With over 250 enticing Hollywood movie photos printed on premium paper stock, this introductory volume will have pride of place in your library or on your coffee table to share with friends. Noir Dirt Cheap is the first of four volumes in the picture-book series Film Noir In The Public Domain, available in hardback, paperback, and eBook formats. The cover art, featuring the incredible work of Australian cinematographer Robert Krasker on The Third Man, serves as your foyer into this literary cinema. Award-winning film noir analyst Bernie Dowling ushers you to a box seat to explore the paradox of noir: that true cinematic masterpieces were often created on a pittance. What's inside: The committed and the curious will discover the Poverty Row studio gem Kansas City Confidential, featuring three extraordinary psychotic villains played by Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Neville Brand. The Third Man famously fell in and out of the public domain, where no person or corporation owns the rights to a piece of cinematic art. Dowling dives deep into the genius of the film while exploring how copyright law has shifted from a Constitutional mechanism meant to advance art and scholarship into something far more restrictive. To show the full scope of film noir, Noir Dirt Cheap examines two ambitious, flawed experiments. The would-be comic noir Beat the Devil 1953 boasted a massive array of talent-director John Huston, writer Truman Capote, and an international cast including Humphrey Bogart, Gina "La Lollo" Lollobrigida, and Robert Morley. Dowling examines the filmography of Bogie and La Lollo; if you wish to defend Beat the Devil as a cult favorite, heed Bogie's warning that only phonies like it. The other subject is Johnny One-Eye 1950, a film that illustrates the difficulties of blending gangster noir and sentimentality. Despite the film's shortcomings, Dowling makes a case for its restoration to honor French-American cinematographer Lucien Andriot's stunning visual capture of the physical oppression of the big city. The author also seeks to salvage the reputation of one of his favorite films: the 1932 proto-noir Rain, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Joan Crawford and Walter Huston (Father of John). With its themes of evangelistic bigotry and lifestyle intolerance, this almost 100-year-old film speaks eloquently to modern audiences. Finally, Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers-a medium-budget feature starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, and Kirk Douglas in his debut-is analyzed. Dowling ranks this film among his top-five favorite noirs, and in Noir Dirt Cheap, he states his case. Noir shone a light on greed, lust, power, injustice, and the act of fighting back. With his trademark sly humor and sharp cultural analysis, Dowling shines a light on film noir. He likes what he sees-and you will, too.