Marrying
the sort of crime fiction widely popular in the 1930s with a grittier
aesthetic, deeper sense of detail and decidedly more world-weary
point-of-view, film noir came of its own as a genre in the 1940s to
mid-’50s, bringing to the big screen a feeling and impression of moral
ambiguity heretofore unseen.

There’s significant debate over when exactly film noir was birthed. Some cite 1941’s The Maltese Falcon as its launching point, others call that film merely a progenitor of Fritz Lang’s M, from a decade earlier. For some it’s a little known RKO picture, 1940’s Stranger on the Third Floor; for others, 1944’s Double Indemnity, or Edward Dmytryk’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Murder, My Sweet,
also from that year. Regardless of what exact line of demarcation one
chooses to use, however, this much is certain: though rooted in certain
tropes and mores of German expressionism and French social realism, the
genre came of age in a big way in the United States after the
conclusion of World War II, when battle-toughened Americans were much
more willing to accept pictures with a harder, more cynical edge, or at
least those that had no desire to reflect or sermonize a broader
cinematic morality.

Characterized by sordid urban narratives frequently told from the
point-of-view of a criminal or at least somewhat morally dubious
character, noir came to be associated, cinematographically speaking,
with deep shadows and strong, canted angles — all the better to disrupt
the typical harmonic space of most pretty-as-a-picture stories.
Narratives were often marked by institutional corruption, sexual or
romantic obsession, duplicitous identity, murder-for-hire and other
manner of extreme psychological duress. To that end, another fine
collection arrives in the form of Warner Bros.’ five-film Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 3. Included here are Howard Hughes’ 1951 presentation of
The Racket, starring Robert Mitchum; the Chandler mystery Lady in the Lake (no relation to M. Night Shyamalan’s soggy tale); 1949’s justly under-regarded Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montalban; and Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino’s On Dangerous Ground,
a visually remarkable slice of investigative fatigue powered by Bernard
Herrmann’s score. Also starring Mitchum and Jane Russell, His Kind of Woman meanwhile least fits the mold here, studded as it is with sassiness and subversiveness, though it’s still a fun time.

A six-disc compendium sold only as a set, Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 3
includes each film in its own slimline case, all of which collectively
slip into a sturdy cardboard keepcase which features a suitable
pastiche of hardboiled sketch imagery from the film’s individual
posters and one-sheets. A variety of audio commentaries from film
scholars and genre enthusiasts dot each release, and Warner Bros. has,
gratifyingly, spread the assignments around so that the purveyors
aren’t overextended and don’t return to the same description. His Kind of Woman and The Racket lack the accompanying theatrical trailers of the other titles, but the big boon is the inclusion of the documentary special Film Noir: Bringing Darkness to Light.

This edifying 66-minute full screen presentation includes interviews
with a wide variety of figures — from directors like Christopher Nolan,
Paul Schrader and Sydney Pollack to writers Christopher McQuarrie,
Frank Miller and James Ellroy and archivists, authors and historians
like Hayden Guest, Glenn Erickson and Eddie Muller — and benefits from
this widely cast net. Also included on this phenomenal bonus disc are a
collection of five vintage, loosely categorized noir shorts from MGM’s
“Crime Doesn’t Pay Series,” including Oscar nominees Forbidden Passage and The Luckiest Guy in the World. B+ (Movies) A- (Discs)