Hot on the heels of Warners' The Maltese Falcon special edition, another Dashiell Hammett novel gets an airing in one good example of a stonking selection of films noirs made in the genre's classic period, the 1940s, each with change for a tenner. The Glass Key is about amorality, political corruption and a dangerous world that RKO and Paramount made their own. Its tiny but tenacious lead duo, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, also star in The Blue Dahlia and This Gun for Hire from this nine-movie selection. Being considerably more twisted and less optimistic than mainstream Hollywood, these bleak, suspenseful little films chime with modern sensibilities in a way that many of their contemporary big-budget mainstream rivals no longer do.