 | Angels With Dirty Faces
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $5.48 **** - Pat O'Brien walks the last mile with Jimmy Cagney in impressive Michael Curtiz gangster flick. Even the Dead End Kids can't drag it down.
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 | The Big Clock (Universal Noir Collection)
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $3.69 **** - Ray Milland plays editor of crime magazine wrongly accused of murder in this comedy/thriller. Charles Laughton is great as the oily boss.
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 | Brute Force
Buy used from: $17.14 ** - Jules Dassin's prison break movie looks good but was a little overly melodramatic for my tastes.
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 | The Chase
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $1.35 *** - Gimmicky love-on-the-run/crime thriller hurt by some implausible sharp turns, helped by facile direction and good cast. Beware bad prints.
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 | Crime of Passion
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $4.19 **** - Successful newspaperwoman sacrifices career for marriage in this entertaining suburban potboiler co-starring Sterling Hayden and Raymond Burr.
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 | Dead End
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $5.59 **** - Joel McCrea & Sylvia Sidney fight poverty and despair in William Wyler's urban melodrama. Bogart's great turn as gangster and first appearance of Dead End Kids add spice to the proceedings.
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 | Fury
Buy used from: $4.97 **** - Fritz Lang's first American film is compromised a bit at the end, still packs a wallop thanks to fine work by Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney, and explosive middle section.
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 | The Girl Hunters
Buy used from: $56.75 **** - Mickey Spillane plays his most famous literary creation, Mike Hammer, in this entertaining oddity from 1964.
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 | Inner Sanctum
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $2.69 **** - Poverty Row, late '40s crime thriller stars Charles Russell as killer with one too many witnesses. Think Hitchcock's 'Shadow of a Doubt' without the production values or character insights.
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 | The Killing
Buy new: $10.49 / Used from: $5.89 ***** - Stunning early (1956) Kubrick racetrack heist flick starts with a bang and sustains the energy and suspense throughout. Excellent and engaging.
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 | Little Caesar
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $4.00 **** - Edgar G. Robinson is brilliant as brutal thug on the rise Rico in career making role.
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 | Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories by Cornell Woolrich
Buy new: $16.15 / Used from: $2.31 ***** - Fourteen previously unpublished short stories by 'the father of noir' Cornell Woolrich. Fast paced and a lot of fun.
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 | Odd Man Out
Buy used from: $63.99 **** - The Third Man director Carol Reed helms this flick on a IRA-criminal (James Mason) wounded and on the run. Last act a little too light-hearted for my tastes, but still strongly recommended.
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 | Open Secret
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $1.97 ** - Stale tale of hate-groups in America's heartland. Star John Ireland and others have all done much better.
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 | The Petrified Forest
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $3.48 **** - Robert Sherwood's stage play brought to gritty life by Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and especially Humphrey Bogart as gangster Duke Mantee in the role that made him a star.
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 | Rififi - Criterion Collection
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $14.98 ***** - Blacklisted from Hollywood, Jules Dassin directs this classic heist flick. Paris never looked better.
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 | The Roaring Twenties
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $6.79 ***** - Warner Brother's homage to the decade that made them famous. Cagney & Bogart team up in this classic gangster flick directed by Raoul Walsh. About as essential as they come.
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 | The Score
Buy new: $8.49 / Used from: $0.72 **** - Creaky last heist flick by director Frank Oz is worth seeing for its stellar cast - Ed Norton, Robert DeNiro & Marlon Brando (in his last live-action role).
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 | The Street With No Name (Fox Film Noir)
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $4.34 **** - Great locations and a sinister Richard Widmark are the highlight in this FBI procedural exploration of the 'new gangsterism.'
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 | Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $5.95 **** - Cop Walter Matthau matches wits with crook Robert Shaw in this tense hijacking movie set in the New York City subway system.
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 | They Drive by Night (Snap case)
Buy used from: $6.74 **** - Ida Lupino's femme fatale steals the show from trucking brothers George Raft and Humphrey Bogart.
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 | Thieves' Highway - Criterion Collection
Buy new: $35.99 / Used from: $21.17 ***** - Jules Dassin's last American movie has trucker Richard Conte riding the road to vengeance. Wonderful movie.
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 | Wanted for Murder
Buy new: $22.49 / Used from: $20.98 ***** - Richly atmospheric post-war (1946) British crime thriller. Eric Portman is riveting in this story of a modern day serial killer known as 'The Strangler.'
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 | The Warner Gangsters Collection (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties)
Buy used from: $28.97 ***** - Super collection of six classic gangster flick, each disk loaded with delightful extras.
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 | White Heat
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $6.44 ***** - James Cagney's return to gangster roles brings him to top of the world in this Raoul Walsh directed gem. Essential cinema.
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