Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 1 (The Asphalt Jungle / Gun Crazy / Murder My Sweet / Out of the Past / The Set-Up)

If you enjoy film noir movies from the 1940's and '50s, then this is a great set. The box set contains 5 movies. The picture quality overall is near perfect - all in glorious black and white. Here are my reviews of the 5 movies:OUT OF THE PASTThe storyline of this movie revolves around a rural gas station owner in Nevada named Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum). Bailey is dating a sweet and innocent girl named a Meta Carson (Jane Greer). One day a man comes to town looking for Bailey. As it turns out, Bailey has a secret past as a private detective who was once hired to find a beautiful and dangerous woman named Kathy Moffit (Jane Greer) for a corrupt millionaire named Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas). The assignment went wrong in many ways, but Bailey is coerced back to do one more job for Sterling. From this point on there is an elaborate and convoluted scheme of deception and betrayal.Overall, the film has a great film noir look to it and the story is gripping. Mitchum does a stellar job as the cunning detective and Jane Greer is absolutely irresistible. Kirk Douglas also sparkles in this movie. It's also worth noting that this movie was later remade in the early '80s starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward in "Against All Odds".The DVD quality is near pristine overall, but some small specs of film deterioration could be seen once in a while during the course of the movie. The only bonus feature is commentary by film noir author James Ursini.Movie: ADVD Quality: A-THE ASPHALT JUNGLEThe basic plot of the movie is that a highly educated convict Doc Erwin Riedenschneider (Sam Jeffe) is just released from prison. He then organizes a team of dubious characters to rob a million dollars worth of diamonds and precious metals from a highly secured jewelry store. Riedenschneider decides he needs some muscle or a "hooligan", so he hires a big countryboy named Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden). Also, they include the financial and "fencing" services of a wealthy criminal attorney named Lon Emmerich (Louis Calhern). From that point on there is plenty of suspense and drama as the big heist unfolds.This movie was directed by Hollywood legend John Huston. The story itself isn't the greatest in my opinion, but the look of the movie captures the full artistry of noir film making. The movie was filmed in the seedier part of urban Los Angeles. The use of shadows and local lighting in dingy inner city settings make this movie a cinematic masterpiece. My only personal criticism of the film is that Sterling Hayden character was miscast. He played the role of the tough guy but seemed to be too easygoing and lacked ruthlessness. The Doc Riedenschneider and Lon Emmerich characters carried this movie into the upper echelon of noir crime films with their intelligent, yet immorally criminal schemes. We also get to see some limited viewing of a young and very beautiful Marilyn Monroe.The DVD transfer is excellent overall and very sharp. On occasion some very minor film deterioration can be observed. The picture quality is razor sharp. The look of the movie (just about all it was filmed at night ) is gorgeous. There is bonus commentary by author and noir expert Drew Casper and actor James Whitmore.Movie: A-DVD Quality: B+THE SET-UPThe Set-Up is a real-time boxing movie. In other words, it's a 72 minute movie that shows a continuous 72 minute story. The star is Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) who's a 35 year old boxer in the twilight of his less than glorious career. Even though he's taken some bad beatings of late, he still remains confident that he still has a promising future ahead of him. The plot involves Stoker's manager accepting a $50 bribe that will insure that Stoker will lose tonight's fight against a young and up-and-coming boxer. But since the manager is too cheap and too certain that Stoker will lose anyway, he fails to let Stoker know that a fix is on. The rest of the movie progresses on with gripping suspense and drama with plenty of boxing action.I really liked this movie a lot. The name of the town where the story takes place is Paradise City, but its the furthest thing from utopia. The dingy boxing arena is in an old area of town surrounded with rundown hotels, bars, dance joints and arcades. Just about all of the main characters and the boxing patrons in the movie are unlikable people, but the underlying theme for everyone is optimism - trying to win an expensive item in an arcade game, or placing a bet on a boxing match or winning a boxing match - all hoping for a better future.The DVD transfer is superb. There are virtually no signs of film deterioration throughout the entire film. The black and white tones are pure and the picture is razor sharp. The use of shadows and directed light is magnificantly done. The dark, urban setting works magic in this film. There is bonus commentary by director Robert Wise plus added comments by Martin Scoresese.Movie: A-DVD Quality: AMURDER, MY SWEETThe storyline of this movie is that a private detective, Phillip Marlow (Dick Powell), gets involved in the recovery of a stolen jade necklace. The job initially seems simple, but the investigation gets more convulated and dangerous as time goes on. During the job, Marlow encounters two very attractive women (Claire Trevor and Anne Shirley) who also make the movie very watchable.Overall, its a beautifully filmed movie. It clearly has the classic film noir style, but the substance of the plot gets so complicated that at times its too hard to follow, and finally has to end by explaining a lot of the twist and turns. It's a lot more of a murder-mystery movie than an crime-action film. I still strongly recommend this movie, but if you are like me, you will probably have to watch it twice to pickup all the subtle details of the story.The DVD quality is excellent overall, but some small specs of film deterioration could be seen once in a while during the course of the movie. It's not a perfect picture presentation, but near perfect. The only bonus features are commentary by film noir author Alan Silver and the original theater trailer.Movie: B+DVD Quality: A-GUN CRAZYThe story starts with a teenage boy named Bart who is obsessed with guns. He's so obsessed that he has to steal one and gets caught and goes to reform school for four years. After finishing school he does four years in the army as a shooting instructor and then finally comes back to his hometown and sees his old friends. Bart (adult character played by John Dall) then goes with his friends to a carnival and sees a shooting exhibition by an attractive young blonde woman named Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins). He beats her in a shooting contest and then joins the act. From that point on, it sets the stage for strange romance, plus some action and adventure with the gun-happy couple.This DVD was one of five DVD released by Warner Brothers in the Film Noir Classics Collection Volume 1. Unlike the four others, the acting and script seemed second rate compared to the other four. The main character Bart, didn't seem very convincing in his role. Also, the movie has the feel of one of those teen explotation movies from the 1950's preaching the evils of firearm use rather than a dark, crime film. But overall, the movie is still very watchable and at times quite entertaining.The DVD picture quality was terrific. It was very rare to see a spec of film deterioration anywhere in the movie. The sound was satisfactory. The only bonus is commentary by Glenn Erickson.Movie: B-DVD Quality: A

Gun CrazyGun Crazy and Bonnie and Clyde are thought about in tandem and it's an unfair comparison. Gun Crazy is a much better film than Bonnie and Clyde. After he called Bonnie and Clyde "a cheap piece of slapstick comedy" the New York Times fired film critic Bosley Crowther. "Slop is slop" added New York Magazine film critic John Simon.Gun Crazy has what is known in the trade as backstory; the ins and outs of personal history that make the actions of people plausible. Bonnie and Clyde has no backstory. It's a straight ahead shoot `em up. Gun Crazy has inventive and daring camera work: forward zooms from the back seat of a car, low angle shots of the car driver through a steering wheel, even techniques of cinema verité mixing studio footage with ambient noise; anything to keep the film from bogging down. In case your interest flags, director Joseph H. Lewis puts the criminals in a dancehall dressed to the nines in their ill gotten goods, the violinist in the band gets a full frame facial, as does the band's beautiful singer and you think, just for a moment, that this couple might get away with their crimes, escape to Mexico, and raise a pair of well behaved children. Well, dear viewer, you have been seduced and deluded - qualities no one ever attributed to Bonnie and Clyde.A final aspect making Gun Crazy different is its leading lady Annie Starr, played convincingly by British actress Peggy Cummins. She's a creature of primal desire and unrepentant violence who kills because she likes doing it. Her contemporary might be Charlize Theron's Eileen Warnos character in Monster but The New Yorker (a publication that should know better) called Warnos "a victim" rather than a perpetrator. In sum, the reason they don't make movies like they used to is simple: they can't. Gun Crazy springs from an era that's gone, and isn't coming back.Out of The PastAs the film title implies, the past exerts a powerful pull on Robert Mitchum, and even a new identity isn't enough to escape its lurid magnetism. The main characters are not as openly attracted to guns, but even though we sometimes don't see the violence, we see its results. Mitchum's dilemma is that attractive female liaisons reside in past and present; he can't decide which to follow and which to leave behind. As a result, he's forever hostage to the schemes of Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) a man who knows what he wants, but not how to get it. Male and female characters work hard to exert their will and Mitchum seems caught in the middle. Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat is just as deadly as Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy, if not as obvious about it. She shot Whit once and escaped, he's a glutton, but not for punishment. She gives it to him anyway.The film is less adventurous with technical wizardry than Gun Crazy but still deploys many of the staples of noir storytelling. It comes with an especially interesting commentary on film noir history by noir historian James Ursini, co author with Alain Silver of Film Noir Reader.The Asphalt JungleGun Crazy and Out Of The Past concentrate on the destinies of individuals. The Asphalt Jungle, directed by John Huston, aims to paint broad strokes and make a sweeping social commentary. Police Commissioner Hardy (John McIntire) explains bluntly, "without our effort, the jungle wins. The predatory beast emerges." Huston chooses a mosaic style, highlighting the motivations of individuals then weaving them together to present a tapestry of American life at mid-century.This time, New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther was appalled because viewers got to "hobnob" with criminals, know their likes, dislikes, needs and desires. He resented humanizing criminals, a quality that became a bedrock principle of neo noir films like The Godfather and Goodfellas. Comparing the choices people make also helped hold the film together. Outwardly affluent lawyer Alonzo Emmerich (Louis Calhern) is so focused on his role in a jewel heist, he derives no joy from life, even with a nubile Marilyn Monroe in his lap, while the calculating Dr. Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), normally governed by cold logic and having stolen several lifetimes of fortune, gives it all up just to see a libidinous teenager hallapalloozing in a `50's juke joint. The film ends on a sardonic note as Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), stricken from a gunshot wound, makes it back to what used to be his father's Kentucky horse farm, and it may be Huston's bitter conclusion that in the asphalt jungle, we'll be lucky to get more sympathy from animals than from our fellow human beings.Murder My SweetDespite the number of killings and the word "murder" in its title, this film is a comedy of manners, enhanced by impressionistic film techniques that were innovative for 1945. Taken as comic relief, the film provides a well deserved let up from the intensity of Gun Crazy, Out Of The Past, and The Asphalt Jungle. Dick Powell plays Raymond Chandler private eye Christopher Marlowe, and his description of a client's home as "Buckingham Palace" then his hopscotching across the black and white tile floor of the "Palace" take the edge off suspense built up at the film's beginning. Claire Trevor, as Helen Grayle, is quite the vamp with her hair up early in the film, but when she lets it down later, she seems to predate Gilda Radner by 30 years. And that is probably the point about this film: the hairstyles of women, their hemlines and footwear, along with snappy one liners in the dialog, and episodic comedy in the form of Dick Powell striking a match on Cupid's derriere are all a greater joy than the storyline itself.Probably the best way to watch this film is with the accompanying commentary by film historian Alain Silver (Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles Overlook Press $23.95 ) which has its own human drama: "this actor playing Lt. Randall is Donald Douglas. He played a lot of military officers and FBI agents during the war.... He's only 39 here. About a year later he died from appendicitis."The SetupThere was a time when boxing, baseball, and college football were the most watched sports in America and at one point in The Setup, a fan watches the fight listening to a baseball game on a radio. Today boxing movies might be more popular than boxing itself. Even with the measures taken to make the ring action realistic, The Setup isn't about boxing, it's about a marriage disintegrating and it's about people pursuing their dreams even at huge expense to themselves. Robert Ryan is aging fighter Stoker Thompson struggling to control what happens in the ring, not realizing his destiny is more fully shaped by events outside it. The film is a swirl of visceral emotions in the arena, Stoker attracted to the ring, wife Julie (Audrey Totter) repulsed by it and willing to take her chances in the huckster atmosphere in town where fate and luck intermingle. Gritty and unsparing, with look back commentary by director Robert Wise. Martin Scorsese acknowledges the influence of Wise and The Setup in the making of his fight classic Raging Bull.

単品商品５枚をボール紙のボックスに収めてあります。日本語字幕はありません。英語字幕あり。すべてモノクロ。「THE ASPHALT JUNGLE」「GUN CRAZY」のみ　リージョンフリー。あとの３作品は輸入版対応のプレーヤーでしか見れません。「THE ASPHALT JUNGLE」１９５０年　ジョン・ヒューストン監督　　スターリング・ヘイデン他　単品で邦版有り。「GUN CRAZY」１９４９年　ジョセフ・H・ルイス監督　　ペギー・カミンス他「MURDER, MY SWEET」　１９４５年　エイドリアン・スコット監督　　ディック・パウエル他　単品で邦版有り。「OUT OF THE PAST」 １９４７年　ジャッキー・ターナー監督　　ロバート・ミッチャッム他　「過去を逃れて」の邦題で邦版。「THE SET-UP」　１９４９年　ロバート・ワイズ監督　　ロバート・ライアン他どの作品も良く出来ていて楽しめます。ただ１９４９−１９５０年の製作なので、スタジオ主体の背景だし、モノクロ、派手なシーンもありません。おまけの音声解説などはまだ未聞。英語聞き取りは　さほど自信がない。（笑）

I don't care what anyone has to say about stunning visuals or some big name actor, give me a movie with a good plot and great directing every time!You can't (easily) beat the classics for these qualities!These five films (my favorite two are The Ashphalt Jungle and Murder My Sweet) are some of the best Film Noir I have seen. They are in black and white, despite the cover, they have cameos by people like Marilyn Monroe, they keep you wrapt to the very end and even teach you a lesson without being preachy about it. Yeah, they actually assume that the audience has a brain. I love it!I'm not giving anything away on purpose. These movies are worth watching. I promise!

If you're a lover of old movies, film noir and b movies, you'll love this set. I did! bleak, moody, filled with characters that make all bad choices.

Enjoyed all the movies in this collection. Happy with seller.

Classic - loved it❤️