What guides/lists do you use to find noir?

[Harry Fabian]

I have been trying to find and watch as many noirs as possible for about 2.5 years now and when I started I needed a guide to direct my search.

First, I used the top 50 in the Film Noir genre on the IMDB (several of which actually fall outside the classic Noir period). Then I bought "Film Noir Guide" by Michael F. Keaney. It lists nearly 750 noirs with plot summaries. I am not one who loves to debate what IS noir and what IS NOT noir, but he seems to be a little generous in what he calls noir. I also used the 250 Quintessential Noir list from theyshootpictures.com (all but 6 or 7 of which are also in Keaney's book). I also search the film noir genre in Netflix which gets me some films that are not on either list-such as many of the Hammer series or Forgotten Noir.

I hate the idea of missing out on a good noir because of the subjectivity of looking at just one or two lists, so I was wondering what lists and guides you use?

[Ned]

Silver & Ward

Ned

[BobtheGambler]

Harry,
Here are three to consider in addition to Silver and Ward's Encyclopedia:

DEATH ON THE CHEAP, Arthur Lyons- Contains an A to Z of B noirs, none of which are found in the Encyclopedia, and Lyons' assessment of each, which may help to decide its watchworthiness.
EUROPEAN NOIR, edited by Andrew Spicer- Two essays in particular are of interest, Ginette Vincendeau's on French noir and Spicer's on British, I believe both have lists.
DARK CITY: THE FILM NOIR- Contains a listing with 490 entries from A to Z, some peripherally noir, most essentially noir. Also has a listing of Noirish films from other genres. the western, horror, melodrama, etc.

All the above are key reference guides for me.

[Steve-O]

Harry,
Here are three to consider in addition to Silver and Ward's Encyclopedia:

DEATH ON THE CHEAP, Arthur Lyons- Contains an A to Z of B noirs, none of which are found in the Encyclopedia, and Lyons' assessment of each, which may help to decide its watchworthiness.
EUROPEAN NOIR, edited by Andrew Spicer- Two essays in particular are of interest, Ginette Vincendeau's on French noir and Spicer's on British, I believe both have lists.
DARK CITY: THE FILM NOIR- Contains a listing with 490 entries from A to Z, some peripherally noir, most essentially noir. Also has a listing of Noirish films from other genres. the western, horror, melodrama, etc.

All the above are key reference guides for me.

Bob nails it. Silver and Ward's Encyclopedia (new version coming soon!), Selby's Dark City and Death on the Cheap are the best road maps through noir city. The Noir of the Week list is a good check-off list too: http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2005/01/noir-of-week-list.html

Now understand that all books have some questionable entries (Selby's Dark City has All My Sons as a noir...) but those three mentioned above will get you started.

Not really a "list" book but Eddie's "Dark City" too.

[JCharles]

I agree with everything that's listed, although I need to get a copy of Selby's Dark City. The Silver and Ward Encyclopedia is what I started with and I also got alot out of Death On The Cheap. Some other suggestions:
Barry Gifford's Out Of The Past; Adventures in Film Noir. The usual suspects are here as well as some lesser known films. The pleasure in this tome is his commentaries, which are an absolute hoot and a great take on American culture.
David Meyer's A Girl And A Gun
Balinger and Graydon's The Rough Guide to Film Noir
The latter two are both good reads and list many film noirs. In particular The Rough Guide is organized in a unique way with alot of cross-referencing.

[Steve-O]

Selby's Dark City is a bit pricy online. JCharles' recommendations are all good (and you can find them cheap!)

BTW: There's a huge noir list that's been floating around online for years now and it never seems to die. It's a list of all movies mentioned in indexes of a few noir books. The list includes movies like The Boy With Green Hair and Dr. No... even though the movies are mentioned in the books they are not referred to as noir... but somehow they made this monster list. I would avoid that list as well.

[Davidmk]

Good thread , i have to pick up some of these books for sure , most of what i have learned has been on the web IMDB , TCM.com , fox movie channels site & when i am shopping i use amazon & look at "similar movies" to build what i don't have & alos looking at the "noir of the week" section here is very helpfull .

[Harry Fabian]

Thanks for all the tips, guys. Hoping I can get a couple of the more expensive books at the library first before I buy-or get a few of them used. I recently purchased Somewhere in the Night and Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir-and I still need to read those first. The Back Alley store at Amazon was particularly helpful. Although I have probably seen at least half of the films, I managed to add several films to my Netflix queue and several to my Amazon wish list. Sadly, a few titles are out of print, and are very expensive used. Perhaps the gray market?

[Ashirg]

Steve-O is referring to the list available at Sidney's Film Noir Page (http://www.gaskcadd.com/ssk_pix/FilmNoir.htm) and it definitely can use some trimming although I found it very helpful - before I purchased both of Keaney's Film Noir Guides (just got British Film Noir Guide last week). I try to maintain a list at DVD Beaver (http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/film-noir.htm), but the initial list was not created by me, so it includes many questionable titles, but I update DVD status.

[BobtheGambler]

Harry, you're coming into this at a good time. Twelve years ago when I first began my intensive watching of/reading on film noir there was a great deal that was unavailable. One of the great things about the time in which we live is that just within the past decade so much has been released on DVD or shown on cable, films that for a long time you could only read about, or if you did see them they were subpar prints from private dealers.

[Night Editor]

Here's another set of annotated lists/ guides...

http://www.theyshootpictures.com/noir.htm

[Harry Fabian]

Harry, you're coming into this at a good time. Twelve years ago when I first began my intensive watching of/reading on film noir there was a great deal that was unavailable. One of the great things about the time in which we live is that just within the past decade so much has been released on DVD or shown on cable, films that for a long time you could only read about, or if you did see them they were subpar prints from private dealers.

I agree Bob-there are so many noir dvd's I have been able to buy or rent that the vast majority of people have never heard of-sp I think I have been fortunate.. Still, I am thinking about half of Keaney's 750 are not available on dvd or out of print. Not sure how many of these films will get dvd releases with the advent of blu-ray. I am only getting about 1 unreleased noir a week off TCM/FMC-a much slower rate than when I started being very aggressive about acquiring/renting noir. Wouldn't an all-noir movie channel be awesome?

[David]

One word - bootlegs. Back in '94 when I started researching/watching/collecting, there were precious few noirs to be found on vhs.
I scoured the collector's periodicals for small classified ads, and this resulted in my obtaining hundreds of never-officially-released
films.