The Harder They Fall (1956)
 

What turned out to be Bogeys last film,is not one of his best performances, (apparently he was ill with cancer while filming,which had affected his voice) but its one of my favourite films from his latter period.Also it makes a great double feature with The Night and the City,in that it does share a few familiar themes and both look at corruption within the sports field.
Although Richard Widmark's character in Night And The City is the coniving spiv,Bogart's Sportswriter Eddie Willis is just along for the pay check while crooked boxing promoter Nick Benko played by a youngish Rod Steiger is lining up the next fixed fight.In the middle of all this is Toro Moreno (Mike Lane).A slow and dim witted boxer who believes he is gonna be the next champion,its the realisation by Toro that he's not the boxer he thought he was that gives the film its most poignant moments. There's also a great moment where Bogart's character watches a TV clip of old ex boxers which highlight's how badly treated they were.
According to Steiger Bogey had to do some reshoots of certain scenes,which were probably illness related although Rod Stieger was'nt aware of this at the time,and its not Bogart;s strongest performace but certainly a worthy one.

Coming from Criterion in January:

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Here's a great piece that looks at the making of Abel Ferrera's Cat Chaser.

“A Snake Pit Gig”: The Making (and Undoing) of Abel Ferrara’s “Cat Chaser” | Hidden Films

http://www.rarefilmposters.com/pictu...600&height=450

Berlin Express is excellent. It's almost a travelogue of the bombed out city. It's directed by Tourneur and he captures the bleakness of it all quite brilliantly.

In a Lonely Place is one of my top five noirs. Just superb from Bogart and Gloria Grahame has never been better.

Dead Reckoning is also a fine example of Bogart in a noir.

The Glass Key features Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake as well as Brian Donlevy and is a great example of Dashiell Hammett being brought to the big screen.

Pickup on South Street is classic Richard Widmark. You really feel for Thelma Ritter as well.

Is Suspicion the Cary Grant film? If so it's very good but it's not noir.

The Wrong Man - another Hitchcock that's very good. I always like Henry Fonda and he's excellent here as an innocent man falsely accused of a crime he didn't commit.

Only Angels Have Wings isn't a noir. It's also quite slow, it does have some tension in the flying scenes, also i could watch Jean Arthur doing the knitting so i like it.

Thanks for the rundown on some of those, Dem. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into some of these as the nights start to draw in.

All films listed are taken from the TSPDT Top 250 Quintessential Noir List, so I guess even the ones you don't consider Noir will have a Noir-ish undertone of some kind (Suspicion is indeed the Cary Grant film).

Macao is on my to buy wishlist. I picked up His Kind of Woman ages ago and thought it excellent, so seeing Mitchum and Jane Russell again in a noir is actually high priority for me as well. It's Odeon who released them both.

I watched His Kind of Woman earlier this year funnily enough (via The Odeon disc) and thought it was a very solid film. I've heard that Macao is less good but still want to give it a shot.

I'm buzzing for noir myself now! This is all your fault. :rolleyes: :lol:

From the list of 250 i think i own 58 of them.

That's really not many. :(

I don't own too many Noir films myself, however I've seen about 100 from that list - hopefully that will all change come the end of November! :pop2: