The Good

An absolutely fabulous DVD collection with just the right amount of movies and extras. Great work, Warner Bros.

The Bad

Why didn’t they put this release in a digipack? (I had to think of something)

If you want film noir than look no further as Warner Bros. has put out one of the coolest and fan friendly collections with The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4. This collection contains 10 movies all of which come with the right amount of extra features. They are informative, strongly put together and never redundant. The films in this collection are:

  • Mystery Street

  • Act of Violence

  • Illegal

  • The Big Steal

  • Tension

  • Where Danger Lives

  • Side Street

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

  • They Live By Night

  • Decoy

  • Crime Wave

Now, I could go through each one and give you a little blurb, but what I chose to do when I screened this set was simply pick and chose a few of the movies. There, you got me, I didn’t watch every one but I watched enough to be able to make a pretty solid determination about the strength of this collection. Act of Violence is a nail-biter of a film that has a man see his life turned upside down when someone from his war torn past, turns up to make right a wrong he perceived was done to him. Crime Wave is a highly interesting film made even more interesting by Sterling Hayden’s police officer performance and Andre De Toth’s daring direction. In Illegal Edward G. Robinson embodies conflict as a man who is a brilliant D.A. until his life changes, and suddenly he finds himself defending the very people he was trying to put away. Lastly, They Live By Night is a highly, cautionary tale starring Farley Granger as man who gets in deep with the worst kind of people.

I wish I had the time to go through this set and watch everything. However, based on all that I have seen, I feel that The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4 should make fans of this genre very proud.

Features

All of the movies in this collection came with audio commentaries and a featurettes. Due to time constraints, I was only able to go through the following extras:

Decoy and Crime Wave Disc:

Crime Wave: The City is Dark

We start off learning about director Andre De Toth, who lost an eye in an anti-Nazi rally. Then we hear from people like Oliver Stone who sing this director’s praises. After this we hear about how the studio didn’t want Sterling Hayden for the lead, De Toth fought for him and then the men in charge at that time finally relented but cut the shooting schedule to 15 days. After this, the talking heads discuss the cinema verite style of the movie, and how De Toth put his actors in the emotion of the film. He allowed them to bring personal aspects of who they were to make the characters deeper.

Illegal and The Big Steal Disc:

Illegal: Marked For Life

This featurette gives us a history of the movie Illegal. Apparently, Edward G. Robinson had a decent amount of problems before this film because certain powers that be thought he was a communist. However, what really struck people was how good in he was in this role that allowed him to be both good and bad. We also find out how this movie came into existence and how Illegal really put across the accepted style of film noir.

Mystery Street and Act of Violence Disc:

Dr. Drew Casper offers up some pretty darn good insights into the characters and motivations that are at work in this film. He points out how this was one of the only films to have the movie’s soundtrack playing while MGM’s Leo the Lion was roaring at the beginning. He then gives us a brief history of noir (pointing out that its nadir was from 1940 to 1945), and how the documentary realism of the genre eventually went on to align itself with expressionism. While I thought at times he told us too much of what we were already seeing on the screen, I loved what he pointed out about the characters in the film (ex-WWII veterans) commenting on post-war America.

Side Street and They Live By Night Disc:

Film Historian Eddie Muller and They Live By Night star Farley Granger handle the duties on this track. We find out a lot of interesting anecdotes like how this movie was shot on the RKO Lot, and why this movie had a prologue to make sure that viewers knew it was a love story and not a caper picture. Apparently, in John Houseman’s varied career he also found the time to produce this movie. Muller points out things about the tone and score of the film, and how in a lot of ways it seems like director Nicholas Ray wanted They Live By Night to seem like a horror movie. There is a lot of good stuff in this collection and I look forward to going through it all some day.

Video

All the movies in The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4 can be viewed in the Standard Version. They are presented in a format preserving the aspect ratio of their original theatrical exhibitions. They are also presented in a very well compressed black and white. There isn’t a great deal of contrast so much as there is a simplicity to these films. If you want camera tricks and pretty shots you should look elsewhere. These movies, like their subject matter, are gritty, in your face and simple. Some people might balk at this but I feel it gives the movies in this collection a strong clearness of presentation.

Audio

The movies in The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4 are presented here in Dolby Digital - English: Mono. Okay, if you are some one who has put together a home theater system in your living room, you are probably not going to be too excited about what this set has to offer you in the sound department. Chances are if you are buying this set you either A) know that this is how these films are presented and you just accept it or B) you’re in the demographic that doesn’t care about Blu-ray, HD-DVD, etc. Personally, I thought all of these movies sounded really good. I did have to turn up the audio somewhat high but once I did that things played fine across all the movies I had time to screen.

Package

The front cover of The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4 slipcase features a collage of many of the characters that are in the movies in this set. They have colored them with pastel-like tones that almost make them look animated. The back cover lists out each movie, a description for each title, and also gives a cursory description of this sets special features. All 10 movies are stored on 10 discs and each of them has their own amaray case. The front cover of each case is split up between each movie, with the information on each film disseminated that way on the back covers as well. My only complaint is that I think Warner Bros. should have gone the digipack route with this release.

Final Word

Why are film noir movies so easy to watch? Is it because they highlight the worst parts of human nature? Is it because we can’t believe that people are actually behaving like this? Whatever the reason, I just find these stories about blackmail, larceny, good people turned bad to be irresistible. Also, there are types in these films that we can’t help but identify with. From the femme fatale, to the mark, to the stool pigeon, all of us have been these people at one point or another and getting to see them in a set like The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4 allows us to keep them at a distance. We all want to be strong, we all want to be cool, we all want to be smarter than the people in these films. Maybe that’s why film noir is such an easy genre to watch? We identify with it because the stories we are seeing are not outside of ourselves

If you want 10 strong films that have been given a nice treatment on DVD, you need look no further than The Film Noir Classics Collection, Vol. 4.

Decoy was released September 14, 1946.