Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood
April 2007 Reviewed by: Marc Mickelson Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

French film critics coined the term "film noir" to label an abundance of American movies with similar dark themes: the tenuous boundary between good and evil, the influence of sexual motivations on our actions, the weight of mortality bearing down upon us. In the 1940s and 1950s, put a love story amidst some gun play, double-crosses and shadowy sets and you seemingly had film noir, no matter what happened around it all. This five-DVD, five-movie set collects a couple of clunkers along with two movies starring big-name actors and one truly important film. All of them go a long way toward proving film noir's resiliency.

First, the two most contrived films. Budd Boetticher's Behind Locked Doors (1948) has the aura of a B-movie, though its story -- about a reporter trying to track down a crooked judge who has gone underground -- is tidy. Anthony Mann's Railroaded (1947) stars Hugh Beaumont, best known as Ward Cleaver, as a crafty cop on the trail of an equally crafty killer. Both films are fast-paced and short -- 62 and 74 minutes respectively.

In Anatole Livak's The Long Night (1947), Henry Fonda plays a WW II veteran who guns down a mysterious stranger (Vincent Price) at the very beginning of the movie. The film works backwards from there, showing how events led to the slaying. Joan Crawford and Jack Palance are two parts of a love triangle in Sudden Fear (1952), which reminds us how good Crawford was in thrillers.

Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang wrote Hangmen Also Die (1943), and Lang directed. In it, a political assassination in wartime Prague has its effect on a family and an entire country. Walter Brennan is perfect as an intellectual father figure jailed by the Gestapo. The plot twists and turns, but it never becomes predictable, and the movie's sets are thoroughly authentic. I can only imagine the stir this movie caused when it was released shortly after Pearl Harbor.

None of the transfers is squeaky clean. There is a fair amount of noise and fading in places. If each were given Criterion-like attention, you'd be looking at a set that would cost well over $100 instead of less than $50. Only The Long Night has any extras, a pity given the many riches of the genre to which all of these films belong.

If you're a fan of film noir, or just of old movies, you will find a lot to like about this set: spiraling plots, big-name stars, and the beauty of black-and-white cinematography. There are worse ways to spend a long weekend than probing the dark night of the soul.

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