Blackout Noir

Blackout Noir

9 Episodes

Among the most agonizingly intense films in the history of film noir are those that adopt the point of view of characters tormented by amnesia, memory holes, and drunken blackouts, leaving them to grasp in the dark in search of an often terrifying truth. Waking up unexpectedly in a stranger’s bed is one thing . . . putting on your coat to leave and discovering a bloodstain on it is another. Reveling in teasing ambiguity, these films—including both defining genre classics like IN A LONELY PLACE and CROSSFIRE and hidden gems like BLACK ANGEL and DEADLINE AT DAWN—combine tantalizing whodunit mysteries with creeping doubt, paranoia, and a guilt that shreds the soul.

Programmed by Farran Smith Nehme and Glenn Kenny

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Blackout Noir

9 Episodes

  • Blackout Noir Teaser
    01:14
    Blackout Noir Teaser
    Episode 1

    Blackout Noir Teaser

    Episode 1

  • The Blue Gardenia
    1:28:22
    The Blue Gardenia
    Episode 2

    The Blue Gardenia

    Episode 2

    Directed by Fritz Lang • United States • 1953
    Starring Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern

    Noir master Fritz Lang brings his hard-hitting style to this gripping thriller based on a short story by LAURA writer Vera Caspary. When LA switchboard operator Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) is given the...

  • Black Angel
    1:20:32
    Black Angel
    Episode 3

    Black Angel

    Episode 3

    Directed by Roy William Neill • 1946 • United States
    Starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre

    Based (loosely) on a novel by legendary crime writer and master of existential dread Cornell Woolrich (REAR WINDOW, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK), this bleakly atmospheric noir stars everyone’s favorite s...

  • Blackout
    1:27:17
    Blackout
    Episode 4

    Blackout

    Episode 4

    Directed by Terence Fisher • 1954 • United Kingdom
    Starring Dane Clark, Belinda Lee, Betty Ann Davies

    Future Hammer-horror legend Terence Fisher helms this twisty British whodunit (also known as MURDER BY PROXY), in which Casey Morrow (Dane Clark)—an American in London with no visible means of s...

  • Guilty Bystander
    1:32:06
    Guilty Bystander
    Episode 5

    Guilty Bystander

    Episode 5

    Directed by Joseph Lerner • 1950 • United States
    Starring Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Mary Boland

    Set in a seamy milieu of cheap flophouses and skid-row social castoffs, this evocatively scuzzy B noir stars Zachary Scott, in one of his rawest and most compelling performances, as Max Thursday, a...

  • Framed
    1:22:30
    Framed
    Episode 6

    Framed

    Episode 6

    Directed by Richard Wallace • 1947 • United States
    Starring Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan

    A bad pair of brakes strands gruff, takes-no-BS trucker Mike (Glenn Ford) in a small town where the locals aren’t all that friendly—save for blonde bartender Paula (Janis Carter), who soon has hi...

  • In a Lonely Place
    1:33:32
    In a Lonely Place
    Episode 7

    In a Lonely Place

    Episode 7

    Directed by Nicholas Ray • 1950 • United States
    Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame

    When a gifted but washed-up screenwriter with a hair-trigger temper—Humphrey Bogart, in a revelatory, vulnerable performance—becomes the prime suspect in a brutal Tinseltown murder, the only person who ca...

  • Crossfire
    1:25:40
    Crossfire
    Episode 8

    Crossfire

    Episode 8

    Directed by Edward Dmytryk • 1947 • United States
    Starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan

    This gritty film noir made history as the first Hollywood film to confront antisemitism. Three of the era’s most celebrated Roberts—Young, Mitchum, and Ryan—star in the hard-hitting tale of a pol...

  • Deadline at Dawn
    1:23:05
    Deadline at Dawn
    Episode 9

    Deadline at Dawn

    Episode 9

    Directed by Harold Clurman • 1946 • United States
    Starring Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams

    This strikingly stylized psychological thriller boasts a remarkable pedigree: written by Clifford Odets, based on a novel by noir icon Cornell Woolrich, and lensed by famed cinematographer Nichola...

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