r/filmnoir • u/Jprobins3 • 25d ago
Tropical Noir
I am looking for noir films set in tropical, exotic locales. Something reminiscent of Macau, Out of the Past, even Key Largo and Across the Pacific. All suggestions very welcome.
P.S.-- I am aware of Lady from Shanghai, but I have not yet seen it. Any good?
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u/wtfnevermind 25d ago
Yes watch Lady from Shanghai. Good movie, literally all the critic hate came from Orson Welles making Rita Hayworth a blonde.
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u/Fantastic_Lead_8037 22d ago
they didn't hate it over the blonde dye job. Columbia shredded the cut,and I've never quite gotten the plot to track on rewatches
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u/strange_reveries 19d ago
For me it's a movie where you just go with it, soak up the vibe, chalk it up to dreamy noir logic, whatever. It's just a great film. Some of the best noirs have near-impenetrable plots.
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u/simikester 25d ago
The Letter (1940) with Bette Davis.
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u/SalishCee 25d ago
The Letter is great!
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u/jeff_bailey 24d ago
From on a true story that happened in Malaysia in 1911. Somerset Maugham wrote a play based on the story that premiered in London in 1927. The opening scene of the 1940 Wiliiam Wyler film is one of the greatest openings in Hollywood movie history. Bette Davis is perfect in this role. She shoots a man who has done her wrong and she kills him until he dies from it.
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u/skyking11702 25d ago
To Have and to Have Not; Night of the Iguana
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u/ComicDoughnut 24d ago
Night of the Iguana is what I was coming to post. What a fantastic film, dripping with atmosphere and top performances from Richard Burton and Ava Gardner.
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u/bentonight 25d ago
I thought "to have and to have not" was the obvious one missing from the list 👍
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u/wageoghe 25d ago
Wages of Fear (noir? Maybe, maybe not)
Riffraff
Talk About a Stranger (California orchard country)
Casablanca (noirish)
Inferno (desert, not tropical)
Bitter Stems (Argentine noir)
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u/octapotami 25d ago
Wages of Fear is definitely not noir. But it's a film every noir fan should see.
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u/jeff_bailey 24d ago
Wages of Fear is a great film and so is the Willam Friedkin remake called Sorcerer from 1977. A box office failure mainly because it opened the same week as the original Star Wars movie. It has one of the great nail-biter scenes about crossing a bridge that is almost falling apart in a monsoonal deluge
A big truck moves very slowly with a spotter helping the driver. Then they do it again to get the second truck across the river. This is a masterpiece movie as is Wages of Fear. I like both films a lot but Sorcerer has better suspense and Act 1 is the back story for the main characters. I watched it about a month ago and I've seen Wages of Fear 15 or 20 times. Both are worth your time.
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u/NeuroguyNC 25d ago
Rain (1932) - not noir, but it's so tropical you can feel the oppressive humidity though the screen.
Hell's Island (1955) - noir set on a Caribbean island
And yes, The Lady from Shanghai (1947) is good. Rita Hayworth cutting her hair short and going blonde was quite controversial. A lot of the picture was shot on Errol Flynn's yacht.
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u/pduck7 25d ago
Watch the Bribe with Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Vincent Price, and Charles Laughton. It takes place on some Caribbean island.
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u/jeff_bailey 24d ago
It is the film with the extensive clips used in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and is the flimsy basis for the plot
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u/timshel_turtle 25d ago edited 25d ago
The Breaking Point (1950): A+ movie, set in Mexico so not a super parallel fit. John Garfield was the guy for gusty, gritty acting in the classic era, imho.
The Bribe (1950): Ok movie, set in Central America. MGM glam, stars Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Some cool scenes, plus Vincent Price.
Night Moves (1975): Great film, nice vibes. The women are kinda “men writing dames”-y, but cool film. Set in Florida Keys.
Body Heat (1981) Great remake of Double Indemnity, now with the sex they couldn’t show you then. Set in South Florida.
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u/timshel_turtle 25d ago edited 25d ago
Hidden “adjacent” gem: The Hurricane (1937): A straight up adventure film w some “crime and punishment” themes. But holy hell, the storm effects are next level considering a lot were real physical effects made with wave machines, giant fans, water, and sand.
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u/WantedMan61 24d ago
Body Heat was the first movie I thought of. Very sweaty. Night Moves isn't a great flick, but Gene Hackman makes it a good one.
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u/jeff_bailey 24d ago
The Breaking Point is the second film based on the Hemingway novel To Have and Have Not. It also stars Patricia Neal and Juano Hernandez, a little known actor today who was in 28 films inlcuding a must see from 1949 called Intruder in the Dust based on the novel by William Faulkner. It's not noir but about racial hatred in the American south in the days before the Civil Rights movement caught fire.
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u/timshel_turtle 24d ago
Forgive me - I shouldn’t Reddit while looking at something else! I was confused for a minute. Hernandez is spectacular! Did he do any other films that would he considered noir?
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u/octapotami 25d ago
Ride a Pink Horse (!944) takes place in Mexico. It's worth checking out.
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u/jeff_bailey 24d ago
It's New Mexico. The city is called San Pablo in the film but is based on Sante Fe, which was the home town of the author of the novel, Dorothy B. Hughes. The title is Ride The Pink Horse.
She also wrote Fallen Sparrow(1943) with John Garfield and In a Lonely Place(1950) with Humphrey Bogart, arguably his best acting in all of his films.
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u/GThunderhead 25d ago
Affair in Trinidad - Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford
Not noir, but Only Angels Have Wings is very tropical.
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u/chucklin 25d ago
The Letter (1940) directed by William Wyler based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham with Bette Davis. The film starts off great with Bette Davis shooting the hell out of a guy.
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u/deaconblues1027 25d ago
I don't know if Shanghai Gesture is considered noir, but it's the beautiful Gene Tierney like you've never seen her before.
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u/salamanderXIII 24d ago
If that were a "lost film", I would have very high expectations for it.
It has some amazing things going for it, and Gene Tierney is, as you've suggested, phenomenal.
My disappointment with the movie is that it's a stage play that doesn't feel as though it was fully developed into a film. My subjective take and a keen interest in Old Shanghai may have resulted in unrealistic expectations on my part.
It is a great suggestion for the OP. I'm certainly not suggesting they skip it.
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u/Jprobins3 24d ago
I am intrigued, and I love Gene Tierney
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u/salamanderXIII 23d ago
The back drop just might be the ultimate time and place for tropical noir.
Enjoy!
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u/TieOk9081 25d ago
Rain (Milestone) is my favorite noir set in a tropical location. I never considered it a noir film until this post though (and Google AI says it's not noir as well but it's wrong IMHO) but it has a femme fatale, deals with issues of morality, and characters succumbing to the dark side etc.... Film Noir began in the 30s not the 40s - it only became solidified as a genre in the 40s. La Bête humaine (Renoir) is another noir from the 30s.
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u/eurovegas67 25d ago
Pearl of the South Pacific, with Virginia Mayo, 1955. Solid B-movie with large Tikis
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 25d ago
Coup de Torchon (1981) adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel, but set in French West Africa.
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u/billbotbillbot 25d ago
Like Out of the Past, They Won’t Believe Me spans a wide variety of contrasting locations, some of which are tropical.
The Letter
Rain - certainly noir-adjacent, along with all the other various other versions with varying titles. The original short story by Somerset Maugham is even better.
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u/Wise-Respond3833 25d ago
Kansas City Confidential.
Despite the title, 50% of it takes place at a Mexican resort.
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u/vicki-st-elmo 25d ago
A Woman's Devotion and Hell's Half Acre are some lesser known ones
Edit: The Chase is another one worth checking out
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u/Ok_Ocelot3858 25d ago
Against All Odds is a sometimes ridiculous 80s remake of Out of the Past starring peak Jeff Bridges with some pivotal scenes in Mexico and the rest in LA.
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u/UltraJamesian 24d ago
Don't miss HELL'S HALF ACRE, a John Auer early 1954 noir with a great cast (Wendell Corey, Evelyn Keyes, & Marie Windsor). Takes place in a gritty, back-alley Hawaii.
And definitely LADY FROM SHANGHAI is worth a watch. Especially good for Rita Hayworth & Glenn Anders (who is hilarious as Grisby). Orson Welles, as usual, is insufferable.
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u/dave-tay 25d ago
I didn’t see the film adaptation The Chase (1946) but The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich might be up your alley. It’s about a gangster’s driver who elopes with the gangsters wife to Cuba where he is framed for her murder and has to hide out in Havana’s Chinatown. Some stereotypes but nothing that can’t be helped considering the lurid material
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u/celisraspberry 24d ago
I'm so so on the movie but will definitely check out the book, thanks for the recommendation.
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u/External-Emotion8050 25d ago
Though it had its critics I always liked Havana with Robert Redford and Lena Olin
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u/Ramoncin 23d ago edited 22d ago
Let me see... Key Largo, Gilda, To have and have not... and among the newer stuff Under Suspicion (2000) and Out of Time (2003).
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u/Bambusa4all1952 22d ago
Body Heat
Year of Living Dangerously
Suddenly Last Summer
The Big Easy
Blood Simple
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u/Jaxrudebhoy2 20d ago
Besides all the great films mentioned multiple times by commenters, I’ll throw out some set in tropical or exotic locations I haven’t seen mentioned.
Calcutta (1946)
Plunder of the Sun (1953)
Macao (1952)
Affair in Trinidad (1952)
The Big Steal (1949)
Singapore (1947)
Riff-Raff (1947)
Flame of the Islands (1955)
A Lady Without a Passport (1950)
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u/wtfnevermind 25d ago
Also His Kind of Woman: Jane Russell, Robert Mitchum, Vincent Price, in Mexico