Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 8, 2019

While the frequently questionable “expertise” of Wikipedia asserts that film noir lasted from the early 1920s until the late 1950s, my hunch is at least some fans of film history would tend to proscribe the idiom’s heyday to a probably smaller window of time beginning at some point in the 1940s and then extending into some other point in the 1950s. If that proscription is accepted, it might then be arguable that there was no better purveyor of film noir than Columbia Pictures during this period. While many of the undisputed classics of film noir came from other studios, as in the case of Paramount’s Double Indemnity (released on Blu-ray through Universal, due to the vagaries of film catalogs changing hands), or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s The Postman Always Rings Twice (released on Blu-ray through Warner Brothers, due to — well, you get the idea), Columbia Pictures managed to churn out a rather significant amount of noir offerings, albeit often in what would probably be termed the “B-movie” category. Kit Parker Films and Mill Creek Entertainment have now assembled nine of these rather interesting Columbia offerings in one three disc package, and for noir fans, there are at least a couple of rather notable films in this first collection (it looks like Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954- 1956 is due in a few months), as well as some other outings which frankly might be best categorized as oddities.

For reviews of the nine films in this set, please click on the following links:

Address Unknown Blu-ray review

Escape in the Fog Blu-ray review

The Guilt of Janet Ames Blu-ray review

The Black Book Blu-ray review

Johnny Allegro Blu-ray review

The Killer That Stalked New York Blu-ray review

711 Ocean Drive Blu-ray review

Assignment Paris! Blu-ray review

The Miami Story Blu-ray review

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Video quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Audio quality of each release is assessed in the above linked reviews.

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

None of the three discs in this set offer any supplements. There are optional English subtitles available for all of the films.

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While I doubt even any diehard noir fan would list any of the films in this set as an absolute classic, there are several really interesting offerings in this first Noir Archive collection. Sony-Columbia has established an enviable reputation for the way it curates its catalog, and technical merits on this set of admitted B-movies are typically very good. Recommended.