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THE
TOP 5
PROJECT

WEEK NO. 30
Main Page (including links to all past Top 5 weeks)

THE TOP 5 FILM NOIR:

view full results       see how points are awarded
Rank Film Points L #1
#1 Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) 39 10 5
#2 Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) 34 11 -
#3 The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) 30 9 3
#4 Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) 23 8 2
#5 Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950) 18 5 2
L=How many lists each film appears on             #1=How many number one votes each film recieves

Way back when we first starting doing the Top 5 Project, we did a week of Top 5 L.A. Noir (seen here) but here we have broadened the scope and linked all noir together. Films that were not elegible for that round (because they were not set in L.A. duh), like The Third Man and Touch of Evil, fared very well here. The big winner this time though was Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (which placed no. 2 last time around). It held a strong lead all throughout the week and managed to stay there even during a last day barrage by Welles and Reed.

The attemptive usurpers were second place Touch of Evil and third place The Third Man, with 34 and 30 points respectively. Fourth place went to Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past with 23 points and the top 5 was rounded out by the Top 5 L.A. Noir's topper Sunset Blvd. with 18 points. Just missing out was John Huston's Maltese Falcon with 15 points.

Films that held less sway with voters than I had thought they would were Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Fritz Lang's M, David Lynch's Mulholland Dr., Roman Polanski's Chinatown (though it did finish ninth) and two of my own personal picks, Sam Fuller's Pickup on South Street and Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly.

Individual lists:

Carrie Rickey
Film Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer

  1. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

  2. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  3. Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

  4. The Hitch-hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953)

  5. The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)



Jeffrey M. Anderson
Film Critic & Freelance Entertainment Writer
Las Vegas Weekly, Metro (Silicon Valley), etc.

  1. Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)

  2. Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949)

  3. The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1948)

  4. In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

  5. Raw Deal/T-Men/He Walked by Night (Anthony Mann, 1948)


Runners Up: Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller), Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang), Sweet Smell of Success (1957, Alexander Mackendrick), Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur), Red Rock West (John Dahl)

Christopher Null
Founder, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief, Filmcritic.com

  1. Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

  2. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)

  3. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)

  4. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  5. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)



Erik Childress
Film Critic, efilmcritic.com

  1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  2. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  3. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

  4. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

  5. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)



Dennis Schwartz
Film Critic Ozu's World Movie Reviews

  1. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

  2. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

  3. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  4. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  5. Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner, 1958)



Eric Enders
Film Critic, Out There in the Dark

  1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  2. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

  3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

  4. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)

  5. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)


A tip of the fedora to: The Killing, In a Lonely Place, Laura, The Asphalt Jungle, The Set-Up, The Killers (1946), Crossfire.

Film Prophet
Film Critic, FilmProphet.com

  1. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)

  2. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)

  3. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

  4. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  5. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)



Michael Parent
Film Student

  1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

  2. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)

  3. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)

  4. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  5. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943)


Runners up : Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, 1990) L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946) Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955) The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956) Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001) Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander MacKendrick, 1957) Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987) Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998) Sin City (F. Miller, R. Rodriguez & QT, 2005) Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946) High Noon (Fred Zinneman, 1952)

Lucifer Sam
Film Enthusiast

  1. Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

  2. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

  4. The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944)

  5. Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949)



Matt Severson
Film Enthusiast

  1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  2. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

  3. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  4. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

  5. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)


It kills me not to be able to list other noir faves like Detour, Gun Crazy, The Big Combo, The Grifters, Thieves' Highway or Sunset Blvd.

Kevin Cassidy
Film Enthusiast

  1. Gun Crazy (Joseph H Lewis, 1950)

  2. Leave Her to Heaven (John Stahl, 1945)

  3. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  4. Touch Of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  5. The Mask of Dimitrios (Jacques Tourneour, 1944)



Dan Jardine
Film Critic, Cinemania

  1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  2. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneour, 1947)

  3. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946)

  4. Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)

  5. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)


Hon. Men.: Touch of Evil, Maltese Falcon, Sunset Blvd.

Mathew Viola
Film Fanatic

  1. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) - Although producer David O. Selznick wanted to construct a studio recreation of Vienna for The Third Man, Reed insisted that it be shot on location, in and around the streets and buildings of the war torn city, and that is precisely what gives The Third Man its palpably authentic sense of time and place. Yet Reed’s highly stylized direction ensures that The Third Man is no mere exercise in realism. While the dark, empty streets, gaping bomb craters, huge rubble piles, and bombed out buildings provide a realistic setting, the shadowy, chiaroscuro photography, wide-angle lenses and tilted angles create a rich visual texture and evoke a menacing, off kilter world. Furthermore, the devastated setting and noirish visuals are closely tied to plot and theme, for they visually reflect the moral decay on view, embodied by Orson Welles’ Harry Lime, one of the cruelest villains ever to haunt the screen. Amazingly, although Welles has very little screen time, his character overshadows everything in the film. Before making his famous surprise entrance, the other characters talk about little other than Lime, and so his presence is felt long before he’s actually seen. When he finally does appear, he’s utterly compelling, notably when delivering his famous “cuckoo clock” speech. And after he disappears back into the shadows, his character continues to reverberate throughout the story.

    Holly Martins arrives in Vienna at his old pal Lime’s invitation, only to discover that Harry has seemingly been killed in a strange accident. Because the circumstances of his death are suspicious, Holly decides to get to bottom of it, against the wishes of lead investigator Major Calloway (wonderfully played by Trevor Howard), but with the assistance of Harry’s beautiful mistress Anna, with whom Holly falls in love. In the end, Holly may wish he’d taken Calloway’s advice not to investigate, because he discovers truths about Harry (and himself) that might have been better left unknown. Holly doesn’t believe Harry is capable of perpetrating the horrible crimes Calloway accuses him of - selling diluted penicillin that is badly needed for dying children - but as the evidence against him mounts, so too does Holly’s disillusionment. But Holly doesn’t fully comprehend the extent of Harry’s depravity until he talks to his old friend face to face during their memorable Ferris wheel ride. As the giant wheel slowly revolves, Holly asks Harry if he’s ever seen any of his victims, and Harry defends his crimes with a chilling illustration. Directing Holly’s attention to the people below, he asks, “ Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you 20,000 pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spend – free of income tax, old man, free of income tax.”

    Screenwriter Graham Greene gave Welles credit for writing the “cuckoo clock” speech, but it is this speech, resonating with pure evil, that truly exposes Lime’s dark soul. To Lime, the children who suffer and die as a result of his greed are just so many meaningless obstacles in the way of his desires. So vile are Harry’s crimes that Holly agrees to help Calloway set a trap for him, leading to one of cinema’s most memorable climaxes. Trapped in the underground sewer system, Harry scurries around like a frightened, cornered rat, desperately searching for a way out. Interestingly, during this sequence Reed switches to Lime’s point of view for the first time, allowing us to see what he sees, hear what he hears, experience what he experiences. The cavernous sewer, with its network of elongated watery tunnels, is a giant echo chamber, rendering Harry helpless to determine from which direction the voices and footsteps of his pursuers are coming or in which direction he should run from them. And when Harry does manage to catch a glimpse of his pursuers, they usually take the form huge shadows on the walls, as if giant shadow people were chasing Harry. No wonder he looks petrified! Using expressionistic lighting and eerie, echoing sound effects, Reed turns Harry’s former hiding place-cum-escape route into a frightening, claustrophobic, subterranean hellhole from which no escape is possible. I can’t imagine a more fitting end to Harry than this. Ironically, it is Holly, in perhaps a final act of friendship, who finally puts Harry out of his misery.

    In the classic final scene, Holly’s hopes for a romance with Anna are dashed forever. After Harry’s funeral, Holly waits for her outside the cemetery grounds. As Anna walks down the long cemetery road toward Harry, Reed holds the shot as she steadily approaches, and we (and Holly) expect them to embrace. Instead, Anna simply walks past Harry without the slightest acknowledgement of his existence. Dejected, Harry lights a cigarette and flicks his match away in resignation. Has there ever been a more powerful moment of crushing disillusionment?

    The Third Man is one of those rare productions in which all the elements -- from Greene’s intelligent script and Reed’s stylish direction, to Robert Krasker’s exquisite photography and the superb casting choices – combine to form one seamless, glorious whole. Finally, Anton Karas’s zither score, at once lively and mournful, adds the perfect finishing touch, turning an already sublime film into an incomparable cinematic masterpiece.

  2. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) - Great directors can make great films out of mediocre scripts. But what happens when a great director works from a great script? Chinatown happens, that’s what. Brilliantly realizing Towne’s intelligent, intricately constructed screenplay, Polanski fashions a knowing homage to film noir, a thoroughly engrossing mystery tale, and a penetrating examination of political and personal corruption. Polanski’s use of color is every bit as expressive as the light and shadows employed in the older black-and-white noirs. All the earth tones and golden yellow hues located within the piercing compositions reflect the theme of drought inherent in the script, not only the literal drought in the plot, but also the moral drought of Noah Cross (John Huston, an inspired casting choice considering his close associations with film noir), whose greedy abuse of the land parallels his sexual violation of his daughter. Polanski’s visual strategy also entails frequent pairings and doubling effects. The mise-en-scene often consists of one person in the foreground and one in the background; or two people paired off behind or in front of Jake; or one person on either side of Jake. These doubling effects, which account in part for the creepy aura Chinatown has, compliment the rampant duplicity and two-facedness of the characters and connect with, if only subliminally, the central motif concerning the way in which the past has an uncanny way of repeating itself. Unhappy with Towne’s relatively optimistic conclusion, Polanski insisted on the downbeat ending. This proved to be a masterstroke, not only because it’s far more in keeping with the despairing, existential tone of noir, but also because it gives Chinatown the heft of full-fledged tragedy. Chinatown also benefits from Jack Nicholson’s finest characterization. He’s not only quick and witty with the hard-boiled repartee, he also finds the tragic emotional core of Jake Gittes, a man whose attempts to exorcize the ghosts of his past only succeed in creating more for himself. Finally, Chinatown contains the most haunting example of foreshadowing the cinema has given us: the “flaw” in Dunaway’s left eye.

  3. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) – After years of being stymied by shortsighted Hollywood studios, Welles finally was given the opportunity to direct with a free rein, and the result, from the justly celebrated opening three-minute traveling crane shot to the exciting, tension-packed climax, is a stylistic masterpiece of unparalleled cinematic virtuosity; it’s as if years of pent-up creativity and artistic inspiration were finally released, gloriously gushing forth onto Welles’ cinematic canvas. With its bizarre camera angles, distorted visual effects, expressionistic lighting, and offbeat editing, the film seems to be taking place less on the Mexican border than in some nightmarish, shadowy netherworld, populated by sleazy criminals, degenerate weirdoes, and corrupt cops wallowing in all manner of perversity in and around dark alleyways, seedy bars, and squalid hotels. Welles’ Harry Quinlan, who seems to ooze corruption from every oily pore of his grotesquely bloated body, fits right into this hellish milieu. Yet he’s no simple heavy. Welles gives Quinlan the stature of tragic hero, and we sympathize with him because we know his venality stems from a traumatic event in his past, and because, even though he sold out his integrity long ago, we sense that, like Kane, he could have been a great man.

  4. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) – “Yes, I killed him. I killed him for the money. And for a woman. And I didn’t get the money, and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?” With those words, perhaps the most memorable of Wilder and Chandler’s endlessly quotable script, Walter Neff sums up one of the key motifs of the despairing, doom-laden noir world, a world of greed, lust and double-cross in which seductive, duplicitous femme fatales entrap and manipulate hapless saps like Walter, whose overpowering sexual obsession leads him inexorably down the path to murder, betrayal and death. Many similarly themed films followed in the wake of Wilder’s masterpiece, including The Woman in the Window, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Killers, and Out of the Past, but none quite matched the bleak tone of existential despair possessed by Double Indemnity, which set the standard 60 years ago, and continues to captivate us today despite scores of imitations and parodies. Brilliantly written, powerfully acted, moodily scored, and thoroughly engrossing, Double Indemnity is the quintessence of film noir.

  5. Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949) – In B movie maestro Joseph H. Lewis’s low-budget masterpiece Gun Crazy, lovers Bart and Annie don’t meet cute; they meet carnal. While attending a carnival where Annie works as a trick shot artist, Bart is impressed with her sharp shooting, but when he beats her in a shooting contest, she’s equally impressed with his. Has the gun-as-phallic-symbol ever been as explicitly presented? Clearly, her skillful handling of guns turns him on as much as she’s turned on by his prodigious gunmanship. It’s love at first shot. From this extraordinarily erotic beginning to the tragic yet passionately romantic conclusion, Lewis’s incredibly fast-paced, imaginatively directed, sexually charged lovers-on-the-lam tale is cinema’s greatest expression of amour fou.



Jesse Richards
Filmmaker

  • Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)

  • Gun Crazy (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949)

  • Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

  • On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952)

  • Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)



Kevin LaForest
Film Critic, Montreal Film Journal

  1. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

  2. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  3. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)

  4. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  5. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)



Jason Mlinarsik
Film Enthusiast

  1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  2. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

  3. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  4. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)

  5. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)



Mike Staat
Self-proclaimed Film Nut

  1. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  2. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  3. Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)

  4. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

  5. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)



Ben Dalton
Film Student & Enthusiast

  1. Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)

  2. Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

  3. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  4. The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)

  5. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)



Adam K
Film Enthusiast and Creator of Film at 11

  1. Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955) - Crime has a cost, and annihilation can hide under the veneer of progress.

  2. Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945) - Guilt eats at you from the inside and makes nightmares come to life.

  3. Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945) - People don't change, and they are capable of anything.

  4. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) - A person's choices in the past determine their present and are inescapable.

  5. DOA (Rudolph Maté, 1950) - We are each at the mercy of powers beyond our control.



Todd Compton
Self-designated film historian and author of In Search of a Canon: Movie Polls Through the Years

  1. Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947) - Heck, I’ll add another vote for this towering noir accomplishment. We have the femme fatale, the urbane but deadly gangster, the detective who falls into corruption before our eyes. The three leads (Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas) are stunning, and Tourneur perfectly captures the romantic and shadowy world of film noir.

  2. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) - Some would not define this as noir. But was there ever a film that used shadow to better effect than The Third Man? And the shadows that have fallen over the soul of the mysterious Harry Lime are just as frightening.

  3. Sweet Smell Of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957) - No major crime here, but the noir shadows are everywhere. A searing indictment of entertainment journalism, and the corruption of power. Burt Lancaster is chillingly good as the Hollywood columnist, and Tony Curtis is surprisingly effective as his amoral lackey.

  4. Stray Dog (Akira Kurosawa, 1950) - A young policeman has his gun stolen, and must get it back. The plot is as simple as that. Yet Kurosawa’s deep sympathy for his characters, and the beauty of his camera’s observation, give this film wonderful depth.

  5. Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937) - I saw this a few years back and loved it. It has a lot of that Casablanca romantic feel and exoticism (it is set in Algiers), with the great Jean Gabin as the lead, a gangster in exile. The ending is pure tragedy.



Kevyn Knox
Film Critic, Essayist + Historian

  1. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)

  2. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)

  3. Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955)

  4. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)

  5. Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller, 1953)

Best Neo-Noir: Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch, 2001)


Runners-Up (in no particular order): Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955), Shadow of A Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943), Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), Ossessione (Lucino Visconti, 1943), The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965), M (Fritz Lang, 1931), Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967), Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986), Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951), Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950), The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973), The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947), Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).

*points are given as follows: for numbered lists, first place recieves 5 points, second place recieves 4, third place 3, fourth place 2 and fifth place gets 1 point; for unumbered lists, each film will recieve 3 points; total points are then tallied up and a comprehensive Top 5 list is created


The Next Topic is:
Name The Top 5 Films of the Seventies

e-mail me at kevynknox@thecinematheque.com with your picks for week #31,
no later than 6pm on Sunday, July 8, 2006.

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