James M Cain

In Mildred Pierce, noir master James M. Cain creates a novel of acute social observation and devasting emotional violence, with a heroine whose ambitions and sufferings are never less than recognizable.
Mildred Pierce had gorgeous legs, a way with a skillet, and a bone-deep core of toughness. She used those attributes to survive a divorce and poverty and to claw her way out of the lower middle class. But Mildred also had two weaknesses:...

Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son.
At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer
who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000...

Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1936, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir. Performed by James Naughton.

Walter Neff is a smooth talking insurance salesman who meets the very attractive Phyllis Dietrichson when he calls to renew her husband's automobile policy. The couple are immediately drawn to each other and have an affair. They scheme together to murder Phyllis' husband for life insurance money with a double indemnity clause. Unfortunately, all does not go as planned. Barton Keyes is the wily insurance investigator who must sort things out.

Frank Chambers (John Garfield) is a drifter who lands at a roadside gas station owned by jolly old Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway) and his young, blonde wife Cora (Lana Turner). In a matter of minutes, Frank and Cora fall in love, and plot to murder Nick. Eventually wedding bells ring, the body count rises, and the gavel slams-of course, nothing ever goes as planned. Part of what makes the film noir is watching the characters react, as their plans are...

Mildred Pierce is a happily married woman with two kids, living in the suburbs of sunny California. She secretly takes a job as a waitress so that she can pay for piano lessons and expensive clothes for her eldest daughter, Veda. Her growing financial independence permits her to open her own restaurant, and eventually a chain of eateries. She has divorced her intolerant first husband, and married well-connected Monte in order to get Veda into high...