The dark side

IT must have been difficult to choose from a large selection of film noir movies [“The Best of the Worst Humanity Has to Offer,” Sept. 10]. Four titles that can be added to the list:

“Murder, My Sweet,” 1944. A John Paxton screenplay adaptation of “Farewell My Lovely” by Raymond Chandler. Classic dialogue: “She was a charming middle-aged lady with a face like a bucket of mud.”

“Laura,” 1944. Based on the Vera Caspary novel, the screenplay was written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt and an uncredited Ring Lardner Jr. Clifton Webb played the detestable Waldo Lydecker. A sample of his “charm”: “I bet you gave her candy -- drugstore candy, of course.”

“Out of the Past,” 1947. Based on the Daniel Mainwaring novel, the screenplay was written by Mainwaring and the following uncredited writers, Frank Fenton and James M. Cain. It is the quintessential film noir movie in which Robert Mitchum’s past catches up with him. Mitchum’s classic line: “Baby, I don’t care.”

“The Third Man,” 1949. Based on the Graham Greene novel, the screenplay was written by Greene and the following uncredited writers: Alexander Korda, Carol Reed and Orson Welles. Classic dialogue: “Thirty years under the Borgias they [Italy] had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love -- 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

WHITNEY SCOTT BAIN

Santa Monica