Not all film noir from the 1940s and Fifties is elegant and classy, full of subtle seductions and smoking guns. This one is as shocking and grotesque as some neo-noirs of today, though it hails from 1955. When private detective Mike Hammer picks up lonely girl hitchhiker Christina, fresh out the asylum, he has no idea the murder, torture, and car crashes that await. Of course, Hammer’s own obsession, like all noir antiheroes, is what spells destruction in the end. One of the gnarliest of the noirs that still pack a punch would be a great choice to see on the big screen. – Lina Fisher
