Free films put the noir into film noir

Take a walk on the dark side

A NOIR blending violence, sentimentality, and comedy may struggle for balance and Johnny One-Eye (1950) certainly does.

I could not recall having seen this movie before and I was expecting the Johnny in the title to be a gangster, somebody sprouting wise-cracks and New York slang, given the movie is based on a Damon Runyon short story. A fair way into the movie we find Johnny is not a gangster, not even a person.

Watch Fate on the rampage in noirs

Trouble is going my way

FATE TORTURING THE WORKING STIFF is a subset of film noir and includes Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) Scarlet Street (1945) D.O.A. (1945) Quicksand (1950) Kansas City Confidential (1952) The Hitch-Hiker (1953) and 99 River Street (1953)

What made the real-life story surrounding Quicksand both poignant and ironic was working stiffs,  director  Irving Pichel, and musical composer Louis Gruenberg, were blacklisted after it and one of the lead actors, Peter Lorre, was bankrupted by bankrolling it.

The full story about the behind-the-scenes turmoil of Quicksand is yet to be told. It cries out to be turned into a film noir directed by Martin Scorsese or the Coen Brothers.