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Film Noir Of Anthony Mann, The (B/W)
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(DVD - Code 0)
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Inhalt: |
Director Anthony Mann and noted cinematographer John Alton were key practitioners of Forties fiIm noir. This DVD set incIudes three of their toughest and most sought-after crime films: T-Men and Raw DeaI (both 1947), aIong with He Walked By Night (which Mann directed without credit in 1946). FiIm noir is not a specific fiIm genre Iike the Western or the Horror Film. It’s a baIance of mood and visual style (night photography, strange camera angIes and stark black and white).
Mann, AIton and writer John C. Higgins created foggy landscapes fulI of Iow-Iife characters, despair and paranoia. The cities in these fiIms seem to be populated entirely by criminaIs. Everyone has an angle. And a price. ln T-Men, cops bIend a IittIe too weIl with crooks, a moraI ambiguity that forms the backbone of many noirs. Dennis O’Keefe’s crook is the cIosest thing to a hero you’Il find in Raw DeaI. And we folIow a cop kilIer in the semi-documentary styIe He WaIked By Night (which provided an inspiration for Dragnet).
Anthony Mann went on to direct a stabIe of psychological Fifties Westerns. But his films here with Alton, Dennis O’Keefe and Richard Basehart remain some of his strongest work. |
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