Directed by John Berry • 1951 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford
John Garfield’s final film before his blacklisting and untimely death is a slam-bang pulp noir crackling with tightly wound tension. In one of his finest performances, Garfield plays a hardened social outcast who, following a botched robbery, holds the family of a naive young woman (Shelley Winters) hostage, growing increasingly desperate—and dangerous—as the walls close in on him. Directed by socially conscious filmmaker John Berry and coscripted by Communist screenwriter Dalton Trumbo—both soon to be victims of the blacklist themselves—HE RAN ALL THE WAY embeds a strong class commentary within the framework of an intense thriller.
Up Next in Noir
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Intimidation
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara • 1960 • Japan
Koreyoshi Kurahara's ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidatio...
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Stakeout
Directed by Yoshitaro Nomura • 1958 • Japan
Starring Minoru Oki, Seiji Miyaguchi, Hideko TakamineWhen a pair of a detectives lose the trail of a murder suspect, they camp out across the street from his ex-lover (Hideko Takamine) in hopes that she will lead them to their man. It’s the beginning ...
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The American Friend
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1977 • Germany
Starring Dennis Hopper, Bruno GanzWim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with THE AMERICAN FRIEND, a loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel “Ripley’s Game.” Dennis Hopper oozes quirky menace as an amoral American a...
