Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXIII [Rope of Sand / Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye / Never Love a Stranger]

This collection features three gripping film noir classics. Rope of Sand (1949) – A Sand-Swept Saga of Savage Greed, Sultry Love and Wild Adventure! Produced by Hal B. Wallis (Casablanca, Desert Fury) and directed by William Dieterle (The Accused), this suspense-noir classic brings the dynamic Burt Lancaster (I Walk Alone) and dazzling Corinne Calvet (Peking Express) together with three great co-stars of Casablanca: Paul Henreid, Claude Rains and Peter Lorre. To claim a cache of diamonds, Mike Davis (Lancaster) returns to the same remote South African city where he was tortured and left for dead at the hands of a sadistic police commandant (Henreid). He recruits the assistance of a mysterious stranger (Lorre) and the doctor who had helped him back to health (Sam Jaffe). But the scheming head of the diamond syndicate (Rains) recruits a femme fatale (Calvet) to seduce and betray Mike as an alternative to brute force. An exotic gem of noir—Rope of Sandboasts striking Charles Lang (A Foreign Affair, Female on the Beach) cinematography and a Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard) score. The amazing cast also includes Sam Jaffe (Gunga Din) and legendary noir heavy Mike Mazurki (Murder, My Sweet, Dark City). Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950) – As Only James Cagney Can Portray It! Screen legend Cagney (The Roaring Twenties, White Heat) in his final great gangster role… Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye offers Cagney at his nastiest! The star plays career criminal Ralph Cotter, a lowlife maniac who doesn’t care about anything except his next kill. After busting out of prison and murdering his partner, the cold-blooded mobster satisfies a pent-up lust for violence in an unstoppable and vicious crime spree. Dirty cops (Ward Bond and Barton MacLane) try to strong-arm the fascinating creep, but he turns the tables and blackmails them with the help of a crooked lawyer (Luther Adler). Upon its theatrical release, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was banned in the state of Ohio as “a sordid, sadistic presentation of brutality and an extreme presentation of crime.” Now, it’s hailed as a hardboiled Cagney classic! Stylishly directed by Gordon Douglas (Only the Valiant) and featuring Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Steve Brodie, Rhys Williams and William Frawley. Never Love a Stranger (1958) – Raw and Violent as the Book That Sold 3,000,000 Sizzling Copies! In one of the roles that made him a major star, screen great Steve McQueen (The Great Escape) is out to stop organized crime as special investigator Martin Cabell. The man he’s after: onetime boyhood pal Frank Kane (John Drew Barrymore, While the City Sleeps). These are the red-hot ingredients in Harold Robbins’ (Nevada Smith) screen adaptation of his bestselling debut novel, Never Love a Stranger. Robbins, a master at depicting the steamier, darker side of life, paints a tragic portrait of Frank Kane. Starting out as a “numbers runner,” Kane loses his girlfriend, Julie (Lita Milan, The Left Handed Gun) to mob boss “Silk” Fennelli (Robert Bray, My Gun Is Quick). Climbing up the underworld ladder, Kane reaches the top, where he succeeds in winning Julie back and making a bitter enemy of Fennelli. With Fennelli gunning for him and Cabell looking to put him away, Kane’s days seem to be numbered in this sultry noir of lust, violence and friendship torn apart. Superbly directed by Robert Stevens (TV’s The Twilight Zone and Coronet Blue). Co-starring legendary character actor R.G. Armstrong (White Lightning).