Starring John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster
B-noir specialist Phil Karlson brings a gritty pulp punch to this slam-bang heist thriller with a plot tha...
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2:00:06Episode 9
His Kind of Woman
Episode 9
Directed by John Farrow • 1951 • United States
Starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent PriceThis offbeat noir gem from genre specialist John Farrow brings together a crackerjack cast—including Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Raymond Burr, and Vincent Price (playing, appropriately, a ham ac...
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1:36:52Episode 10
Female on the Beach
Episode 10
Directed by Joseph Pevney • 1955 • United States Starring Joan Crawford, Jeff Chandler, Jan Sterling
This steamy noir melodrama casts a fiery and glamorous Joan Crawford as a wealthy gambler’s widow wh...
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1:36:00Episode 11
Desert Fury
Episode 11
Directed by Lewis Allen • 1947 • United States
Starring John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, Burt LancasterLurid Technicolor, deep-dish melodrama, and gay subtext abound in this pulpy noir firecracker. In the desert town of Chuckawalla, Nevada, tempers flare, passions spark, and violence erupts when Pa...
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1:32:37Episode 12
Brighton Rock
Episode 12
Directed by John Boulting • 1948 • United Kingdom
Starring Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, William HartnellOne of darkest and most sordid of all British noirs, this startlingly bleak, violent adaptation of the novel by Graham Greene delves into the seedy underbelly of the seaside reso...
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1:27:41Episode 13
The Lady From Shanghai
Episode 13
Directed by Orson Welles • 1947 • United States
Starring Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett SloaneOrson Welles’s puzzle-box noir scrambles the conventions of the genre to create a triumph of Hollywood surrealism. The director stars as an unwitting Irish sailor who finds himself drawn into a w...