 | "Dark films"
rating: 4
Film noir, or "Dark Film" is a cinematic genre that spanned the years 1940 to 1960. This distinct style makes use of heavy shadows and patterns of darkness. Often in film noir the hero reaches a less than happy ending through defeat, meaningless victory or even death.
The FILM NOIR 10 MOVIE SET offers some fine examples of the above. Most of these ten are quite highly regarded by cinemaphiles. BRENTWOOD's budget-priced DVD package is an excellent way for the novice to get a taste of film noir. And if you find these interesting, or you already own many of the selections here and are looking for others, by all means do check out MYSTERY CLASSICS 100 MOVIE PACK. It is one incredible DVD box set!
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The following alphabetized program list includes viewer poll ratings for each film (based on a 1 to 10 scale), plus years of release and principal actors.
(6.1) Borderline (1950) - Fred MacMurray/Claire Trevor/Raymond Burr
(5.8) Call It Murder ("Midnight) (1934) - Sidney Fox/O.P. Heggie/Humphrey Bogart (in support)
(7.3) Detour (1945) - Tom Neal/Ann Savage
(7.4) D.O.A. (1950) - Edmond O'Brien
(7.4) He Walked By Night (1948) - Richard Basehart/Jack Webb
(7.5) Kansas City Confidential (1952) - John Payne/Neville Brand/Lee Van Cleef
(7.0) The Red House (1947) - Edward G. Robinson/Judith Anderson
(7.8) Scarlet Street (1945) - Edward G. Robinson/Joan Bennett/Dan Duryea
(6.0) The Second Woman (1951) - Robert Young/Betsy Drake
(7.5) The Stranger (1946) - Edward G. Robinson/Loretta Young/Orson Welles
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great set, great price, crappy box!
rating: 3
these films are good quality, but yeah, everyone else was right, the very first time i opened it the whole thing came apart in my hands!
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not the greatest transfers but for the price what do you want
rating: 5
i found most of the movies here to be good,a few clinkers but all were fun. i still marvel at how many people complain about the quality of the transfers on these sets. now if the movies are un watchable thats one thing,but for the price to expect grade a transfers is ,well,stupid on their part because at this low price you know they aren't always going to be great. if that is what you want just don't buy these sets!!!!!!!!!!!! for everyone else,check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Good collection overall
rating: 4
First a rating of the films, favorite to least favorite:
1 DOA (10/10) Very good example of film noir with lots of the elements of the genre. A very complex story with great characters that make it worth watching over and over again.
2 Scarlet Street (10/10) The most dark and bleak film here, a very close tie with DOA. Probably the most emotionally powerful film in this set, if you like gloomy endings, watch this one first!
3 Detour (9.5/10) One of the best film noirs, even compared to the movies made on a better budget. Also, like the two movies above, tends to end with a very dark mood.
4 The Stranger (9/10) I enjoyed this one quite a bit, great, stark visuals create a expressive noir-ish atmosphere. The transfer here is rather dark, but it works well in my opinion.
5 Kansas City Confidential (8.5/10) Among the best B noir I have seen. Plenty of shady, violent characters, a good plot and lots of good noir camera work.
6 The Red House (8/10) A different type of film noir, made in the country. Still manages to create a noir/suspense atmosphere. Can feel a little overlong at times, the acting of Edward G. Robinson helps this one along.
7 He Walked By Night (7/10) More of a straight up crime/detective movie, but plenty of noirish elements.
8 Call it Murder (aka Midnight) (7/10) Made in 1934, this is certainly the oldest movie in the set and looks great for its age. In general this is a pretty good movie, but lacks many of the elements of real film noir in my opinion.
9 Borderline (7/10) Feels like Hitchcock could have made this one, but lacks the noir atmosphere. More of a light-hearted police drama than a hard-boiled noir.
10 The Second Woman (4/10) I didn't enjoy this one much. It feels like film noir but it also feels like a bad remake of Rebecca, something which annoyed me greatly as that is one of my favorite films. The constant musical references to Tchaikovsky, while odd, worked.
The picture and sound quality on these movies tends to be pretty good. Everything is certainly of "watchable" quality. Some movies fare better than others, The Stranger and some sections of The Red House could use some restoration and remastering. I bought this set the same time I bought another set "The Ultimate Film Noir Collection," I would say the movies on this set look slightly better than those on that one. Both are good collections though.
The movies I plan to come back to are DOA, Scarlet Street, Detour, The Stranger, Kansas City Confidential and possibly The Red House. He Walked By Night was a decent movie, but not my favorite kind of noir. Borderline was a "charming little movie" but its one of the least memorable on the set. Call It Murder is indeed a great movie by almost any standard, especially for its time, but it does not feel like noir at all...perhaps its just included so Bogarts name could be on the cover of the set? I had big hopes for The Second Woman but it was the biggest let down of the set.
A final note about the packaging, some have complained that it has fallen apart on them, but it hasnt been the case with mine at all. Maybe I got lucky, but the box as a whole seems fairly sturdy. Recommended.
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The films are great, the packaging is garbage
rating: 3
A reasonably good selection of noir films, particularly for the price (Detour, DOA and He Walked By Night are worth the price by themselves). While we have not viewed all of the movies yet, the ones we have watched were of very adequate quality.
My only complaint is the total piece-of-trash box they put this in. Ours arrived with three of the five disc holders broken, and the discs were badly scuffed from banging around in this box loose during shipping. I wondered if they would even play, but it does not seem to have effected their performance. Once it has been opened and closed three or four times, the plastic case itself comes to pieces. This packaging is crap!
Good films and worth the price, but get yourself five individual jewel cases in advance because you're going to want to fling this sorry box as far as you can.
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