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Criss Cross , 1949

Criss Cross by Robert Siodmak is considered one of the best film noirs to come out of Hollywood in the post-war years and is set in Los Angeles.  
This film stands as one of the most bleakly romantic and fatalistic films noir of the classical era.

Director Robert Siodmak again teamed with his leading man from The Killers, Burt Lancaster, a couple of years after making that Oscar-nominated hit for Universal creating one of the most important post-war noir films.

Burt Lancaster plays Steve Thompson, a man who seals his dark fate when he returns to Los Angeles to find his ex-wife Anna Dundee (Yvonne DeCarlo).  He reconnects with his friend Detective Pete Ramirez (Stephen McNally), secures a job as an armoured car driver, and reunites with Anna at their favourite hangout, the Round-Up club. Steve and Anna start dating again and discuss getting remarried, despite his mother's vehement disapproval. Suddenly, Anna abandons Steve and marries mobster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). She soon regrets her impulsiveness and they resume what is now an affair, but Slim starts to get suspicious. Steve conceives of a daring armoured car heist as a distraction... 

Τhe film contains multi-connected elements and is not only about a love affair. On the contrary, it has to do with romantic desire, romantic confirmation and perhaps the possessive control in relationships. Anna Dundee was a person who knew how to love, to seduce without strings, having a sense of freedom meandering until she found futile happiness..

The feeling of despair on the road to freedom is deeper than love, and love can be sacrificed on the altar of our independent existence.

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John Alton the maestro of the Film Noir atmosphere

John Alton was an American cinematographer. He made is feature film debut in 1927 with The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. Alton won an Academy Award for cinematography of An American in Paris, becoming the first Hungarian-born person to win it. Alton is most famous for  films noir style of the classic period . "But when I'd take most any director aside and ask him to sit down with me, he'd look at me as if I were crazy. He'd say, 'I've never sat down with a cameraman to talk about these things. What do you mean? You just pump a lot of light in!' I'd say 'You don't 'pump' light into a scene. That light has to tell something. There's a meaning, and it establishes a mood.' That was the difference between my pictures and some of the others: [in mine], each mood was different. The mood had to be done with lighting. That's my profession — not the lighting and how to light, but bringing out the mood."  ...

Phantom lady , 1944

Phantom Lady is a 1944 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. The film was Siodmak's first Hollywood noir and was based on the novel of the same name written by Cornell Woolrich but published under the pseudonym William Irish. Starring Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, and Alan Curtis. A devoted secretary ( Ella Raines ) risks her life to try to find the elusive woman who may prove her boss ( Alan Curtis) didn't murder his selfish wife .  Phantom Lady features an incapacitated male, leaving a strong female lead to take a determining role in the action of the story — fairly unusual for 1944. Ella Raines turns vamp, and has her femininity and internal strength quoshed, as she plays dangerous on the streets, the concert hall, on bars and the shadows of the " psychopathic" killer who is revealed by his weaknesses and mistakes. One of the most characteristic moments of the film is the involvement of the protagonist with Elisha Cooke Jnr, who plays a ver...

James 2008 - Tim Booth

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