(NOIR) Sleep, My Love - 1948 **** 1/2

Douglas Sirk, in my opinion is one of the best directors of the 40s/50s. I was also amazed to see that Mary Pickford had produced this which proves how much of a pioneer in all areas of film she was.
Colbert plays a woman named Alison, who wakes up disorientated on a speeding train with no idea of how she got there.
Her husband is panic-stricken on her return and does his best to comfort her. However, he is careful not to talk too much about the bizarre bullet wound in his arm, or his wife's sleepwalking attempts which sometimes lead her out onto the balcony to other people. He gets her to start seeing a psychiatrist but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Thankfully a nice young man named Bruce comes into her life, and notices that things seem to keep happening around Alison, and her husband seems just a bit too saccharine for his own good...
Gripping, exciting, tense and well shot. The pace was fast, but just right, so the story could be followed without too much difficulty.
Hazel Brooks gives a very sultry performance as Daphne - a cross between Jane Russell, Joan Bennett and Gene Tierney in the beautiful women stakes. 

(NOIR) Cry of the City - 1948 **

Robert Siodmak?? What have you done sir? You're normally amazing at directing. I don't understand how this was so unimpressive. Victor Mature is one of those actors you want to like so much, but actually he's completely uninteresting and I really don't think much of him. A bit like Katherine Hepburn. He plays a police lieutenant who is trying to hunt down criminal Richard Conte who has escaped from jail after killing a policeman. It's slow and doesn't have the typical noir quality that I love. It has all the characteristics of a B movie although I fear it's not. 

(NOIR) Act of Violence - 1948 ***

'Act of Violence' is a mediocre noir about a man struggling to come to terms with the guilt of betraying his comrades in the war. Van Heflin plays Frank, who is constantly haunted by the fact that he took food from his captors after the rest of his men had been murdered. Unbeknownst to him, his former best friend Joe (Robert Ryan) also survived and is determined on payback. Frank's wife knows nothing about the situation, whilst Joe's girlfriend knows everything but cannot convince Joe to let sleeping dogs lie.

The stand out performance has to be Mary Astor as a bedraggled, past her prime prostitute who tries to help Frank out of his predicament. Van Heflin is a good actor too, and the more I see him in the more I like him. I wouldn't rate this noir at the top, but it's better than average.

(NOIR) He Walked By Night - 1948 ***

This was a surprisingly good movie. It's set out in a sort of semi-documentary way about a crook who murders a policeman and the subsequent chase between him and the police that leads them all to the underground. It has a hint of 'The Third Man' in it, and obviously the latter trumps this by 100%, but I was still fascinated by it and one particular scene where the killer sits in wait in his darkened room, his dog snarling at the window as the police close in on him. It's really thrilling.

A good film, exciting and gripping.