A May feature at the Criterion Channel...I think I would have included Losey's M in the lineup, but if they were stopping at fifteen titles I'm glad that THE LAWLESS made the cut. The entire series is definitely worth dipping into...

NOIR AND THE BLACKLIST
With its cynical worldview and sympathy for doomed outsiders, it’s no wonder that film noir ran afoul of the Hollywood blacklist. Beginning in the 1940s, many left-leaning filmmakers found in noir the perfect vehicle for challenging the dream factory’s sunny view of American society. Campaigns like the 1947 Un-American Activities Committee sought to purge those artists from the industry, but they nevertheless exerted a powerful influence on the development of noir, often finding work abroad.

Starting with antifascist films made during World War II (like the Bertolt Brecht–scripted Hangmen Also Die!) and continuing with gritty works of postwar social realism, left-wing artists--including directors Joseph Losey (The Big Night), Cy Endfield (Try and Get Me!), Edward Dmytryk (Crossfire), and Jules Dassin (Brute Force); writers Dalton Trumbo (Gun Crazy) and Lester Cole (None Shall Escape); and actors such as John Garfield (He Ran All the Way)—-used thrillers and crime dramas to unearth the dark side of American society, exposing issues of bigotry, capitalist greed, inequality, and mob violence. These themes are embedded in exciting, hard-hitting crime movies—but the artists’ radical voices come through loud and clear, sounding the alarm about intolerance and injustice.

FEATURING: Hangmen Also Die! (1943), None Shall Escape (1944), Brute Force (1947), Crossfire (1947), Intruder in the Dust (1949), Obsession (1949), Thieves’ Highway (1949), Gun Crazy (1950), The Lawless (1950), Try and Get Me! (1950), The Big Night (1951), He Ran All the Way (1951), Hell Drivers (1957), Time Without Pity (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)