Noir Nook: 75th Anniversary Noir – 2025 Edition

75th Anniversary Noir – 2025 Edition

If it’s February at the Noir Nook, it’s time to take a look at the 75th anniversary release of some of my favorite noirs. And 1950 served up a veritable smorgasbord of first-rate shadowy features! I always single out four films each year on which to shine the anniversary spotlight, but whittling down the outstanding releases from 1950 was like pushing a boulder up a steep hill – not impossible, but darned difficult!

I finally managed to decide on my Final Four, but I also have to give the nod to some of the many fine films that didn’t make the cut: The Asphalt Jungle, The Damned Don’t Cry, D.O.A., No Man of Her Own, and Shakedown. You can put all of these films in a bag, shake ‘em up, and select any one – you simply cannot go wrong. But in the meantime, here’s my look at the four features from 1950 that I absolutely love the best.

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The Breaking Point

This feature, starring John Garfield, Phyllis Thaxter, and Patricia Neal, was the second of three film adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel, To Have and Have Not. (The first, with the same name as the novel, was released in 1944 and starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and the third, The Gun Runners, starred Audie Murphy and was released in 1958.) The story focuses on Garfield’s character, Harry Morgan, an ex-Naval officer who lives with his wife, Lucy (Thaxter), and two daughters, and operates a charter fishing boat in Newport Beach, California. Barely able to make the payments on his boat, Morgan is pressured into an illegal operation by a shady lawyer (Wallace Ford) and his life is complicated further by the presence of Leona Charles (Neal), a sexy passenger with eyes for Morgan. Also on hand, providing a combination of reasonable objections and loyal support is Morgan’s right-hand man, Wesley Park (Juano Hernandez).

The Breaking Point doesn’t get a lot of attention, and that’s a real shame. It has a first-rate pedigree: direction by the great Michael Curtiz, a fabulous cast, and the stamp of approval from Hemingway himself, who considered it to be the best adaptation of any of his books. I really can’t say enough about how good this movie is, from start to finish – and speaking of the finish, the ending is one of the most gut-punching in all of film noir and one you won’t soon forget.

Favorite quote: “All I got left to peddle is guts. I’m not sure I got any. I have to find out.” – Harry Morgan

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Gun Crazy

Based on a short story, “Deadly is the Female,” written by MacKinlay Kantor and published in the Saturday Evening Post, Gun Crazy tells the story of ill-fated lovers Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) and Bart Tare (John Dall), who go together, as Bart observes, “like guns and ammunition.” After a unique meet-cute at a carnival where Annie works as a sharpshooter, the two fall in love and get married, but when they can’t make ends meet, they’re pushed into a life of crime (with Annie doing the shoving). They start out with small-time thefts, but eventually advance to bank robberies and an intricate payroll heist – and Annie’s penchant for shooting first and never asking questions leaves a trail of dead bodies in their wake. It’s a love story that’s doomed from the start.

Whether they’re eating (very tasty-looking) burgers at a diner, shooting up a gumball machine during a robbery of a Travelers Aid kiosk, or doing simultaneous U-turns in the middle of a road because they can’t bear to part, Annie and Bart are positively riveting. Director Joseph Lewis (who also helmed the noir gems My Name is Julia Ross [1945] and The Big Combo [1955]) does a masterful job of spinning a tale that makes us root for those crazy kids to make it safely to Mexico and live ever after happily.

Favorite quote: “I’ve been kicked around all my life, and from now on, I’m gonna start kicking back.” – Annie Laurie Starr

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Night and the City

Directed by Jules Dassin and set in London, this feature shines the spotlight on Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark), a small-time grifter whose life revolves around his determination to get rich quick, by whatever means necessary. His latest scheme centers on becoming a wrestling promoter, with an aging Greco-Roman wrestler named Gregorius (Stanislaus Zbyszko) as his prime attraction. The problem is, outside of Harry’s natural penchant for screw-ups, his business is shakily financed through a backdoor deal with his boss’s wife Helen Nosseross (Googie Withers), and Gregorius’s mobster son Kristo (Herbert Lom) is none too happy about his father’s exploitation by Harry. The plot is superbly supported by Gene Tierney as Mary Bristol, Harry’s long-suffering girlfriend; Francis L. Sullivan as Harry’s vindictive boss, Phillip; and Mike Mazurki as a wrestler under Kristo’s employ.

For my money, Night and the City gives us Richard Widmark’s best performance, as he brings to life a character who is alternately pitiable, admirable, and repugnant. As the centerpiece of the film, he’s got his fingers in all sorts of tangled human connections, from the estrangement between Gregorius and Kristo, to the miserable marriage of Phillip and Helen Nosseross, and his own tenuous relationship with Mary. The film is fascinating on so many levels and delivers a shocking climax that’ll practically leave you breathless.

Favorite quote: “Harry. You could have been anything. Anything. You had brains. Ambition. You worked harder than any 10 men. But the wrong things. Always the wrong things.” – Mary Bristol

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Sunset Blvd.

William Holden stars in this film as Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter whose luck is so down that he can’t sell his work and he’s just one step ahead of the men who are trying to repossess his car. While fleeing the repo men, Joe serendipitously (or not, as it happens) turns into the driveway of one Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), an eccentric, isolated, former silent film star who gives “living in the past” a whole new meaning. Viewing Norma as the foundation for an easy payday, Joe agrees to move into her house and edit the massive screenplay she’s writing for her return to the silver screen. Unfortunately, for Joe, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and he soon learns that all that glitters isn’t gold. (Did I put enough cliches into that?) Adding to the film’s action are Max Von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim), Norma’s chauffeur, right-hand man, and first husband; and Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a would-be writer who falls in love with Joe.  

Arguably one of cinema’s most iconic films, Sunset Blvd. is one of those features that I simply cannot see too many times. It’s chock full of unforgettable lines, scenes, and sets, and helmed by one of my favorite directors, Billy Wilder. And in addition to the leading quartet of performers, the cast includes small but standout performances by Fred Clark, as a Paramount Studios producer with stomach issues; Lloyd Gough, as Joe’s unsympathetic and unhelpful agent; and, of course, as Norma’s card-playing partners (who Joe dubs “The Waxworks”), Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H.B. Warner. It’s a stellar production in every way.

Favorite quote: “We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!”

What are some of your favorite noirs from 75 years ago? Leave a comment and let me know!

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– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
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