Universal Studios Home
Entertainment will be releasing a ten-film, six-disc collection of classic film noir films on Nov. 4 titled The
Film Noir 10-Movie Spotlight Collection.
Films such as Touch
of Evil (1958, Orson Welles, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh) This
Gun for Hire (1942, teaming Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake) Double
Indemnity (1944, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson and Barbara
Stanwyk) and Criss Cross have been available for some time as stand-alone
product offerings, but three very important films to any collector’s film noir library have only been
available previously as MODs.
Two of these
MODs-to-manufactured DVDs are the other two film
noir thrillers that teamed Alan Ladd with Veronica Lake. The first of which is director George Marshall’s
1946 film release of Raymond Chandler’s first mystery written directly for the
screen, The Blue Dahlia (he received an Oscar nomination for Best
Original Screenplay … losing out to The Seventh Veil — in retrospect
that was a mistake, although you could argue that Ben Hecht’s Notorious
split the votes with Chandler and The Seventh Veil slipped through).
The second of these
MODs-to-manufactured DVDs is director Stuart Heisler’s 1942 film adaptation of
the Dashiell Hammett novel, The Glass Key. Talk about an all-star cast … in addition to
Ladd and Lake, William Bendix, Bonita Granville, Brian Donlevy, Richard
Denning, Frances Gifford and Joseph Calleia appeared in this tale of
corruption, murder and double-dealing.
The third MOD getting an
upgrade is director Robert Siodmak’s 1944 film release of Phantom Lady, which stars
Ella Raines, Alan Curtis and Franchot Tone.
The complete list of
films include in this six-disc set are: This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, Double
Indemnity, Phantom Lady, The Blue Dahlia, Black Angel, The Killers, The Big
Clock, Criss Cross and Touch of Evil.
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