Customer Reviews
Commentaries are great to have. 
2008-09-26
I love the picture quality of this great DVD set and also the commentaries on all of the movies. These are movies I can watch over and over again and never get tired of. Along with the commentaries they are a pretty good education in film noir.
ijustlovetheoldies 2008-08-10
hats off,this is the best collection of film noir yet if i could give it more stars i would,buy it now i guarantee you wont be disappointed
A Surprisingly Good Collection 2008-05-04
I've bought all the series, this being the fourth. I thought they might be stretching things a bit. The scripts are a bit ragged, but there is a terrific range of points of view. The transfers are nice, and all the commentaries had something of value, which doubles the running time.
All these films reflect the era. They are about men and women, relationships, but women are amazingly empowered in this era. Noir is about corruption. There is always a price tag on sexual exploration. Everyone uses sex, but they never show any sex.
Much of the acting is sound, even if the style is dated. The impressionism of Noir can be quite beautiful, especially when they bothered to shoot in the real world and not with process or a stage. The seedy world was much broader in these movies. There were layers of degraded humanity. The corrupt people are more comprehensible. Today there is a hard, mega-violent edge that fills the gap. In these movies, bad people are shown in a social context. These films sought more understanding, apparently. Characters travel from one level to another, collapsing into the corruption, many times.
Well done set.
widescreen? 2008-02-11
loved this set.
did anybody, besides myself, notice that "illegal" was presented in wide screen format?
I Remember When I Saw That. 
2007-11-12
I bought Volume 4 because it was sold as a "deal" with another 50's film that I remembered and bought.
It was quite an experience seeing films that I had watched as a teenager. I was impressed with the crisp black and white photography. It was like going through an old family album looking at the early pictures of actors such as Robert Mitchum in "The Big Steal," Edward G. Robinson in "illegal," "Farley Granger in "They Live by Night," and Sterling Hayden in "Crime Wave". Even though they are all crime movies, they have a certain sweetness that is reminiscent of earlier Anerica. If you want something different, perhaps a bit of nostalgia, this set offers ten hours of viewing.
All of the DVD's played well using my Samsung player.
Strongest of Noir Collections To Date 2007-11-01
Ex-World War II pilot Frank Enley (Van Heflin) is a respected contractor and family man. Then his troubled gimp-legged bombardier (Robert Ryan) shows up with a gun and a score to settle. Perhaps neither man is what he seems to be as director Fred Zinnemann (The Day of the Jackal) guides a searing Act of Violence "the first postwar noir to take a challenging look at the ethics of men in combat" (Eddie Muller Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir). Murder lives on Mystery Street. John Sturges (The Great Escape) directs a revealing-for-the-era procedural about a Boston cop (Ricardo Montalban) solving a whodunit with the help of a Harvard forsensic expert (Bruce Bennett). Welcome to CSI Noir.Running Time: 833 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 085391150206 Manufacturer No: 115020
Where Danger Lurks 2007-10-06
Compared to the other volumes in the 'Film Noir' series, this one is solid and contains a number of good films. You get ten movies here, with most being in the 2 1/2 to three star range. Volume one is by far the best, and no film here and compete with those, but if you like film noir then you will enjoy volume 4. Robert Mitchum stars in two, and teams up with Jane Greer again in 'The Big Steal'. However, this is lightweight compared to their great classic, 'Out of The Past'. His other film is 'Where Dangere Lives', with gorgeous Fairth Domergue, which is classic noir with Domergue being the fatal lure in a very interesting plot. My favorite film in this volume is 'Decoy', which is totally outrageous and features the most dazzling bit of femme fatale you'll ever see in this genre...courtesy of Jean Gillie. Edward G. Robinson, one of my favorite actors, is in top form in "Illegal". Sterling Hayden, who is masterful in volume one of this collection in 'The Asphalt Jungle', returns for 'Crime Wave', this time as a policeman! Also, Audrey Totter stars in 'Tension' and of course she is one of the great ladies of film noir and its always a pleasure to watch her work. This is a great value and you'll enjoy these suspenseful and entertaining films.
Darkalicious 2007-09-27
While all the titles included are film noir must-haves, the real jewels amongst the treasures in this Warner Brothers box set are a pair of cult films that hardcore noir geeks have been itching to get their mitts on for years-"Crime Wave" and "Decoy".
"Crime Wave" (originally released in 1954) was directed by Andre de Toth, who is perhaps more well-remembered for helming stark westerns like "Ramrod" (1947) and "Day of the Outlaw" (1959). After languishing in B-movie obscurity for decades, this strikingly photographed, low-budget wonder has slowly built a cult following.
The story itself is standard issue; an ex-con trying to go straight (Gene Nelson) is framed and blackmailed by two former cell mates (portrayed by ubiquitous noir heavy Ted de Corsia and a young Charles Bronson). Nelson's character gets a shot at clearing himself by helping a homicide detective (a looming, toothpick-chewing Sterling Hayden) bring his blackmailers to justice.
The two main factors setting "Crime Wave" apart from other B-movies of the era are the meticulously composed cinematography (by DP Burt Glennon) and the ingenious use of L.A. locations. Although the decision to shoot almost exclusively on location was likely based more on pragmatism (budget constraints) than artistic vision, the end result was an almost documentary-like realism unusual for its time. The flawless DVD transfer looks to be from a pristine vault print.
It was also an inspired idea to pair up film noir expert Eddie Muller with the master of modern pulp crime fiction, James Ellroy, for the commentary track. Muller's encyclopedic torrent of fascinating trivia and savant-like grasp of All Things Noir is always worth the ride. Ellroy is a riot; panting and growling his way through the commentary and acting like a perverse version of the proverbial kid in the candy store. Most interestingly, he posits "Crime Wave" as a spot-on time capsule of the 1950s LAPD milieu that informed the backdrop for the series of crime novels referred to as his "L.A. quartet" ("The Black Dahlia", "The Big Nowhere", "L.A. Confidential" and "White Jazz").
And then (hoo, boy!) there's "Decoy" (1946), which gets my vote for the closest thing to a David Lynch film prior to, well the moment David Lynch unleashed his first full-length feature film on an unsuspecting public. Featuring a truly demented performance from British actress Jean Gillie as one of the most psychopathic femme fatales ever (replete with an insane cackle that could decalcify your spinal column at twenty paces), this mash-up of "Body Heat " with "Re-Animator" nearly defies description.
Gillie masticates all the available scenery as Margot Shelby, the mastermind of a small gang of thieves, who comes up with an elaborate scheme to literally bring a former associate back from the dead immediately following his execution in the gas chamber (don't ask) so she can put the squeeze on him and find out where he hid $400,000.
In order to get to that loot, Margot charms, uses and then unceremoniously discards a string of hapless male chumps in record time (the film runs less than 80 minutes). In the film's most infamous scene,she runs over her lover, then just for giggles, backs up the car and runs over him again (remember, this movie predates "Faster, Pussycat!Kill!... Kill!" by a good 20 years). A must see for genre diehards who think they've seen it all.
If you like it, scream it ! 2007-09-21
A pretty nice set of milestones movies. You like "films noirs" ? It is for you. You want to discover "films noirs" it is for you. Thanks to the editor to give us this piece of work well packaged at a nice price. I am already waiting for the volume 5 !
VOL 4 IS GREAT 2007-09-13
FABULOUS FIL NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 4 IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE 1ST 3 RELEASED. YOU LOVE FILM NOIR, YOU WILL OWN THIS GUARANTEED
