
Apparently rejected by women all his life, a loner with a high-power rifle starts on a trail of murder. The police are baffled by the apparently random killings until their psychologist comes up with some ideas.
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Film-Noir
They Won’t Forget (1937) Mervyn LeRoy, Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson, Edward Norris, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A southern town is rocked by scandal when teenager Mary Clay is murdered on Confederate Decoration Day. Andrew Griffin, a small-time lawyer with political ambitions, sees the crime as his ticket to the Senate if he can find the right victim to finger for the crime. He sets out to convict Robert Hale, a transplanted northerner who was Mary’s teacher at the business school where she was killed. Despite the fact that all the evidence against Hale is circumstantial, Griffin works with a ruthless reporter to create a media frenzy of prejudice and hate against the teacher.
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Undercurrent (1946) Vincente Minnelli, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

Middle-aged bride Ann Hamilton soon begins to suspect that her charming husband is really a psychotic who plans to murder her.
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The Big Knife (1955) Robert Aldrich, Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Drama, Film-Noir

Charles Castle is a successful Hollywood actor who has opted for screen success over art. He must make critical decisions regarding his career, his marriage, his art & morality. In this screen adaptation of a Clifford Odets play, Castle is pressured by his studio boss and manipulated into a potentially murderous cover-up to protect his career. An indictment of the amoral world of 50’s Hollywood and its corrosive effect upon the artist.
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Inner Sanctum (1948) Lew Landers, Charles Russell, Mary Beth Hughes, Dale Belding, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

A man accidentally kills his fiancée as he exits a train. Just as the train pulls out, he drops her body on the rear platform. No one saw him do it, but someone does see him at the otherwise deserted station: a mischievous, freckle-faced boy. Later, he’s walking along a road when the town’s newspaper editor stops and gives him a lift. The editor tells his passenger that a flood has washed out the bridge. For now, there’s no way out of town, so he takes the stranger to a boarding house. Fate decrees that of all houses, this is the one where the boy lives. The boy thinks he recognizes the new boarder. The new boarder thinks it’s time to get rid of the boy. And a sexy blonde living at the house thinks it’s time to run off with a man she knows is a murderer.
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Crime of Passion (1957) Gerd Oswald, Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Kathy is a smart and tough 1950’s advice columnist at a San Francisco newspaper, with her name plastered on billboards all over the city. One day, Bill Doyle, a Los Angeles detective, walks into her office – it is instant attraction. After marrying Bill, Kathy gives up her career and becomes a homemaker. However, she is not your typical 1950’s homemaker. After hosting several cocktail parties in their San Fernando Valley home, she realizes that Bill is content with his position, and shows no ambition in furthering himself. Kathy will not sit idly by while everyone around her is “moving up in the world”. She personally takes upon herself the task of pushing Bill’s career along, even if it comes down to murder.
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The Big Heat (1953) Fritz Lang, Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Dave Bannion is an upright cop on the trail of a vicious gang he suspects holds power over the police force. Bannion is tipped off after a colleague’s suicide and his fellow officers’ suspicious silence lead him to believe that they are on the gangsters’ payroll. When a bomb meant for him kills his wife instead, Bannion becomes a furious force of vengeance and justice, aided along the way by the gangster’s spurned girlfriend Debbie. As Bannion and Debbie fall further and further into the Gangland’s insidious and brutal trap, they must use any means necessary (including murder) to get to the truth.
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Crime in the Streets (1956) Don Siegel, John Cassavetes, Sal Mineo, James Whitmore, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

On a city’s mean streets, the boys join gangs at 15. Frankie leads the Hornets: he’s 18, seething, coiled. When a neighbor goes to the cops after seeing one of the Hornets with a zip gun, Frankie vows to kill the old guy, hatching a plan using Lou, who smiles and smokes, and “Baby,” the 15-year-old son of an immigrant shopkeeper. Ben Wagner, the social worker at a neighborhood settlement house, gets wind of the plan and tries to break through to Frankie. Frankie’s brother Richie, who’s about 12, worships and fears Frankie; he also figures out what his brother is up to. Is Frankie doomed to crash and burn at 18?
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Screaming Mimi (1958) Gerd Oswald, Anita Ekberg, Philip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

Exotic dancer Virginia Wilson sees a man get shot moments after he tries to knife her in a shower, so she goes to Dr. Greenwood a psychiatrist for therapy. He falls in love with her and takes over her life, although she insists on continuing her career at the El Madhouse nightclub. The club’s tough owner is none other than Gypsy Rose Lee who plays ‘Gypsy’ and sings an incredibly bad song (“Put the Blame on Mame”) when Virginia is late one night. The traumatized Virginia is suspected of a series of murders. Each victim had purchased a contorted sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi, which was created by her step-brother Charlie who was also responsible for shooting her attacker. It’s up to a handsome columnist Bill Sweeny to figure it all out.
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The Tattered Dress (1957) Jack Arnold

After a wild night, wealthy Michael Reston’s adulterous wife Charleen comes home with her ripe young body barely concealed by a dress in rags; murder results. Top defense lawyer J.G. Blane, whose own marriage exists in name only, arrives in Desert View, Nevada to find the townsfolk and politically powerful Sheriff Hoak distinctly hostile to the Restons. In due course, Blane discovers he’s been “taken for a ride,” and that quiet desert communities can be deadly…
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