Coming in June: Film Noir Month!

In October, we did a movie monster marathon, where I watched classic horror films from the 1920's-1960's as part of a series for the blog (here's the most recent article-links are at the bottom if you want to see all of the films we've done so far).  While we'll do that again this October (I already have a wish list started for the occasion), I thought it'd be fun for June to do a similar sort of series, and as this is the month of my birth (I'm turning 28...for the seventh time), I figured why not indulge in my favorite genre of all-time: film noir?

Film noir has everything that I want in a movie.  It's seedy, plot-driven and unpredictable.  It's endings are always a little in-doubt (it's the only film genre in Golden Age Hollywood that you can't say with confidence how it will finish).  The heroes are always antiheroes, and the best parts go to women.  I mean, this is pretty much all I'm looking for in a movie, and some of my absolute favorite films from Laura to Double Indemnity to Touch of Evil are film noirs.

However, there are a few classic film noir films that I've never seen.  My brother last year bought me a book that I'm obsessed with from TCM called Into the Dark, which profiles dozens of old-time film noirs, ranging from major studio pieces to Poverty Row gems, and I just want to see them all.  As a result, I'll pulled a few from the book, as well as from random places all around the internet, and settled on a list of fifteen classic film noir films that I hadn't seen, and we will profile every even-numbered day in June.  The films range from the mid-40's to the early-80's, with us getting a little bit into the "neo-noir" films that happened in the the latter decades when the genre was occasionally revived.  In addition to these films, because I love a theme, we'll also be picking as our Saturdays with the Stars actress next month one of the most important actresses of the film noir genre, and one whom I've never seen any of her films (and of course we'll profile at least a couple of her best film noir pictures).  So grab your trench coat, light your cigarette, and assume that beautiful woman at your office door isn't all she seems, cause this June we'll be devoting to the world of film noir.