Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema VIII (Blu-ray)

Three-disc set includes: Street Of Chance (1942)Coming to after a Manhattan sidewalk construction accident, Frank Thompson (Burgess Meredith) headed home... to find his apartment rented out, and his wife (Louise Platt) gone for nearly a year. As he desperately tries to piece together what happened to him, he learns that he'd been living under another identity-and he also happened to be the prime suspect in a murder at a wealthy family's estate. Early noir based on Cornell Woolrich's "The Black Curtain" also stars Claire Trevor, Sheldon Leonard, Frieda Inescourt, Jerome Cowan. 74 min. BW/Rtg: NR Enter Arsène Lupin (1944)On board the Orient Express, master thief Arsène Lupin (Charles Korvin) was taken with lovely heiress Stacie Kanares (Ella Raines)-so much so he abandoned his plan to relieve her of the family emerald. Looking to renew acquaintances in Britain, he finds her being gaslit and primed for murder by greedy cousins, and turns his considerable wiles towards stopping their plot. Effective programmer based on Maurice Leblanc's gentleman bandit co-stars J. Carroll Naish, George Dolenz, Gale Sondergard, Miles Mander. 72 min. BW/Rtg: NR Temptation (1946)Fortune hunter Ruby (Merle Oberon) thought she'd found her payday when she wed the wealthy but stolid Egyptologist Nigel Armine (George Brett). Accompanying him on an expedition and growing bored, she fell into an affair with suave local Mahoud Baroudi (Charles Korvin)-and thereafter connived to fatally take her husband out of the equation. Compelling take on Robert Hichens' oft-filmed "Bella Donna" also stars Paul Lukas, Lenore Ulric Aubrey Mather. 99 min. BW/Rtg: NR Standard; Soundtrack: English; Subtitles: English; audio commentary; theatrical trailers.