Part 1 1941 - 1945
The votes are in for The Best Film Noir of All Time (1941-1945). These years are tricky because the film style was still being defined and perfected in these five years. Its no surprise that Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon topped the list. Wartime thrillers (Cornered) and period films (The Suspect, Gaslight) did not fare well in the survey. Other films like The Lost Weekend - which was considered film noir when the term was first introduced years after the movie style became popular - today isn't considered noir at all according to voters. The Lost Weekend only received one percent of the voting. Here's the Top 10 vote getters:
1. Double Indemnity received a whopping 39 percent of the vote. That put the Billy Wilder film number one on the survey.
2. The Maltese Falcon received a lot of last minute votes but the John Huston film came in second. The film today isn't considered as “noir” as Double Indemnity due to it's light tone but it's still remembered as arguably the first film noir. The Bogey mystery gets 25 percent of the vote.
3. Number three goes to the poverty-row gem Detour. The cheapy usually doesn't even get mentioned alongside of Double Indemnity or The Maltese Falcon. As the years go by the dark road picture gets more and more popular. Detour got 12 percent of the vote.
4. Closely behind Detour is a totally different kind of film noir. The drawing-room mystery Laura netted two less votes than Detour. The thriller has been imitated many times but none came close to the groundbreaking Otto Preminger film.
5 & 6. Coming in fifth and sixth are Murder, My Sweet and Scarlet Street. Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet and Edward G. Robinson in Scarlet Street each broke from their screen persona in these groundbreaking movies. Powell got tougher and Robinson got meeker. Murder, My Sweet get eight percent of the votes and Scarlet Street gets seven.
7. Shadow of a Doubt – the Hitchcock film noir does a respectable six percent. Do people consider Hitch's movies film noir?
8 & 9. To Have and Have Not - Voters didn't find this Bogart film a true noir but still liked it a bunch to get number eight on the list with 4 percent. Also getting four percent is the thriller Fallen Angel starring Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell's legs.
10. Coming in tenth is the action thriller This Gun For Hire (1942) with Alan Ladd getting 3 percent of the vote.
A few film that surprisingly didn't make the top ten include Fritz Lang's Woman in the Window, the forgotten Phantom Lady (a DVD release would remedy this), and the Joan-Crawford classic Mildred Pierce.
The next survey for 1946-1949 will be up soon. That one should be interesting! There are many great films from that period.
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