Search - The Best of Film Noir on DVD

Not worth your time or money.

07/07/1999

(1 out of 5 stars)

"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."

A collection of trailers with truncated films

03/11/2001

(1 out of 5 stars)

"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."

One star is too kind

Leonard Norwitz | San Jose, CA USA | 09/30/2002

(1 out of 5 stars)

"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."

Great for 40's and 50's film lovers!

J. Gilliland | Fort Worth, TX United States | 07/08/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."