Scene of the Crime, No Questions Asked, and the Film Noir

Roy Rowland's Scene of the Crime (1949) and Harold Kress's No Questions Asked(1951) are unusual for films noir in that they came out of MGM, not known for its grittiness.  I think it helped that both films were directed by B-level directors and were probably used for MGM double bills; the great directors of this kind of film -- Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Jacques Tourneur -- did not often work at MGM.  Of the two films I prefer the Kress, if only because it sees things from the point of view of the crook rather than, in the case of the Rowland, from the policeman's point of view.  Arlene Dahl is in both films (they were part of a series of her films on Turner Classic Movies) and is a more interesting character in the Kress film.  In the Rowland film Dahl is effective as the long-suffering wife of a cop, while in No Questions Asked she plays a more complex character, leaving her lawyer boyfriend at the altar while she runs off with another man, then returns and betrays him again.

To me one of the interesting things about films noir (and this is true of other genres also, such as Westerns) is how the often simple conventions can be used in different and often inspired ways, even by second-level directors.  In both the Kress and the Rowland there is a good girl and a bad girl, the bad girl manipulating the "hero" while the good girl stands by him, the hero being tempted by sex and money and succumbing, often (though not in these two films) ending up dead. Meanwhile, the visual elements of lonely and dark streets convey a profound post-war alienation.