10 Best Unsung Actors From Each Movie Genre

Film Noir is a genre that requires no re-invention. Even its eighties and nineties sister genre, neo-noir, does little to update the mechanics and atmosphere of what worked so well forty years previous. They merely set them in the present.

Neo-noir had it's own stock of hardboiled actors, though they were significantly softened. Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson don't seem the types to co-mingle with Robert Mitchum and Edmond O'Brien (though Harrelson and Mitchum were both busted for weed).

The latter actor is a name that may not be as familiar as it should be, as O'Brien not only headlined one of the signature films of the genre, he also co-directed and wrote two to prolong the genre's popularity. Some actors resent being typecast, O'Brien excelled at it.

The film he headlined was D.O.A., one of the most intense thrillers of the forties. O'Brien plays an insurance man who travels to San Francisco for business and womanizing, only to be lethally poisoned, with just a few days to solve his own murder. It would be remade by the couple who oversaw The Super Mario Brothers starring Quaid, to little acclaim.

D.O.A. is probably the best introduction to O'Brien, and there's really little more selling that needs to be done. His stocky frame made him an odd choice for a leading man, and he would often play supporting roles in Westerns for which he was equally suited (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is a highlight). But Noir belongs to him.