Live it up! 11 essential nightclubs of noir

Karen Morley, 'Scarface' (1932).

By Paul Parcellin

In noir, nightclubs are smokey hideaways where criminality thrives under moody lighting. Ritzier than typical barrooms, they are havens for hedonists and the racketeer elite. 

Crucial to these nightspots are floorshows. A chanteuse may whisper a torch song designed to torment an ex-lover sitting ringside. Her words spell out jagged details of his predicament, defining his emotional state or perhaps the moral decay that engulfs him. 

In noir, entering a nightclub is like stepping into hell’s waiting room. It may be steamy and dazzling at first, but all exits lead to damnation. 

Here are the top 11 nightclubs of noir, hot spots where the underworld cools its heels and lives are sometimes broken: 

Osgood Perkins, Paul Muni, Karen Morley, 'Scarface.'

‘Scarface’ (1932)

The Paradise is everything a swank gangster nightclub should be: an orchestra wails swing jazz numbers, swell looking couples fill the dance floor, guys are clad in their formal best, ladies sway to the rhythm in chic evening dresses. Wiseguys Johnny Lovo (Osgood Perkins) and Tony Camonte (Paul Muni) spar over glamor girl Poppy (Karen Morley) — Tony, an upstart, comes out on the winning end, but egos are bruised. “Scarface” wasn’t the first crime movie to use a nightclub setting, but it sure knows how glamorize the seductive charm of such establishments. Without warning, shots are fired, a gunman is subdued, the orchestra plays on and patrons carry on unruffled. How gangster can you get?

Roger Duchesne, 'Bob le Flambeur.'

‘Bob le Flambeur’ (1956) (‘Bob the Gambler’)

Bob Montagné (Roger Duchesne) is a former bank robber earning his keep at all night poker matches and other games of chance. A suave sophisticate, he’s respected as a prince among thieves. No one can cross a cafe floor and command the respect Bob receives from fellow larcenists, gamblers and even the police. His nightclub of choice is Jour et Nuit (Day and Night), but he’s a creature of the latter. Sleeping when the sun rises, he only comes alive when the lights of Montmartre twinkle at dusk. Parisian cafes, bars and nightclubs are his domain. When his luck turns bad he looks for alternative means to pay his debts. That one last big score is the thing that tempts graying outlaws, even retired ones, and Bob is no exception. 

Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien) puffs on a cigarette
at the Fisherman. 'D.O.A.' (1949)

‘D.O.A.’ (1949)

 Calling San Francisco dive bar the Fisherman a “nightclub” is stretching the definition of the term until it screams. But the F’man’s got a stomping jazz sextet that cannot be denied a mention here. The joint’s a beatnik hangout where straight-arrow accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) wanders in and sips a beverage that changes his life forever. The place is a seething mass of hipsters grooving to the bebop beat as the band blows a frenzied set that sends the bohemian crowd into orbit. The atmosphere is claustrophobic and the scene teeters on chaos, much like Frank’s immediate future.

Edward G. Robinson, 'Little Caesar.'

‘Little Caesar’ (1931) 

The hoods hang out upstairs at Club Palermo, a gangster stronghold in the big city. Stickup man Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) pokes his beak in to talk with crime boss Sam Vettori (Stanley Fields), who runs the club and uses it as a front for his illegal operations. Rico passes muster and is immediately introduced to the rest of the gang. Besides being an entertainment spot for the corrupt, the club becomes the incubator that helps Rico launch his criminal career. At the club downstairs he eventually commits a brazen and violent act in public that shakes up the city’s mobster elite and catapults him to the top of the syndicate.  

Cathy Rosier, Alain Delon, François Périer, 'Le Samouraï.'

‘Le Samouraï’ (1967)

Martey's, an upscale Parisian jazz lounge, attracts a more refined crowds than do other nightspots mentioned here. But criminals operating behind the scenes are a continuous presence there. Hired killer Jef Costello (Alain Delon) visits the establishment to carry out some business for an employer. He isn’t the kind of assassin you’d expect him to be. Jef lives the austere life of a Buddhist monk and adheres to the code of the samurai. He’s an outsider among criminals in this nocturnal playground. Vocalist and keyboard player Valérie (Cathy Rosier), who performs at the club, witnesses something she wasn’t meant to see, and Jef soon finds that he’s the one being hunted.

Richard Widmark, Mike Mazurki, 'Night and the City.'

‘Night and the City’ (1950)

The Silver Fox nightclub sits among the cheap clip joints of London’s Soho district. It’s where low rent hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) hangs out, ever on the lookout for a fast buck or a get rich quick scheme. Harry uses his gift for gab to pry loose greenbacks from the unwary, especially his lady friend. He’s in his element at the Silver Fox, a place where bar girls fleece tipsy customers, sweet talking them into buying overpriced champagne and chocolates. Everyone there is either a crook or a victim. Beneath his bravado, Harry fears he’ll ultimately be one of the latter. When he schemes to become a professional wrestling promotor things don’t go his way. Unfortunately for him, he’s burned too many bridges to get a free pass this time.

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, 'The Big Sleep.'

‘The Big Sleep’ (1946)

Crime kingpin Eddie Mars’s Cypress Club plays host to the denizens of a dark side. In it, illegal gambling is the main attraction and all things illicit are for sale. In between crooning pop tunes for the punters, rich girl Vivian Sternwood (Lauren Bacall) tries her luck in the casino. When she pockets a thick wad of cash at the roulette wheel she nearly gets robbed, but private dick Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) steps in and saves her bacon. Their liaison leads to a well remembered steamy conversation of double entendres involving race horses and jockeys. The Cypress is not the kind of place where Vivian or her younger sister, Carmen (Martha Vickers), should frequent, but these girls do love trouble.

Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, 'Road House.'

‘Road House’ (1948)

Jefty's Road House isn’t a swank, big city club. It’s a backwater joint with a bowling alley. A love triangle with Chicago songstress Lily Stevens (Ida Lupino), club owner Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark) and club manager Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde) sets the drama in motion. In one of its best scenes, Ida Lupino makes a lukewarm crowd sit up, take notice and applaud when she sings “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” She isn’t a trained vocalist, and her slightly raspy two-pack-a-day voice radiates a world-weary sense of dissatisfaction, which is what makes the scene work. It’s all about heartache and raw emotions and she’s got a hell of a story to tell.

Raymond Burr, 'The Blue Gardenia.'

‘The Blue Gardenia’ (1953)

Loneliness seems to float in the air like clouds of cigarette smoke as Nat King Cole warbles the film’s title song in the softly-lit Blue Gardenia club, a South Seas-themed watering hole. It’s a romantic setting, but one couple is having a difficult time of it. Calendar artist Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) plies Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) with cocktails. Norah hesitates to imbibe, but Harry is insistent. The music and atmosphere reflect the isolation Norah feels, and the club resonates her emotional distress. Matters get worse when a dark crime is committed and a memory blackout obscures the events of the previous evening.

Magali Noël, 'Rififi.'

‘Rififi’ (1955)

L’age d’Or (The Golden Age) is an ironically appropriate name for the nightclub of choice for a band of French jewel thieves who are casing out a stronghold of precious stones. Aging gangster Tony "le Stéphanois" (Jean Servais) is persuaded by his buddies to help rob an exclusive jewelry dealer. Tony wants to go for a bigger score than just the ice in the store window: their target switches to the retailer’s highly secure vault. It’s a flawless plan, or so they think, but relationships with women in their lives complicate matters. Viviane, a chanteuse at the club, performs the film’s memorable title song, describing the plight of a woman in a relationship with a roughneck gangster. She ought to know — her beau is in on the heist.

Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, 'Gilda.'

‘Gilda’ (1946)

Rita Hayworth’s iconic hair toss helps make her vocal rendition of “Put the Blame on Mame” sizzle in what is perhaps the greatest noir nightclub moment of all time. She’s voluptuous, self assured and more than a bit dangerous. The scene is packed with drama as Johnny Farrell (Glen Ford) looks on with fury and ringsiders scramble for the gloves and necklace she tosses their way. Make no mistake, she weaponizes her performance in a psychological battle with Johnny and her husband, Ballin Mundson (George Macready). When she asks the gentlemen in the house to help undo the back of her black strapless gown she may as well be lighting the fuse on a powder keg.

Burn, Hollywood, burn! Four noirs reveal the horrors of the screenwriting trade

Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, ‘In a Lonely Place’ (1950).

By Paul Parcellin

You’ve probably heard that screenwriters get little respect in the big town, and by many accounts that’s true. They labor in isolation, punching out fresh ideas, pouring their deepest emotions onto their pages only to have their hearts broken. 

Their masterpieces are rewritten by faceless studio hacks who turn them into pale shadows of what they were.

Or at least, that’s how screenwriters tell it.

Samuel Goldwyn used to call his writers schmucks with typewriters. When he wanted refurbished versions of recent hits he’d tell them, “Give me the same thing, only different.”

Writers were, and still are, famously powerless in the picture biz. They’re one of the most essential and least appreciated cogs in the movie making machine. 

Each of the four movies below offers a powerful and fairly unvarnished view of the rough treatment the Hollywood studio system could dish out, and no doubt still can. 

The writers behind these films, the ones who actually pounded out the pages, not the ones on screen, obviously took glee in mauling the Hollywood establishment. They draw blood. It’s fun to watch: 

Bogart and Grahame, 'In a Lonely Place.'

‘In a Lonely Place’ (1950)

Director Nicholas Ray channels the Dorothy B. Hughes novel, starring Humphrey Bogart as Hollywood scribbler Dixon Steele, a tightly wound script jockey in a creative slump. Steele loathes the studio system and the egotistical no-minds who seem to thrive in it. 

One evening Steele hosts a young woman at his apartment whom he tasks with summarizing a novel for him, a piece of drivel the studio wants him to adapt. And why not? She thinks the book is swell, and Steele can’t bear to waste time poring over the dreck. The next day the girl turns up dead and Steele is a suspect. He was one of the last to see her alive, and it’s well known that he’s an angry and violent bugger. 

He meets Laurel Grey (Gloria Grahame), a neighbor who provides him with an alibi that keeps him out of the pokey for that murder rap, for the time being at least. A romance between them blossoms, but under these circumstances how long will it be until it dies on the vine?

This was the first film to roll off the production line of Bogart’s independent company, Santana Pictures Corporation, and with its downbeat ending the public stayed away. A pity. Bogart thought it was a failure. How wrong he was.

Gloria Swanson, William Holden, 'Sunset Boulevard.' 

‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)

The same year that Bogart’s Dixon Steele dodged police investigators, screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) has the opposite problem. He can’t get arrested in this town (L.A.). Producers aren’t interested in his latest stuff, a rehash of something that wasn’t very good to begin with. Worse still, repo men are after his car, and in Los Angeles losing your car is like getting your legs cut off. 

He blunders into the crumbling estate of former silent screen siren Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and talks his way into rewriting a putrid script the lady penned. It’ll be a vehicle for her return to Hollywood immortality, she thinks. 

Gillis has a couple of B-pictures to his credit and is just about washed up in his short, anemic screen career. But he sees this odd turn of events as an opportunity to stay afloat financially for a while. Gillis thinks Norma is a soft touch, but it turns out she’s a lot more than the poor sap bargained for. 

The delusional prima donna browbeats hapless Gillis into becoming her full-time bunk mate, and it slowly dawns on him he ain’t the one pulling the strings in this puppet show. 

Norma finally gets the closeup she’s been craving, but not before Gillis takes an unscheduled dip in her swimming pool, a few bullet holes pumped into his torso. Turns out, the writing game is tougher than it looks.

John Turturro, Jon Polito, 'Barton Fink.'

‘Barton Fink’ (1991)

Broadway playwright Barton Fink (John Turturro) wants to create a new kind of theater, one aimed at “the common man.” Or so he thinks. 

His new hit, about regular folks, is the toast of the Great White Way. Trouble is, his patrons are the kinds of monied twits he despises. 

Fink, a thinly veiled caricature of socially aware playwright and screenwriter Clifford Odets, answers the call to come write for the pictures in Hollywood. It’s against every fiber of his bohemian being, but he rationalizes that he’ll pocket enough moolah to write scores more socially relevant plays. 

Set in the early 1940s, the dawn of American film noir, Fink arrives in Los Angeles like a fish rocketed out of its aquarium and plopped into the middle of the desert. He meets a gaggle of characters who disappoint and frighten him, much like the New York contingent did. 

There’s the blowhard, pushy studio chief (Michael Lerner), the respected author who’s churning out tripe for the movie mill (John Mahoney), and back-slapping, rotund insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman) who is staying next door to Fink at a gothic horror show of a hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Assigned to write a wrestling picture, Fink’s adventure in the screen trade soon goes horribly wrong. He becomes enmeshed in a genuine noir nightmare — fitting for this time and location. 

Did I mention that this is a Coen brothers' film? The surreal irony, their trademark, bleeds off of the screen as we witness Fink’s descent into the netherworld. They don’t call this town “Hell A” for nothing.

Tim Robbins, Vincent D'Onofrio, 'The Player.'

‘The Player’ (1992)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Robert Altman’s poisonous valentine to Hollywood, which came out at the peak of spec script fever. 

Studio executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is receiving threatening mail from an anonymous screenwriter who claims Mill snubbed him. The movie exec is rattled and tries to track down the one who’s sending him the nasty stuff. The problem is, out of the dozens of writers he’s ghosted, which one is harassing him? 

Mill’s investigation leads to screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D’Onofrio), who certainly does despise Mill, but is he the one threatening to do away with him? Mill’s luck keeps getting worse. The buzz around town is that a new executive at the studio, Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), is going push Mill out.

Meanwhile, the cops show up and start asking the beset executive some difficult questions about himself and Kahane. And things don’t end up so good for Kahane, either. 

As the song says, “There’s no business like show business,” and that’s probably a good thing.  

Believe it or not, Jan. 5 is National Screenwriters Day. Its purpose is to honor the writers behind the stories, dialogue and characters in films and TV. You might consider taking a screenwriter to lunch on that day. He or she could probably use some nourishment and a shoulder to cry on.

Could You Repeat That? — 36 Noirs That Unfold In Flashbacks

Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944). 

They pop up in all kinds of movies and TV shows,

but flashbacks are the stuff that films noir are made of

By Paul Parcellin

Is that film you’re watching a noir? Here’s one semi-reliable way to tell: Look for flashbacks. In noir, flashbacks show us the stuff that gets characters into the mess that they are in, and are no doubt trying to wriggle out of. 

Did that someone betray a spouse, steal from an employer or send another to an untimely grave? Or, maybe it’s a poor sap with rotten luck who landed in hot water. Flashbacks give us background information — the essential dirty details in a neat package.

Of course, even a film chock-full of flashbacks isn’t necessarily a noir. Flashbacks pop up in all kinds of movies and TV shows. But, if you’re watching a black and white film in which crime happens, and there’s at least one flashback (extra points if Robert Mitchum is doing voice-over narration), you’re probably looking at a noir. 

Flashbacks let stories unfold in fragments rather than in a single straight line. Their unpredictability jacks up our emotions and expectations, reshapes a story’s contours and, if done right, provides us with plot twists we never saw coming. 

At first we may feel sympathy for the one in a tight spot. But moods can shift once the facts come out in a flashback. Of course, the opposite is also be true. Villains sometimes morph into angels when we see what they’ve endured. 

Having said all that, here are 36 noirs with flashbacks that manipulate the flow of the story as well as our perceptions and attitudes toward it. This is but a fraction of the flashback-heavy noirs available for viewing. Bet you can name a number of others: 

Rory Mallinson, Jay C. Flippen, Maureen O'Hara, “A Woman's Secret.”

“A Woman's Secret” (1949) 

A failed singer confesses she shot her friend, and in flashbacks we see the events leading up to the shooting. But her manager and a detective doubt her story and cannot establish a reasonable motive.

“Backfire” (1950)

While recuperating from wartime back injuries, a veteran is visited on Christmas Eve by a beautiful stranger with a cryptic message. Flashbacks are used extensively to piece together a fragmented story as characters recount past events.

“The Big Clock” (1948)

The film opens at night with a magazine editor stealthily moving about in the deserted skyscraper where he works. A giant timepiece, which will prove important to the story, looks down on the building’s lobby. A murder investigation is underway and flashbacks add to the pressure principal characters experience.

“Black Angel” (1946) 

When a wrongly accused man is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife tries to prove him innocent, aided by the victim's ex-husband. In a flashback, the ex-husband tells the story of the woman’s death from his point of view. 

Hume Cronyn, Burt Lancaster, “Brute Force.”

“Brute Force” (1947)

At a tough penitentiary, a convict plans to rebel against a power-mad chief guard. Flashbacks offer insights into the prisoners’ backgrounds, motivations and the circumstance that led to their incarceration. 

“Call Northside 777” (1948) 

Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case, a perfect opportunity to see the details in flashbacks.

“Confidential Report” (also known as Mr. Arkadin) (1955) 

A mysterious billionaire hires an American smuggler to investigate his past, which leads the investigator down a rabbit hole of cold-war European intrigue. As the smuggler interviews others, we see the billionaire’s life in flashbacks

“Crossfire” (1947) 

A man is murdered by a demobilized soldier he met in a bar. An investigator puts together the pieces of the puzzle and we see in flashback how and why the crime occurred.

Lee J. Cobb, William Holden, Nina Foch, “The Dark Past.”

“The Dark Past” (1948) 

An escaped psychopathic killer takes a police psychiatrist, his family and neighbors hostage. The documentary style film is told in flashback as the psychiatrist recounts his days as a psychology professor, and the events that led him to do police work.

“Dead Reckoning” (1946) 

A soldier runs away to avoid receiving the Medal of Honor, so his buddy gets permission to investigate. Romance and death soon follow. We see the story in flashbacks as an investigating officers recounts the facts of his query to a priest.

“Double Indemnity” (1944)

An insurance salesman falls for his customer’s wife and is lured into a murder scheme. When it all blows up in his face he makes a recording of his confession on the office Dictaphone machine and we get the story in flashback.

“Dual Alibi” (1947) 

Twin trapeze artists fall out over a lottery ticket and a woman. Flashbacks frame the story and explore themes of betrayal and personality contrasts. 

Zero Mostel, Humphrey Bogart, “The Enforcer.”

“The Enforcer” (1951) 

A lead prosecutor is frustrated in his attempts to send the boss of a murder for hire syndicate to the chair. He pores over evidence hoping to find a fresh lead, and as he does we see the investigation in flashbacks, and in flashbacks within the flashback.

“Gun Crazy” (1950) 

Two gun-obsessed young people launch a crime spree. An extended flashback gives insight into the young man’s psychological makeup and his fascination with guns.

“The House on Telegraph Hill” (1951) 

A concentration camp survivor finds herself involved in mystery, greed and murder after she takes on the identity of a dead friend to gain passage to America. We learn of her past history in flashback.

“I Wake Up Screaming” (1941) 

Police detectives interrogate a sports promoter accused of murdering a beautiful model. We get the entire backstory as he starts from the beginning and tells what happened in a long flashback sequence.

Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, “The Killers.”

“The Killers” (1946)

Hitmen arrive in a small New Jersey town to kill an unresisting victim, and an insurance investigator uncovers the victim’s past involvement with a beautiful, deadly woman. As the investigator interviews people involved in the case, we see the story in flashbacks.

“Killer's Kiss” (1955) 

Standing on a railway station platform, a down and out prizefighter flashes back on the events of the past two tumultuous days. Losing a bout turns out to be the least of his worries.

“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” (1950) 

A courtroom trial is a fitting starting place to give us the facts of a case presented in flashback. We see that after a violent prison break, a clever, ruthless criminal corrupts everyone around him.

“The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) 

In flashback we observe the story of a seaman who is hired to tend to a bizarre yachting cruise. He ends up mired in a complex murder plot.

Gene Tierney, “Laura.”

“Laura” (1944) 

A muck-raking journalist tells in flashback of his close personal relationship with Laura, an attractive young woman who meets an untimely end. He’s at odds with a police detective investigating the murder who falls in love with the victim.

“Leave Her to Heaven” (1945)

A writer recounts, in flashbacks, how he fell in love with a young socialite and married her, but her obsessive love for him proved to be the undoing of them both.

“The Locket” (1946)

Just before his wedding, the bridegroom hears a disturbing tale characterizing his beloved bride as troubled and unstable. This may be a record holder of sorts for the most complex structure of nested flashbacks — that is, flashbacks within flashbacks.

“The Mask of Dimitrios” (1944)


A mystery writer becomes intrigued after the murdered body of a vicious career criminal washes up in the Bosphorus. As he interviews various individuals we see the story in flashbacks.

Joan Crawford, Moroni Olsen, “Mildred Pierce.”

“Mildred Pierce” (1945) 

A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and opens a restaurant to support her spoiled daughter. The title character tells police about the events leading up to a shooting, and we see them in a series of flashbacks.

“Murder, My Sweet” (1944) 

Private investigator Philip Marlowe, facing a police interrogation, spills the story that began with an ex-con in search of his former girlfriend, Velma. A complex web of corruption is unearthed and we see it all in flashback.

“Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (1948)

After a phony stage mentalist mysteriously acquires supernatural powers to see the future, he decides to leave the stage to live a quiet life. Flashbacks are a key element that deepen the mystery and explore the psychological torment of the protagonist.

“No Man of Her Own” (1950) 

We’re held In suspense as we learn, in flashback, the story of a pregnant woman who adopts the identity of a railroad-crash victim and starts a new life with the woman's wealthy in-laws.

Jane Greer, Robert Mitchum, “Out of the Past.”

“Out of the Past” (1947) 

A small-town gas station owner’s past catches up with him. Formerly a private eye, he’s forced to return to the life he’d been trying to escape. Gangsters and a dangerous woman await his return. Even the film’s title screams flashback, and it dishes them out aplenty.

“Possessed” (1947) 

After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there. Flashbacks offer insight into her psychological makeup and establish her as an unreliable witness.

“Repeat Performance” (1947) 

On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that led to tragedy. Presto, her wish comes true and the film becomes a year-long flashback.

“The Second Woman” (1950)

In flashback, we see the story of a woman visiting her aunt in California. She meets a neighbor and begins to suspect that he’s in grave danger.

Barbara Stanwyck, “Sorry, Wrong Number.”

“Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948) 

An invalid with an overbearing personality eavesdrops on a phone conversation about a murder plan. Her philandering husband leaves her alone for the evening, and she recalls his suspicious behavior in a series of flashbacks. 

“Sunset Boulevard” (1950) 

Pitch black humor and an inspired use of flashbacks are both strong elements in this story of a hack screenwriter who tries to save his flagging career with the help of a faded silent film star.  She’s determined to return to the screen, but things don’t work out for either of them.  

“They Won't Believe Me” (1947) 

On trial for murdering his girlfriend, a philandering stockbroker takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable-sounding, sequence of events that led to her death. The witness stand is a perfect location to present the story in flashbacks.

“Vengeance Is Mine” (1949) 

Believing himself to be dying, a man hires an assassin to kill him so he can frame an enemy for the death. Flashbacks offer gradual revelation of key events and offer psychological depth.

Paul Parcellin writes about crime films and TV. Follow him on Bluesky: @paulpar.bsky.social 

Peter Lorre: His first starring role was a massive hit and one of the most influential works of art in the history of film — and that was the problem

Peter Lorre, "M" (1931). An unforgettable psychological portrait.

By Paul Parcellin

Renowned character actor Peter Lorre created many indelible roles in groundbreaking noirs, thrillers and films of other genres while achieving greatness in Hollywood. Since June 26th marks the 120th anniversary of his birth, this is a good time to look back at some of his remarkable performances from the 1930s onward.

Born László Löwenstein in 1904 in Austria-Hungary, Peter Lorre began his career in theater on the stages of Vienna and Berlin. But it was his mesmerizing performance as the psychotic child murderer in Fritz Lang’s film “M” (1931) that elevated him to worldwide fame and established Lorre as an actor with a gift for portraying psychologically complex characters. 

Lang had Lorre in mind while working on the script for “M” and did not give him a screen test because he was already convinced that he was perfect for the part. Lorre did not disappoint the notoriously demanding Lang. Of his performance in “M” the director said, “(Lorre) gave one of the best performances in film history and certainly the best in his life.”

Despite a flourishing early career in Germany alongside theatrical giant Bertolt Brecht and Lang, Lorre, a Jew facing Nazi persecution, was forced to flee. London became a temporary haven before he landed in Hollywood.

Despite fluency in several European languages and a continental filmography, he arrived in Britain for a role knowing no English. Faced with director Alfred Hitchcock, Lorre adopted a curious strategy. He simply let Hitchcock talk, using smiles and nods to create the illusion of comprehension. This comedic performance convinced Hitchcock of Lorre's English proficiency, landing him a role in "The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934). Amusingly, it took Hitchcock two weeks to realize Lorre was a master of silent communication, not the English language. By the film's completion, Lorre's English had miraculously improved, paving the way for his 1934 Hollywood arrival.

With his large, luminous eyes and a voice unlike any other, Peter Lorre cut a striking figure amongst his peers. This, combined with his remarkable acting range, made him a highly sought-after talent in Hollywood. Lorre could effortlessly shift between portraying sympathetic souls and sinister masterminds. He wasn't confined by genre, bringing the same level of skill to villainous roles, comedic sidekicks and even tragic heroes.

From 1941 to ’46 he mainly worked for Warner Bros. His first film at Warner was The Maltese Falcon (1941). It was the first of many films in which he appeared alongside actors Humphrey Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet. 

So instantly recognizable was he, his idiosyncratic screen persona was later caricatured in movies, television and other media. A number of animated cartoons presented highly exaggerated versions of the shady characters he often played onscreen. His characteristic Eastern European accent and wide range of vocal delivery styles, from hyperkinetic to asthmatic, were often parodied. 

Lorre took on roles that poked fun at his screen persona, including alcoholic plastic surgeon Dr. Herman Einstein in “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944). In “Beat the Devil” (1953) he was Julius O’Hara, a fortune hunter with a Teutonic accent living in Chile since the end of the war — “O’Hara is a common name for German transplants,” he states matter of factly.

He worked to eliminate his accent, but filmmakers often insisted that he speak in the accent of his native land. Still, his dramatic roles, including those in classic noirs, are plentiful and filled with passion, pathos and wry wit. Yet he felt that he was forever a prisoner of the image he created in his earliest starring role as the child killer.

He was able to jettison his all too well known persona, but at the cost of taking on another stereotypical character. Lorre’s first major American success came with the character of Mr. Moto — he made eight "Mr. Moto" movies between 1937 and 1939. Disguised with gold-rimmed glasses, taped eyelids, and a hint of buck teeth, Lorre shed his previous image. Mr. Moto, though ostensibly a champion of law and order, employed unconventional methods. Elaborate disguises and ruthless deception were his tools, with hints of something darker lurking beneath the surface. In at least one instance the line between justice and murder blurred, adding a layer of ambiguity to the character. 

Driven by a desire for more creative control, Lorre formed his own production company. Unfortunately, this ambition coincided with the McCarthy era blacklist, and Lorre found himself unofficially ostracized by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. With dwindling opportunities in Hollywood, he returned to his native Germany in 1950.

There, he attempted to reclaim his artistic voice by co-writing, directing, and starring in the film “Der Verlorene” (The Lost One) (1951), a dark exploration of Germany's recent past. However, German audiences weren't receptive to this introspective look and a disappointed Lorre returned to America. Left with few options, he begrudgingly accepted roles that poked fun at his typecast villainous persona.

A lesser-known aspect of Lorre's life is his struggle with chronic pain and addiction. A burst appendix at age 21 left him with persistent stomach issues, treated by doctors with the highly addictive morphine. This treatment likely sparked a lifelong battle with opiates.

Biographer Stephen Youngkin's "The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre" suggests the addiction played a role in the breakdown of Lorre's three marriages and contributed to his financial struggles later in life.

By the 1950s, with television offering new opportunities, Lorre found himself still typecast, often a comedic reflection of his past menacing roles. Living in a tiny Hollywood apartment, he passed away from a stroke in 1964. A complex performer forever linked to a specific on-screen persona, it’s open to speculation what he might have accomplished had his creative powers gone unhindered by his early success.

Here’s a sampling of Peter Lorre’s noirs and thrillers with a few words about each:

“M” (1931)

A cornered killer.

Child killer Hans Beckert (Lorre) stalks young girls in Berlin and is powerless to fight his compulsion to murder. Director Fritz Lang’s masterwork is a portrait of how a city reacts to a wave of heinous crimes, from the police, politicians, ordinary citizens to the members of the city’s underworld. Lorre’s character is a mass of uncontrolled psychotic impulses who holds the city at bay as he methodically seeks out and terminates young victims. 

The killer is a childlike psychotic who kindly offers his young female victims candy before killing them. Lorre manages to make the tormented Beckert sympathetic as his world collapses around him. He’s a monster, tortured by his impulses and unable to stop his dark deeds. Eventually, the underworld, not the police or courts, catch up with him. 

It’s not the killings, per se, that inspire the criminal element to capture and try him. His terrible acts have upset the natural order of things and brought extra police scrutiny down upon the city’s underworld. The outlaws want to dispose of the matter and go about their business once again and only a swift verdict and brutal justice will do.  

This, his first starring role, gave Lorre a career boost, but it typecast him as a villain after having previously played largely comedic roles.

“The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1934)

The streak of white in his hair makes espionage agent Abbot (Lorre) seem feral and cunning as he leads a troupe of terrorists on a mission to assassinate a foreign diplomat visiting London. Lorre’s natural European accent lends the right touch of spookiness to the grinning Abbot, as he tries to out-gentleman the ultra-refined British gent Bob Lawrence (Leslie Banks). 

Abbot and his associates kidnap Lawrence’s young daughter and are holding her hostage. They aim to prevent Lawrence from spilling details of the assassination plot that he stumbled on. When they finally meet, both men exercise an exaggerated etiquette normally reserved for high tea at the Savoy. 

Abbot, the smiling spy master, is ruthless, although British authorities suggest that Lawrence might consider revealing to them the information he knows despite the fact that the youngster held hostage would likely be killed. Lawrence doesn’t cave in to either side, and fortunately his sharpshooter wife, Jill (Edna Best), proves she can do more than shatter flying skeet.

“Secret Agent” (1936)

“The General” (Lorre) is an enigmatic character also known by some as the “hairless Mexican.” He’s neither hairless, Mexican nor a general. Rather, he’s a killer for hire who affects a jolly, carefree manner as he performs his freelance occupation. British agent Capt. Edgar Brodie (John Gielgud) is tasked with eliminating a German spy holed up in Switzerland. 

Brodie has been provided with a new identity and an attractive wife, Elsa Carrington (Madeleine Carroll), to further mask his true identity. He contracts the General to help accomplish his mission, but the hired killer’s carefree attitude toward murder sticks in the craw of both Brodie and Elsa, especially after a significant mistake is made. 

The General is utterly without remorse and capable of dispatching anyone for the right price. Lorre gives him the tinge of mental instability beneath his jovial demeanor. He howls with laughter when an innocent victim is killed in error, and when it’s time for him to go to work he does so with efficiency and a lack of compunction. His is a personality whose qualities, taken as a whole, don’t seem to add up. Yet, he’s somehow quite convincing and not just a little disturbing.   

“Stranger on the Third Floor” (1940)

Margaret Tallichet, Peter Lorre,
"Stranger on the Third Floor.

Aspiring news reporter Michael Ward (John McGuire) is the key witness at the murder trial of a young taxi driver Joe briggs (Elisha Cook Jr.) accused of cutting a café owner's throat and is soon accused of a similar crime himself.

Lorre plays the stranger living in a rooming house who, despite the conviction, is suspected of committing the crime. Like his Hans Beckert in “M,” Lorre’s unnamed “stranger” has reptilian bulging, anxious eyes and contorted, fearful facial expressions that suggest genuine terror. He’s mysterious, menacing and may be a cold blooded murderer.

Novelist Nathaniel West did an uncredited revision on the script, an unconventional telling of the story featuring flashbacks within flashbacks. In it, the broken-hearted characters who populate a tawdry rooming house are like the residents of a cheap hotel at which West worked on the night shift as he wrote during the day. His published works include “Day of the Locust” and “Miss Lonelyhearts,” stories of tormented individuals living on society’s fringes and other outsiders, much like those of “Stranger on the Third Floor.” 

“I Was an Adventuress” (1940)

Mild mannered kleptomaniac Polo (Lorre) is a member of a trio who travel about Europe, fleecing the well heeled. With hair pasted to his scalp and remarkably bad dental work, Polo pretends to be a scholar of antiquities, assuring the dupes that the phony artifacts they purchase are of the genuine articles. Lurking beneath his nerdish surface lies a dedicated thief. 

While helping to bilk a greedy collector he can’t restrain himself from also lifting an ambassador’s wallet. When gang ringleader Andre Desormeaux (Erich von Stroheim ) scolds him for his unsanctioned thievery, he laments, “I guess I’m just a pathological case,” adding, almost proudly, “I am a weak character. So is my whole family.”

Polo is teamed up with Desormeaux and phony countess Tanya Vronsky (Vera Zorina), who winds up falling in love with one of their would-be victims, Paul Vernay (Richard Greene). This throws a wrench into Desormeaux’s plans and he later blackmails, by then, the happily married Tanya. But she’s not about to take the matter lying down.

“The Face Behind the Mask” (1941)

Hungarian watch maker Janos “Johnnie” Szabo (Lorre) is a naive, child-like immigrant who arrives in Manhattan and soon gets schooled in the tough breaks one faces in the big city. Caught in a hotel fire, his face is disfigured and he can’t find honest work. Despondent, he’s set to jump off of the docks when a stranger, Dinky (George E. Stone), stops him. Dinky splits the cash he pilfers from a bystander’s wallet with Johnnie, giving the greenhorn a first taste of the fruits of lawlessness. 

Destitute, Johnnie later commits a crime to help heal a sick friend, then plays ball with some mobsters in hope of earning enough for plastic surgery. His mechanical genius serves him well as a thief. He dispatches alarm systems with unusual dexterity, skills that could be used in honest employment if society would only let him into the workforce.

Flush with cash, Johnnie is fitted with a custom made mask resembling his face prior to the accident, and he plans to save his money for a more costly operation. The mask gives him a stern, unsmiling countenance that contrasts greatly with his fresh faced look before the disfigurement. His outlook has also changed markedly. He’s hardened to the ways of the new world and his enthusiasm, naïveté and youthful vigor have died. 

Lorre does a remarkable job of navigating the emotional range of the once optimistic Johnnie who has morphed into an unflinching cynic.

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941)

Sydney Greenstreet, Lorre.

World traveler and international criminal Joel Cairo (Lorre) is after the storied Maltese Falcon, a jewel encrusted statue worth a vast fortune, but he must compete with others of similar ambition, including rotund adventurer Kasper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) — it’s one of the most enduring Lorre-Greenstreet on-screen pairings. 

Meanwhile, San Francisco private detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) takes on a case that involves Cairo, Gutman, Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.) and femme fatale Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor), all of whom want the statue and are each willing to cut the other’s throat to get it. They call a truce and decide to join forces, but how long will their good will last? In all, Lorre made five films with Bogart.

Lorre’s Cairo is vain, ruthless and conniving, but makes the mistake of scrapping with Wonderly, and she draws blood. 

This impromptu band of fortune hunters is like a school of piranha, madly scrambling for the “dingus” as Spade calls it, and ready to betray one another and draw blood in a heartbeat. Their pursuit of the legendary statue is an obsession, and the fortune it could bring the owner is beside the point. It becomes a struggle for the upper hand and the supposed glory of becoming the prize’s sole possessor. In the end, the taste of victory turns to ashes in their mouths. Still, a more entertaining assembly of offbeat characters in this or any other genre is hard to come by.

“The Mask of Dimitrios” (1944)

Mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Lorre) is intrigued by a violent career criminal whose murdered body washes up on an Istanbul beach. He meets smuggler Mr. Peters (Sydney Greenstreet) who is also interested in the drowned criminal, Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott). 

Skeptical that the lawbreaker met his doom, Peters plans to blackmail Makropoulos after a smuggling scheme the two worked on went wrong. Makropoulos is now a respectable banker and details of his sordid past would ruin him. Leyden goes on a journey around Europe to learn more about the story behind the supposedly deceased master criminal.

Lorre’s Leyden is not the sinister character that he often played on screen. In fact, he’s more the detective trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together because he senses that the facts will make a great novel. Much of the story is told in flashback as Leyden interviews those who know, or knew, Makropoulos, a la “Citizen Kane.” Greenstreet’s Peters is Leyden’s corrupt foil, and both have a deep interest in the same criminal for very different reasons. 

Peters needs Leyden’s help to pull of his blackmail scheme, since the mystery writer was one of the few who saw Makropoulos’s body in the morgue. They are to meet in Paris, where Peters will attempt to extract a million francs from Makropoulos, if he’s still alive. Of course, things don’t work out as Peters had hoped.

“The Chase” (1946)

Gino (Lorre), the tight-lipped right hand man to Miami gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) is brutal and intimidating for a man of his physical stature. Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) gets a job as Eddie Roman’s chauffeur, and he risks everything by getting involved with the gangster’s nervous wife, Lorna (Michèle Morgan). Gino is as cold blooded as his boss and has no second thoughts about killing whoever must be gotten rid of. 

Needless to say, Scott realizes, albeit too late, that he’s working for a maniac. Roman has a set of controls in the back seat of his limo that let him take command of the car’s gas pedal and the brake, much to Scott’s terror. They have a close call with death as Scott’s nerves are tested. Roman pushes the accelerator to the floor, but it’s all a ruse and Roman approves of Scott’s clear headed driving while under great pressure. Gino, also in the back seat, is scared out of his wits, although he’s no stranger to his boss’s savagely deranged sense of humor.

Adapted from the Cornell Woolrich novel, “The Black Path of Fear,” the chase moves from the sunny shores of Miami to Cuba. Scott and Lorna run off to Havana after he agrees to help her get away from Roman — not a wise decision for anyone who hopes to die of natural causes.

“Black Angel” (1946)

Lorre, Dan Duryea.

Nightclub manager Marko (Lorre) has a permanent hangdog expression and an air of effortless control over his underlings. He moves at a lethargic pace — and even the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth seems to droop under a heavy weight. It’s a classic Lorre performance that demonstrates yet another variation on his seemingly infinite storehouse of shady characters. 

Marko is somehow connected to a murder mystery that’s the heart of the story, another Cornell Woolrich adaptation.

When Kirk Bennett (John Phillips) is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife, Catherine (June Vincent), tries to prove him innocent. Teaming up with the victim's ex-husband, pianist Martin Blair (Dan Duryea), they land a job performing in Marko’s club.

It turns out that Blair spotted Marko going into the dead girl’s apartment on the night she was murdered, and he’s a top suspect in the killing. But the pianist is a heavy drinker and was intoxicated on the night in question. He still carried a torch for his ex-missus, and was lurking outside of her building when the slaying by strangulation occurred. 

Catherine is convinced that her wandering husband is innocent of the crime and is determined to save him from the death house. But the clock is ticking.

“Three Strangers” (1946)

Another Lorre-Greenstreet paring, this time in a story with a supernatural bent. Johnny West (Lorre) is a boozy, good natured gent who has a chance encounter with two others, the conniving Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and solicitor Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet). 

They make a bargain involving a Chinese idol and a sweepstakes ticket for the Grand National horse race. Through some hocus-pocus they end up winning. But both Crystal and Arbutny make some underhanded maneuvers that cause their dreams to go up in flames.

If “Three Strangers” feels a bit like “The Maltese Falcon” it’s no coincidence. At one point it was envisioned as a sequel to that film starring Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor, but it turned out that the rights to those characters had reverted back to Dashiell Hammett. 

The story’s original title was “Three Men and a Girl,” and Bette Davis and George Brent were to star in it before Warner Brothers finally settled on the Lorre-Fitzgerald-Greenstreet cast. 

John Huston, who directed “The Maltese Falcon” and teamed up with Hammett to write the “Falcon” screenplay, co-wrote “Three Strangers” with Howard Koch. It’s not in the same league as “The Maltese Falcon,” but few films are.

“The Verdict” (1946)

A modest Scotland Yard mystery set in the 1880s, “The Verdict” is yet another Lorre-Greenstreet paring — they did nine in all, although I’ve heard that both were extras in another film, so technically it’s 10. They didn’t necessarily share a lot of screen time in all of them, but were a legendary Hollywood duo.

As the story goes, after an innocent man is executed for homicide, a Scotland Yard superintendent investigates the murder of his key witness. Jolly Olde London is mocked up on the Warner lot with pea-soup fog so dense as to be laughable.

Lorre, as artist Victor Emmric, is understated yet ghoulish and darkly comic when he shows up uninvited to a nocturnal exhumation and delivers lines such as, “I’ve always had a suppressed desire to see a grave opened, especially at night.” He’s dangled before us as an obvious suspect in the killing, but is he just a red herring? 

Take note that this is director Don Siegel’s debut, and that Joan Lorring, also in the cast of “Three Strangers,” appears here as showgirl Lottie Rawson.

Burt Lancaster, Lorre amid a field of diamonds.

“Rope of Sand” (1949)

Clad in a white linen suit and Panama hat, fast talker Toady (Lorre) chats up hunting guide Mike Davis (Burt Lancaster). Davis knows where a cache of diamonds are hidden and Toady wants a piece of the action. The story is set in the South African desert, where, in Toady’s words “gems lie just below the surface.” It’s one of the world’s richest diamond fields and sadistic security chief Vogel (Paul Henreid) brutalizes anyone who tries to steal the precious stones.

Toady speaks in purple poetic phrases and his oily lines of patter get under Davis’s skin. “Why do we stay here, plucking at the skirt of this woman, this desert, this heartless courtesan?” he asks Davis, who promptly brushes him off, unmoved by Toady’s self assessment as, “Splendidly corrupt and eager to be of profitable service.”

Hoping to regain his revoked license as a hunting guide, Davis intends to tell the politically powerful mine owner where the missing rocks are hidden. But Vogel assaults him and he decides to steal the diamonds instead — a risky endeavor stacked with long odds against him.

“Quicksand” (1950)

Dan Brady (Mickey Rooney) takes $20 from his employer to go on a date, planning to replace in the next day. Turns out, his date, the marvelously self-serving blonde femme fatale Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney), brings him to view a a mink coat in a shop window. She’d do anything to get it, she tells Dan.

Next, they go a penny arcade operated by the acerbic and quite sleazy Nick Dramoshag (Lorre). Vera seems to have a romantic past with Nick, and hints to him that she’s still waiting for a mink coat. Dan is slow to realize how much trouble he’s getting himself into — and what kind of woman he’s dating — as he attempts to wheel and deal to pay back his employer. 

Making one bad choice after another, Dan’s life spirals out of control. For an average guy who never got in trouble before, Dan does an efficient job of painting himself into a corner. It’s no wonder — he’s really no match for Vera and Nick.

“Congo Crossing” (1956)

Col. John Miguel Orlando (Lorre) is the weary face of governmental oversight in Congotanga, West Africa, where gangsters are the defacto rulers. The country’s main attraction is that it has no extradition treaties. 

An assortment of lawbreakers on the lam take advantage of the country’s laissez-faire policies. Among the fugitives enjoying safe haven is Louise Whitman (Virginia Mayo), who is fleeing a French murder charge. 

Meanwhile, surveyor David Carr (George Nader) is on a mission to determine the true border of Congotanga, a project on which head gangster Carl Rittner (Tonio Selwart) wants inside information. The land survey could determine that Congotanga belongs to the Belgians, and the transfer of authority would put an end to the rackets there.

Lorre’s Orlando is an ineffectual policeman who walks a tightrope between his official duties and the gangsters’s powerful influence. Orlando double-crosses the surveyor, telling him, “It serves you right for making a deal with someone like me.” Anyone who’s seen the bulk of Lorre’s movies would have guessed that.

Pop! Goes the Flashbulb: In Noir, Photographers Did It the Old Fashioned Way, and their Pictures Usually Turned the Town, and Crime Investigations, Upside Down

Howard Duff snaps a candid shot in "Shakedown" (1950).

Contains Spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

Lighting and photographic style play an outsized role in crime dramas of all kinds, including film noir. But then there are the noirs and thrillers that put a camera in front of the camera — or to be more precise, they’re films in which a photographer and his or her pictures play a key role in the story. 

It turns out that the camera can perform a number of roles, as recorder of truth, an instrument of deception and blackmail, a shield against assault or a device that uncovers crime that the naked eye wouldn’t notice. 

Holding a camera and press credentials — real or fake — can help get you into places that normally restrict access, be it a crime scene, lavish party or a war zone — and some are a combination of all three.

Here are some films featuring paparazzo whose pictures shake up the status quo for better or worse:

Martha Vickers, Humphrey Bogart, "The Big Sleep."

“The Big Sleep” (1946) 

A camera is a blackmailer's best friends. It can catch a dupe in the act of regrettable deeds and preserve that transgression for ill-gained profit. Private eye Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is hired to get elderly Gen. Sternwood’s young daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) out of just such a pickle. 

A blackmailer catches her on film, drugged up and in a compromising position. 

It’s highly embarrassing for Gen. Sternwood. For Carmen? Meh.

The incriminating pictures are taken with a camera hidden inside an Asian sculpture in the home of shady bookseller Arthur Geiger. In addition to handling volumes of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Geiger also maintains a backroom lending library of smut.  

But his blackmail scheme is just the tip of the iceberg, and the deeper Marlowe dives into this black pool of treachery the greater the number of players he discovers. So sprawling and complex is this mystery that even after hearing the solution you may be a bit confused. I certainly was.

Duff, "Shakedown" — the last shot.

“Shakedown” (1950)

News photographer Jack Early (Howard Duff) blows his boss’s mind with his candid shots of crimes in progress. Turns out his uncanny luck of being at the right place when the action unfolds has little to do with good fortune and a lot to do with inside info. Through manipulations and backroom arrangements he snaps pictures that other photographers miss, making him the newsroom star.

His editor sends him on a near impossible mission to photograph a crime boss who won’t allow his picture to be taken, and the camera clicker makes a deal with the kingpin — then double crosses him. 

The film’s wrap-up sees the slimy photographer set up his camera for a spectacular shot, and it turns out to be his last.

Keep an eye out for Hollywood wild man Lawrence Tierney and an uncredited Rock Hudson. 

Cyd Charisse, "Tension."

“Tension”  (1949)

It doesn’t take a pro photographer, an FBI agent or a blackmailer to shoot a picture that blows a mystery wide open. Sometimes an ordinary “Jane Q. Public” can handle the job.

Shutter bug Mary Chanler (Cyd Charisse) is romantically attracted to dashing salesman Paul Sothern (Richard Basehart). The problem is that Sothern isn’t who he says he is. He’s milquetoast pharmacy employee Warren Quimby, who’s planning to kill his cheating wife Claire’s (Audrey Totter) boyfriend, Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough).

Quimby assumes the fictional identity of Sothern, hoping to get close enough to Deager to do him in. 

He doesn’t go through with it, and his plan backfires after he drops the “Sothern” guise and goes back to being Quimby. Mary thinks he’s gone missing and gives the police a photo of him she snapped as a lark. Before long, the authorities figure out that Quimby and Sothern are the same person, and things begin to look worse for Quimby when Deager turns up dead.

If nothing else, it’s probably a good idea to remember that, in noir, there is no such thing as a harmless photograph. 

James Stewart, "Rear Window." 

“Rear Window” (1954)

Photographs can record information that the untrained eye would not normally see. And strangely enough, the camera can be used as a defensive weapon to obscure an intruder’s vision and stop him in his tracks.

Confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, photo journalist L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart) wiles away his time watching the goings on visible through his neighbors’ windows. None of it is X-rated, but there’s an undercurrent of voyeuristic impulse on display in this Alfred Hitchcock thriller.

One resident in the unit across the courtyard catches his interest. It’s the apartment that Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) shares with his wife, and Jefferies begins to suspect that the burly Thorwald has done away with her.

Pondering this, Jefferies pores over photos of the garden and realizes that the camera has picked up something suspicious. A buried object, perhaps? 

Piece by piece, Jefferies and his lady friend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) collect evidence and turn up the heat on Thorwald. His brooding neighbor finally breaks and comes to Jefferies’ apartment intending to silence him for good. 

But Jefferies’s trusty camera comes in handy when he repeatedly fires the flash attachment to temporarily blind the intruder. Flash bulb after flash bulb, Jefferies clicks away to ward off the attack. But like a soldier running out of ammo, his ploy can only stave off trouble for so long and the outcome could be very bad.

David Hemmings, "Blow-Up."

“Blow-Up” (1966)

Here’s another example of a camera capturing the truth and revealing odd details that the eye tends to miss. Sometimes that obscure information can reveal a criminal conspiracy. But no matter how air-tight the photographic evidence may seem, the pursuit of justice can be a futile endeavor. 

Fashion photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) plies his trade in 1960s Swinging London. Occasionally he delves into art photography, a pursuit that unexpectedly plunges him into a sinkhole of doubt and paranoia.  

While shooting landscape photos in a park one day, he photographs a couple lingering there. Upon enlarging and examining the resulting photos he sees a man with a gun and a body hidden among the greenery. He realizes that he’s stumbled onto a crime scene and the lingering couple are likely the victim and a co-conspirator.

Try as he might, he can’t seem to elicit any concern from his peers, all of whom seem to wallow in a haze of pot smoke, aloof and coolly detached from reality. 

When the alleged crime scene photos are stolen, Thomas is left with nothing tangible to persuade authorities to investigate and his efforts hit a brick wall. 

In the park he meets a mime troupe playing a mock game of  tennis with invisible rackets and balls, and he soon becomes wrapped up in watching the faux game. Reality, it seems, is what the majority believe it to be, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

Joe Pesci, "The Public Eye."

“The Public Eye” (1992)

Freelance news photographer Leon "Bernzy" Bernstein (Joe Pesci) roams the streets of 1940s New York in search of gruesome crime scenes and other tabloid  fodder.  He’s a thinly veiled stand-in for shutter-snapper Arthur Fellig, a.k.a. “Weegee,” whose work is still shown in museums and published in fine art catalogues as well as coffee table books. 

Weegee, so called because of his ability to anticipate when and where juicy photo opportunities would crop up, was not above ginning up a crime scene to make more spectacular pictures. Likewise, Bernzy might move a fedora closer to a corpse for dramatic effect at the expense of fidelity to the truth. But that’s because Bernzy, like Weegee, sees a higher truth in his art — and he does see his photographs as art, not mere junk journalism. 

His aesthetic sense, his nose for news as well as his marketing savvy tell him to go for the dramatic gut-punch and leave the detective work to the coppers. He may have smudged a latent fingerprint here or there, but his pictures deliver the sort of blood and guts shots that leap off the page in tabloid bulldog editions.  

Jake Gyllenhaal, "Nightcrawler."

“Nightcrawler” (2014)

So far we’ve only talked about still photographers, but an exception can be made for “Nightcrawler,” which shines a harsh light on the TV news biz, more specifically, the sleazy, deceptive practices of freelance videographer Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), who covers nighttime Los Angeles and distorts the truth to fit what the viewing public wants to see and hear. 

As his career advances, Bloom reveals his utter lack of ethics as he makes a grotesque lunge toward success while trampling the journalistic ideals of even handedness, fair play and above all else, the truth. 

Charles Bronson, "Man with a Camera."

“Man with a Camera” (1958-1960)

This TV crime drama features war veteran turned freelance photographer Mike Kovac (Charles Bronson). Kovac usually snaps pictures for insurance companies, the police and average citizens. He’s known for taking dangerous assignments that others turn down and he often acts as a private eye, to boot. 

His police liaison is Lt. Donovan (James Flavin) and he seeks counsel from his dad, Anton Kovac (Ludwig Stössel). 

When working undercover, Kovac uses slick devices such as cameras hidden in a radio, cigarette lighter and his necktie — shades of James Bond. Better yet, he’s got car phone and a portable darkroom in the trunk for developing film on the spot, as did Weegee. Some ideas are just too good not to copy.