"Clips from noir classics and little-known gems, plus interviews with modern noir aficionados like directors Christopher Nolan and Frank Miller, writers James Ellroy and Brian Helgeland and others shape this multifaceted exploration of the movie style that grew out of the hard realities of post-World War II life." --container.

Detective Marlow sets out to find the missing wife of a publishing magnate. Several smack-arounds, one dead gigolo, a few angry cops, a booze-soaked frame-up and one dame in the lake later, Marlowe finds the killer and finds he's looking at the business end of a gun. -- container.

A straight-arrow cop and an old-school gangster find a common foe: big shots who run crime like a corporation. -- box.

Crime wave: Three San Quentin escapees kill a cop in a gas-station holdup. Wounded, one of the escapees flees through black-shadowed streets to the handiest refuge: with former cellmate Steve Lacey. Steve is paroled, with a new life and lovely wife, and can't afford to be caught associating with old cronies. But homicide detective Sims wants to use Steve to help him catch the other 2 escapees, who in turn extort his help in a bank job. Decoy: A drop-dead...

They live by night. Three prisoners flee from a state prison farm in Mississippi. Among them is 23-years-young Bowie, who spent the last seven years in prison and now hopes to be able to prove his innocence or retire to a home in the mountains and live in peace together with his new love, Kitty. But his criminal companions persuade him to participate in several heists, and soon the police believe him to be their leader and go after "Bowie the Kid"...