An oxymoron :blink: to some, but in addition to the films below, what are some other films from the 40s to the early 60s with Noir elements, but in color?

Thanks!

...in advance...

LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN (1945)
INFERNO (1953)
NIAGARA (1953)
SECOND CHANCE (1953)
BLACK WIDOW (1954)
BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)
HELL'S ISLAND (1955)
HOUSE OF BAMBOO (1955)
I DIED A THOUSAND TIMES (1955)
ACCUSED OF MURDER (1956)
A KISS BEFORE DYING (1956)
SLIGHTLY SCARLET (1956)
THE RIVER'S EDGE (1957)
THE UNHOLY WIFE (1957)
PARTY GIRL (1958)
VERTIGO (1958)
PORTRAIT IN BLACK (1960)

. . . perhaps Richard Fleisher's VIOLENT SATURDAY (1955) which is a heist film, but the twisted personal lives of the inhabitants of the town in which the robbery takes place sets it firmly in a noir world . . . Lewis Allen's DESERT FURY (1947) is another noir story, mainly because of the characters - the presence of Lizabeth Scott alone helps the film to qualify . . . if VERTIGO qualifies, I imagine REAR WINDOW (1954) would as well with the voyeuristic obsession of James Stewart's character drawing him into a murder, almost causing his death and that of his lover . . .

Those ones are the closest to noir (in color) I can think of, though yet another Hitchcock, ROPE, deserves a mention.

Douglas Sirk's colorful soaps sometimes veer into noir territory: think of the Luciferian doomed Robert Stack in WRITTEN ON THE WIND, for instance.

Italian director Alberto Lattuada had a penchant for the expressionistic aspects of American crime as wed to life stories of folks on the margins of society and the law. His BANDITO (1946)is a bona fide Italian Black and White Noir. His colorful LA SPIAGGIA/THE BEACH (from 1954) is akin to Sirk's soap opera critiques of society (a glamorous prostitute travels incognito to a beach resort where she hopes to make a new, clean life for herself and her daughter), frothy and sudsy in large part, but in the last third acutely paranoid and desperate. There's a remarkable sequence in which Lattuada distinctly anticipates Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL. Sexy-sinister Mambo music lurches in time with neon signs flashing as a nervous Martine Carol, dressed in black widow weeds, and the camera glide down an endless main street, and an elaborate dance of persecution and mockery is orchestrated as cruising passersby disrupt her passage.

Wade, I forgot about VIOLENT SATURDAY, definitely Noir. I've got a full-frame P&S version on VHS that I haven't watched in years. I'll have to check it out again.

James, I almost listed WRITTEN ON THE WIND when I was compiling my list. Definitely has its Noir moments. If THE TARNISHED ANGELS was in color, it'd make the list too.

In addition to Hitch's VERTIGO, ROPE and REAR WINDOW, I guess we can also add DIAL M FOR MURDER and NORTH BY NORTHWEST, though the latter is more of a spy thriller, which of course, though, are elements that quite often show up in Noirs.

The Bright Lights Film Journal's article, Beyond the Golden Age: Film Noir Since the '50s (see link below) also lists Vincent Minnelli's SOME CAME RUNNING as another color Noir. Apropos of Minnelli, it seems that many of these color noirs are also melodramas and that using color imbues a lushness to the films that intensifies the melodramatic elements. At least three, INFERNO, BAD DAY & RIVER'S EDGE could be considered modern-day Westerns.

Speaking of Lattuada, MAFIOSO was my favorite film that I saw in a theatre last year. My Criterion disc - shipped on the 11th - should be showing up in the mail any day now. Can't wait. I'll have to see if BANDITOS or THE BEACH is available in a R2 version with English subtitles.

Speaking of foreign Noirs in color, René Clément's PLEIN SOLEIL (1960), based on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley character is definitely a vibrant sun splashed Noir from the tail end of the traditional Noir era. (Did it end in '54 with KISS ME DEADLY or '59 with TOUCH OF EVIL?) I go with 1959.

My sub-categories for Noir films are:
Proto-Noir (any film pre 1940 or '41 with Noir Elements, FURY (1936), YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937), etc.);
Noir (traditional period from 1940 to 1959);
Post-Noir (B&W films post '59 like THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), EXPERIMENT IN TERROR (1962) or CAPE FEAR (1962), etc.); and
Neo-Noir (color films in the Post-Noir era like CHINATOWN (1973), TAXI DRIVER (1976), etc.)

Then of course you have Techno-Noirs like BLADE RUNNER (1982) and supernatural Noirs like ANGEL HEART (1987). :)

http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/54/noirgolden.htm

Ditto on DESERT FURY (1947), the film that first led me to utter the term, "color noir," nearly 30 years ago when I discovered it on late-night TV. It's a studio melodrama, with crime elements, that should, by all rights, have been in b&w. Not just the subject matter, but a solid b&w cast, what with Lizabeth Scott, fresh off of uber-noir THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS, Burt Lancaster, fresh off of THE KILLERS, Mary Astor as a grown-up Brigid O'Shaughnessy with yet another name and a new occupation, and John Hodiak and Wendell Corey, two actors made for black-and-white. Plus, a score by noir specialist Miklos Rozsa (STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS, THE KILLERS). As I watched it that first time I kept saying, I can't believe this is in color. What a beautiful and pleasant shock, like some alternate universe Hollywood movie.

Plus, it takes place in a Nevada desert town (recreated in the studio) yet everyone's in long sleeved, buttoned-up clothing as if they were in the middle of winter. And not a drop of sweat. Now that's noir.

And it was written by Robert Rossen, who would have turned 100 this past Sunday.

. . . so, do noir-influenced westerns like Walsh's PURSUED (1947) and Wise's BLOOD ON THE MOON (1948) need their own category . . . your mention of CHINATOWN and TAXI DRIVER brings to mind the great difference between Neo-Noir films such as these (I would add Penn's NIGHT MOVES [1975] and Raimi's A SIMPLE PLAN [1998] among other worthwhile examples) that are infused with Noir technique and spirit to tell their own dark stories, and a piece of work like Kasdan's BODY HEAT (1981) that, as much fun as it can be, simply uses plot and character elements from the classics and weld's them together into a parade of genre conventions . . .

The first appendix of Alain Silver's and Elizabeth Ward's Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style , in addition to Gangster Films, Period Pieces and Comedies, discusses Western Films with Noir influences like the aforementioned PURSUED and BLOOD ON THE MOON. They also discuss MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, STATIONS WEST, YELLOW SKY, THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, TRACK OF THE CAT, RAWHIDE, DEVIL'S DOORWAY, JOHNNY GUITAR, WINCHESTER 73, MAN FROM LARAMIE, THE NAKED SPUR, MAN OF THE WEST and RANCHO NOTORIOUS.

I haven't come up with a moniker for these films, howsa 'bout Oater-Noir. <_<

Any suggestions?

"Film Naw"?

You already got 'horse opera' why not 'horse noir'

Yee Haw, Pawdner!

Shucks.

Cowboy noir

As Raymond "Tex" Chandler put it:

"Down these mean, dusty roads an hombre must go who is not himself mean, altho' mebbe a mite dusty..."

I like the ring of "cactus noir." But the bad ones could be "horse ma-noir." -_-

Now that was good.

Two color noirs worth noting are Don Seigal's THE KILLERS and POINT BLANK. Both movies feature Lee Marvin.

Samuel Fuller's HOUSE OF BAMBOO has a lot of cool noir scenes done in long takes and widescreen.