*All times are PST. Please check the Turner Classics Movie website or the Fox Movie Channel website to confirm dates and times or additional programming information.
Wednesday, May 1, 8:15 AM
TERROR ON A TRAIN (1955): Birmingham's Chief Constable enlists the aid of retired Major Peter Lyncort (Glen Ford), a former member of the Royal Canadian Engineers' bomb disposal unit, when the police find a bomb on a train filled with explosives. Lyncort's marital problems add more pressure to an already tense situation. Dir. Ted Tetzlaff
Tuesday, May 2, 5:00 PM
RANSOM! (1956): The father of a kidnapped boy (Glenn Ford) contends with the police, the press and his family as he struggles to find the best strategy to recover his son safely which may or may not include paying the ransom. Remade in 1996 with Mel Gibson in the lead. Dir. Alex Segal
Thursday, May 2, 12:30 PM—3:15 PM
12:30 PM
THE LOCKET (1946): A psychiatrist (Brian Aherene) tries to convince a millionaire that his future bride (Laraine Day) is really his mentally unstable ex-wife, Nancy. As he tells his tale to the soon to be groom John, he reveals that he had received a similar visit by a high-strung artist (Robert Mitchum) after his marriage to Nancy. Is he telling the truth or is it the paranoid delusion of a mad man? Dir. John Brahm
2:00 PM
MACAO (1952): Drifter Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum) in the Far East is mistaken for an undercover cop by a ruthless gangster who plans an elaborate trap to kill him. An American salesman (William Bendix), a beautiful singer (Jane Russell) and the gangster's sexy moll (Gloria Grahame) make plenty of trouble for him too. Dir. Josef von Sternberg
Friday, May 3, 12:00 AM
LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE (1947): Based on Fuchs's novel Low Company. One of the most peculiar noirs of the 1940s stars Barry Sullivan in a riveting performance as a small-time hood who suffers a mental breakdown as his big plans begin to crumble. His night club singer-girlfriend (Belita) unwittingly fuels his paranoia. Director Wiles, normally a production designer and art director, creates an arresting visual corollary for the character's disintegrating psyche. Noir regulars Harry Morgan, John Ireland, Sheldon Leonard, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Charles McGraw give the stars an able assist. Dir. Gordon Wiles
Saturday, May 4, 4:30 AM
THE GANGSTER (1962): Wrongly convicted Erica Hayden (Shirley Knight) enters prison pregnant. She can only keep her child for three years, and then the child will be put up for adoption, unless she can find a caretaker for him. Things become complicated when the sadistic warden of the prison (Andrew Duggan) falls for her. Dir. Walter Doniger
Monday, May 6, 9:30 AM
THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI (1948): An Irish sailor (Orson Welles) gets caught between a corrupt tycoon (Everett Sloane) and his voluptuous wife (Welles real-life wife Rita Hayworth) and their plans to eliminate one another in this wonderfully convoluted noir. Pointless trivia: Columbia chief Harry Cohn sent future horror icon William Castle along on location to keep Welles in line, on time and under budget, to no avail. Dir. Orson Welles
Tuesday, May 7, 5:00 PM—2:00 AM
5:00 PM
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE (1950): A hoodlum and ex-con (Sterling Hayden) hopes for one last big score that will enable him to go home to his farm in Kentucky. He falls in with a gang of small time crooks plotting an elaborate jewel heist. Of course, you can never go home again. A young Marilyn Monroe plays a small but juicy part. Dir. John Houston
7:00 PM
CROSSFIRE (1947): In this seminal noir, an upright district attorney (Robert Young) investigates a seemingly motiveless murder. As he digs further the prime suspect (George Cooper) seems less and less likely to have done it and an ugly motivation begins to appear. Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan play a couple of GIs caught up in the case, one trying to clear the suspect and the other trying to frame him. Gloria Grahame earned a best supporting actress nomination for her role as an embittered taxi dancer. Dir. Edward Dmytryk
8:30 PM
OUT OF THE PAST (1947): In this quintessential film noir, a private eye (Robert Mitchum) falls for the gangster's moll (Jane Greer) that he's supposed to be investigating for her lover and his friend (Kirk Douglas). As in all good noirs, nothing is really as it seems. Based on Geoffrey Homes' novel Build My Gallows High. Dir. Jacques Tourneur
10:45 PM
OUT OF THE FOG (1941): A racketeer (John Garfield) terrorizes a small fishing community and seduces a tailor's daughter (Ida Lupino). The tailor and his friend must figure out how to fight the racketeer to keep their only solace, their fishing boat, from being destroyed in an "accident" and to save the daughter from throwing her life away on the racketeer. Dir. Anatole Litvak
12:15 AM
THE NAKED CITY (1948): A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York. Barry Fitzgerald plays the compassionate cop on the trail of a murder in this groundbreaking police procedural. Watch for noir regular and radio's Sam Spade, Howard Duff as the murdered girl's sleazy boyfriend. Dir. Jules Dassin
Thursday, May 9, 12:30 AM
COMPULSION (1959): Gritty courtroom drama based on the true life case of Leopold and Loeb. The pair considered themselves Nietzschean supermen, above both law and morality, and tried to prove it by murdering a fourteen year old boy. They did not get away with their "perfect murder" and retained Clarence Darrow as their counsel. Names were changed in the film to protect the guilty. Bradford Dillman and Dean Stockwell play the killers, Orson Welles plays the lawyer. Dir. Richard Fleischer
Thursday, May 9, 6:00 AM
PURPLE NOON (1960): This lush adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's renown crime novel The Talented Mr. Ripley stars a young and extremely handsome Alain Delon as the titular character. Dir. René Clément
Monday, May 13, 9:30 PM
DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975): In New York city, a bank robbery turns into a media circus when a man (Al Pacino) tries to steal enough money for his lover's (Chris Sarandon) sex change operation and takes the bank's employees hostage. Dir. Sidney Lumet
Tuesday, May 14, 5:00—10:30 PM
5:00 PM
KISS OF DEATH (1947): A psychotic gangster (Richard Widmark) torments a small-time crook (the strapping Victor Mature) who has given state's evidence against him in this classic New York City crime drama. Widmark gives as career making performance as the giggling menace. Dir: Henry Hathaway
7:00 PM
WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950): A gritty film noir about a detective (Dana Andrews) with a strong hatred of crooks who accidentally kills a suspect, and must confront his conscience when an innocent man is accused of the crime. To further complicate matters, he falls for the victim's estranged wife (Gene Tierney). Dir: Otto Preminger
8:45 PM
POINT BLANK (1967): Existential neo-noir at its best. Lee Marvin stars as a wraith like criminal out to get his share of the loot from a robbery after his partner shots him, leaves him for dead and absconds both with all the money and his wife. Angie Dickinson co-stars as his sympathetic sister-in-law who aids him. Dir. John Boorman
Tuesday, May 14, 5:00—10:30 PM
Here are the noirs.
5:15 AM
JOURNEY INTO FEAR (1942): This playful film features Joseph Cotten, who adapted the novel for the screen, as a munitions expert who gets tangled up in an espionage plot in Turkey. Watch for Orson Welles as an amorous army officer. Karl Struss served as director of photography. Dir. Norman Foster
6:30 AM
THE THIRD MAN (1949): This fantastic film about a naive American, Joseph Cotten, investigating the death of his friend, Orson Welles, in post-World War II Vienna never loses its impact no matter how many times you watch it. "Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock". Director of Photography Robert Krasker won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White for the film. Dir. Carol Reed
10:00 AM
THE MAN WITH A CLOAK (1951): In this historical noir, a mystery man (Joseph Cotten) tries to help a young innocent (Leslie Caron) escape a murderous housekeeper (Barbara Stanwyck). Based on a story by John Dickson Carr. Dir. Fletcher Markle
11:30 AM
THE STEEL TRAP (1949): An aging boxer, Robert Ryan, defies the gangsters who've ordered him to throw his last fight, believing that he can still be a champ. Audrey Totter plays his devoted wife who begs him to retire from boxing before he's destroyed. Dir. Robert Wise
Wednesday, May 15, 7:00 PM
SPELLBOUND (1945): A beautiful psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) shields an equally beautiful amnesic (Gregory Peck) who's pretending to be the new doctor at the sanatorium that she works at. Can she help him recover his memory and find out what happened to the doctor he's impersonating? This David O. Selznick production features a dream sequence by Salvador Dali. Composer Miklós Rózsa won an Oscar for his score. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Friday, May 17, 12:00 PM
WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950): A suicidal patient (Faith Domergue) draws her doctor (Robert Mitchum) into a web of sex and murder in this dream like noir. When he accidently kills her husband, they go on the run to Mexico despite the brain injury that is slowly incapacitating him. Dir. John Farrow
Friday, May 17, 5:00 PM
ACE IN THE HOLE (1951): A small-town reporter (Kirk Douglas at his hammy best) milks a local disaster to get back into the big time, destroying everyone, including himself, along the way. Jan Sterling gives a tremendous performance as the trapped man's opportunistic wife. Dir. Billy Wilder
Sunday, May 19, 9:00 AM
JOHNNY O'CLOCK (1947): Gambling hall manager Dick Powell gets mixed up with a cop on the take, leading to murder and mystery. Evelyn Keyes plays the sister of his recently murdered hat check girl. Dir. Robert Rossen
Tuesday, May 21, 9:45 PM-1:30 AM
THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1949): Nicholas Ray's fiercely romantic noir about a young innocent, Farley Granger who gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape after serving an unjust prison sentence. Cathy O'Donnell plays the girl who becomes his lover in an ill fated romance. Dir. Nicholas Ray
Wednesday, May 22, 12:30 PM
9:45 PM
WHITE HEAT (1949): "Top of the world, Ma!" A government agent (Edmond O'Brien) infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic (James Cagney) in a stand out performance. This film marks when the traditional Warner Brothers' interpretation of the gangster gave way to the more cynical and psychological film noir interpretation. Pointless trivia: Naked Gun 33 1/3 borrowed the plot. Dir. Raoul Walsh
11:45 PM
BRUTE FORCE (1947): In this brutal film noir, a convict (Burt Lancaster) plans a daring and violent escape from a sadistic prison. Gritty noir photography provided by Oscar winner William Daniels. Dir. Jules Dassin
Wednesday, May 22, 12:30 PM
THE BLUE GARDENIA (1953): Based on a story by Vera Caspary, author of Laura, a telephone operator, Anne Baxter, kills in self-defense but can't remember the details of the encounter. Nat King Cole has a cameo as himself and who sings the movie's theme song. Dir. Fritz Lang
Wednesday, May 22, 3:30 PM
CHASE A CROOKED SHADOW (1958): In this Brit noir, a stranger (Richard Todd) drops in on an heiress (Anne Baxter) at her villa, claiming he is her brother, who recently died in an accident. She knows that he's not her brother but has problems convincing a police inspector (Herbert Lom) or anyone else otherwise. Dir. Michael Anderson
Tuesday, May 28, 7:00 PM
BULLIT (1968): When mobsters kill the witness he was assigned to protect, a dedicated policeman (Steve McQueen) investigates the case on his own. This gritty police procedural features one of the greatest car chase sequences in film, through the hilly streets of San Francisco.
TCM May Highlights: The Asphalt Jungle airs May 7; The Locket on May 12; Where the Sidewalk Ends on May 14; Brute Force on May 21.
Monday, May 6, 1:00 AM
LAUGHING POLICEMAN (1973): A veteran cop (Walter Mathau) investigates a mass shooting committed on a bus. His motivation is vengeance, not justice; his former partner was one of the victims. He and a new partner tour the seamy side of seventies San Francisco to find the perp. Based on Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö's best selling Swedish police procedural featuring Detective Martin Beck. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg
Monday, May 6, 4:15 AM
Sunday, May 12, 3:00 AM
Wednesday, May 29, 3:00 AM
SLEEPERS WEST (1941): Brett Halliday's pulp detective Mike Shayne tries to protect a surprise witness (Mary Beth Hughes) whom he's escorting via rail to a high profile trial in San Francisco. Note: based on a novel by Frederick Knebel. Dir. Eugene Forde
Thursday, May 9, 12:00 AM & 10:25 AM
Friday, May 31, 2013 1:28 AM &10:20 AM
THE DRIVER (1978): Stylish neo-noir focuses on an obsessive cop (Bruce Dern) out to chase down a getaw ay driver (Ryan O'Neal) at any cost. Film features spectacular car chase stunt after stunt. Dir: Walter Hill
Friday, May 10, 1:00 AM
MOONTIDE (1942), a fisherman named Bobo (Jean Gabin) wakes up after a binge fearing he may have killed a man. When he goes into hiding, he takes Anna (Ida Lupino) with him, sparking a dangerous jealousy in his friend Tiny. Dir: Archie Mayo
Saturday, May 11, 5:00 AM
PANIC IN THE STREETS (1950): A policeman (Paul Douglas) and a doctor (Richard Widmark) race against time to find two gun-happy hoodlums (Zero Mostel and Jack Palance) who are somewhere in the streets of New Orleans carrying the pneumonic plague. Score by Alfred Newman and cinematography by Joseph MacDonald. Director: Elia Kazan
Sunday, May 12, 4:15 AM
Tuesday, May 21, 5:15 AM
FALLEN ANGEL (1945): Dana Andrews stars as a charismatic grifter who courts and weds a sheltered spinster, Alice Faye in a warmly wonderful performance, in order to obtain enough money to win his real object of desire, the local floozy (Linda Darnell). His plans go awry when the floozy turns up murdered. Dir: Otto Preminger
Sunday, May 12, 5:55 AM
DANGEROUS CROSSING (1953): Adapted from John Dickson Carr's radio play "Cabin B-13" for the series Suspense, a bride's, Jeanne Crain, husband, Carl Bentz, disappears on board a luxury liner in the mid-Atlantic. She desperately searches to find him and to prove his very existence, since his name has vanished off the passenger list. Michael Rennie plays the sympathetic ship's doctor whom she tries to convince of her sanity. Dir. Joseph M. Newman
Sunday, May 12,10:30 AM
Thursday, May 16, 8:30 AM
Monday, May 27, 8:30 AM
Friday, May 31, 12:00 AM
THE GOOD SON (1993): After his mother's death, a young boy Mark Evans (Elijah Wood) stays with relatives and forms a friendship with his cousin Henry (Macaulay Culkin). Mark soon discovers a disturbingly dark side to Henry. Dir. Joseph Ruben
Monday, May 13, 12:30 AM
FRENCH CONNECTION II (1975): This film picks up where the first one ends, with Popeye Doyle hunting down the narcotic kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) who eluded him in New York to Marseilles with the help of the French police. Dir. John Frankenheimer
Monday, May 13, 3:00 AM
Thursday, May 23, 5:00 AM
Friday, May 24, 3:00 AM
THE HOUSE ON 92ND STREET (1945): In this fact based documentary-style noir Nazi agents in New York City try to steal the atomic bomb formula. The film uses real locales like FBI headquarters and training facilities as well as using actual FBI surveillance footage to add to the story's verisimilitude. Director: Henry Hathaway
Monday, May 13, 10:00 AM
MURDER, INC (1960): A true account of the infamous gangster organization of the 1930s and its number one hit man played by Peter Falk. Falk made his film debut in this noir and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his efforts. Dir: Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg
Thursday, May 16, 1:00 AM
END OF THE GAME (1976): A murder investigation leads a seasoned detective (Martin Ritt) and his assistant (John Voight) back into the orbit of the older man's enemy (Robert Shaw). Based on Swiss novelist and playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's existential crime classic The Judge and His Hangman. Dürrenmatt plays a small role in the film. Dir. Maximilian Schell
Thursday, May 16, 3:00 AM
Sunday, May 25, 1:40 AM
A BLUEPRINT FOR MURDER (1953): After the death of his brother and one of his brother's children, a man, Joseph Cotten, who has fallen in love with his sister-in-law, Jean Peters, begins to suspect that she may have murdered one of her step-children. Or is he just trying to throw suspicion on her to cover up his own crime? Dir: Andrew L. Stone
Thursday, May 16, 4:20 AM
Tuesday, May 21, 8:50 AM
Monday, May 27, 3:00 AM
WHIRLPOOL (1949): A beautiful kleptomaniac (Gene Tierney) seeks help from a hypnotist (José Ferrer) and soon finds herself accused of murdering of his previous clients and with no memory of what actually happened. Can her psychoanalyst husband (Richard Conte ) help her find the truth? Dir. Otto Preminger
Thursday, May 16, 6:00 AM
Monday, May 27, 5:00 AM
THE EYES OF ANNIE JONES (1964): Murder unfolds around a young girl (Francesca Annis) who sleepwalks and talks while she does so. She's brought into a troubled household to help find a missing woman. The unhappy inhabits include a philandering embezzler (Richard Conte), his jealous wife (Myrtle Reed) and a pristine aunt (Joyce Carey). Dir. Reginald Le Borg
Friday, May 17, 4:45 AM
Tuesday, May 21, 10:30 AM
LAURA (1944): In this film noir based on the Vera Caspary novel, dedicated detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates the death of the beautiful Laura (Gene Tierney), brutally gunned down at the door of her flat. As he interviews her friends and lovers, a complicated portrait of her emerges and he finds himself falling for her. Clifton Webb and Vincent Price give outstanding performances as two bickering rivals for Laura's affections. Dir. Otto Preminger
Fox Movie Channel airs Fallen Angel on May 12 and 21; The House on 92nd St on May 13, 23 and 24; Whirlpool on May 16, 21 and 27.
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