America’s fascination with crime has been reflected on film as early as 1903, but it was the films noir of the ’40s and ’50s that most closely examine the criminal, by making him the protagonist and focusing on the reasons behind his actions, as well as the crimes themselves. These films are mostly set in a postwar America, a place where many men have returned from overseas with a legacy of violence and hatred that no longer has an outlet. In the world of film noir, that hatred turns inward, and one way to release it is through a life of crime.

In some of the 11 films noir presented at the Dryden every Thursday in January and February, the main character is already a criminal, as is the case with James Cagney’s maniacal and mother-obsessed Cody Jarrett in White Heat (January 7) and Victor Mature’s jewel thief in Kiss of Death (January 14). In others, the protagonist becomes a criminal over the course of the film, like John Dall, who is enticed to robbery by his fascination with guns and the alluring Peggy Cummins in Joseph H. Lewis’s Gun Crazy (January 21, showing in a double feature with Lewis’ My Name Is Julia Ross). In a fit of rage, Burt Lancaster kills a man and hides out in Joan Fontaine’s apartment in Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (February 11). In another burst of anger, police detective Dana Andrews kills a witness and decides to cover it up while investigating a second murder in Where the Sidewalk Ends (February 18). And in The Postman Always Rings Twice (February 25), John Garfield is compelled to do just about anything, including murder, to be with Lana Turner.

Then there are films that explore the effects of criminality by making the heroes behave like criminals to achieve their goals. In Crossfire (January 28), Robert Mitchum helps young George Cooper go AWOL from a murder until the real killer is found. Crossfire is paired with The Set-Up, in which Robert Ryan’s boxing promoter fixes the latest fight—without telling Ryan. Humphrey Bogart is a man wrongly accused of murdering his wife and seeks refuge with Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage (February 4). And in Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (February 11), the always-in-trouble Dana Andrews uses false evidence to implicate himself in a murder to trap a crooked DA, but finds himself in deep trouble when the man holding the real evidence dies in a car crash.—Jared Case, Cataloguer, Motion Picture Department