Customer Reviews

The Best of Film Noir

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Film Noir is a rich and complex genre but you would never know it from this supposed documentary on the subject. "The Best of Film Noir" is actually an arbitrary assemblage of period trailers linked by some very superficial commentary. The films mentioned seem to be limited to the trailers available to the producers, and include some movies that are only Noir by a far stretch and exclude many of the most significant items in the genre. A newcomer to the genre would never learn that it was a visually rich expressionistic form with complex emotional textures from "The Best of Film Noir," and the shallowness of the production will probably annoy anyone who knows anything about it. You won't see any notable scenes nor get any real analysis. At the most you'll see a lot of Bogart trailers and hear Lauren Bacall say a few very clever lines.

The second program includes a few badly produced and pointless short interviews, some random Oscar footage, and "condensed" versions of "D.O.A." and "Detour," both misguided and both taken from shabby, visually inferior prints of the films. "The Best of Film Noir" is a waste of time and certainly a waste of money.

This is the oddest DVD: A collection of trailers for various film noir works, weak narrative connecting them, and some VERY truncated pieces of "DOA". Unless you want to watch a bunch of trailers, or a VERY edited version of DOA, don't bother.

Derived almost exclusively from trailers from the worst source prints imaginable, the accompanying serious narrative includes such gaffs as: Raymond Chandler is the author of The Maltese Falcon (a mistake that is made repeatedly); and the plot of Notorious described as: "a man in love with a scientist's daughter - the scientist is held captive by Nazi collaborators." I kid you not.

This video is good for those of us who love Film Noir and want a listing of films that fall under this category. HOWEVER - they got some facts wrong. For instance, in the video they talk about the movie "The Maltese Falcon", based on the book of the same name, and how it's central character, Sam Spade, is the quintessential detective. They stated that Raymond Chandler wrote this book. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dashiell Hammett wrote this book, thus creating the detective Sam Spade. Raymond Chandler created the detective Philip Marlowe, in books such as "The Big Sleep". Who edited this movie anyway - did they not check their facts????

This was a great movie for me to watch. I love 40's and 50's movies, so I thought the movie really showed a lot of the different movies from that time period. I even went out and bought a few of the movies that were featured. The video also shows exclusive interviews and some Academy award footage. It definitely shows the differences and similarities to today's Hollywood image.

I bought this disk through Amazon from Amazing Media -- HUGE MISTAKE dealing with that company! When I put the disk into my DVD player, a message came back as NO DISK. So I tried the disk in two other players I have. It would not play in any of those players either. I put it into my computer and, of course, nothing happened. A right-click informed me that I needed to insert a disk. To the computer, this was not a disk. Clearly this was a defectively-manufactured disk. When I contacted Amazing Media they refused to take it back and replace it with a working disk. They said that I must have damaged it. What chutzpah! The reason they gave is that I'd notified them after the 30-day cutoff date. This disk is demonstratively defective, not scratched or damaged in any way. A legitimate company would take it back. Stay clear of Amazing Media!!The Best of Film Noir

I enjoyed this video but nothing new here. The films showcased were pretty much standard Film Noir fare. Quality of the films were not very good.

"the new jazzy film noir film" The last Heist"should make quentin tarrintino sit up and take notice!" he should veiw this good one and take notice and notes! THE CAMERIDERIE AND DIALOGUE IS REAL REAL AND HOMOROUS & GRITTY. VIOLENCE DRAMATIC AND DIFFINETLY NEEDED!