Arrow Blu-ray Film Reviews

‘Four Film Noir Classics Vol. 3’ (1946–1958) • Limited Edition Blu-ray [Arrow Video]

Jealousy, greed, revenge and deceit once again run wild in another anthology of 1940s and 1950s noir…

Covering much the same era as the first and second sets in Arrow Video’s film noir series, this one again interprets the term liberally. Though there are characteristic noir elements in all four films — deception, temptation, men returned from war, women threatening their masculinity — not one of them is a moody, shadowy study of rain-slicked city streets. Two (Calcutta and Outside the Law) are more akin to conventional detective stories; one (The Female Animal) comes close to the melodramatic territory of Douglas Sirk (though not his style); and the other (Ride the Pink Horse) is set in small-town New Mexico.

As with the last set, where Robert Siodmak’s The Suspect (1944) was the clear highlight, here Robert Montgomery’s Ride the Pink Horse stands head and shoulders above the others. It’s also the most obviously noir, although still unusual in many ways, and the only one of…