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 washed-up former cop who has descended into a life of alcoholic desperation. When his ex-wife (Faye Emerson) reappears with the news that their son has been kidnapped, Thursday must find a way to stay off the sauce long enough to track him down. By filming largely on location in New York City, director Joseph Lerner imbues GUILTY BYSTANDER with a sense of unnerving realism.
Up Next in Blackout Noir
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Framed
Directed by Richard Wallace • 1947 • United States
Starring Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry SullivanA 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...
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In a Lonely Place
Directed by Nicholas Ray • 1950 • United States
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria GrahameWhen 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...
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Crossfire
Directed by Edward Dmytryk • 1947 • United States
Starring Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert RyanThis 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...
