Film Noir Collection [DVD]

This collection is great value for money, you truly do get a lot of bang for your buck. As someone pretty new to film noir, I'm glad I took the risk on this box, having never seen any of the films before. I was previously just a fan of Bogart (The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep), now I'm in love with noir.

The films range from tragic tales of good people led astray (The Killers, Double Indemnity) to entertaining detective stories with plenty of laughs along the way (Murder My Sweet). It's a cliché to say so, but they really don't make 'em like this anymore.

The odd film out is definitely The Big Steal. Firstly, (as Amazon fails to mention) it's the colorized version - although I don't especially mind, I had never seen a colorized film before so it was educational in that respect. Secondly, it's less a true noir, more a comedic crime caper starring noir stalwarts Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and William Bendix. It's an entertaining film but it doesn't hold as much re-watch value as the rest of the collection.

My only other complaint is the packaging. The cigarette packet design is lovely, but the information on the back is misleading. For example, This Gun For Hire is dated 1947, when it was actually released five years earlier. It is just a small thing, but it was a bit confusing seeing "the first pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake" is supposedly from 1947, when another of their films was dated 1946.

However, considering how much entertainment this collection has provided, it would be churlish to give it anything but the five stars it surely deserves.

Inside the big black cigarette box (a fair indication of the dangerously addictive quality of its contents), each film comes in its own case; and there isn't much apart from the films on the disks. Fortunately, special features and other such padding are not required to make these films great value for money and excellent entertainment. There is no filler in this set. All the films included are superb, and make an ideal introduction to the genre, at an ideal price.

With top writers like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Grahame Greene and Ernest Hemingway, directors like Billy Wilder, Edward Dmytryk, and Don Siegel, and featuring early starring roles for Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Alan Ladd and top-notch femme-fatale turns by Veronica Lake, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, and Gloria Grahame (among others), you will not be disappointed.

Personal favourites among the nine are The Glass Key (with Alan Ladd being somewhat of a psycho), This Gun For Hire (with Alan Ladd being a complete psycho and Veronica Lake doing a rather kinky dance number in fishing waders), Murder My Sweet (Dick Powell doing a very good Philip Marlowe, comfortably the equal of Bogart's in The Big Sleep), not to mention the unmatched tension of Double Indemnity.

If there are weak points, then perhaps The Blue Dahlia is let down a little by the studio-mandated ending, and Crossfire by the somewhat heavy-handed spelling out of the film's message at the end. But both are excellent films nevertheless. And The Big Steal, despite a cast of noir stalwarts, is not really a film noir, except at odd moments, especially in the colourised version included here - but this is an interesting novelty in itself, and one that probably does better justice to the sunlit outdoor Mexican locations of the film than the original black-and-white would have done.

Normally in box sets you get two or three worthwhile films and one that badly lets the standard down... but not here: nine films ranging from a very good watch to undeniable classic status and all made during 'noir's' American heyday between 1942 and 1949. My only disappointment with this set is that having made a commendable selection of movie choices the print of 'The Big Steal' is colourised; it's a decent picture and worthy of inclusion but this colour version rather negates its 'noirishness'.