Noir westerns combine the best of both worlds, and tell complex stories of violence and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Old West. Unlike the slickly-produced westerns that have come to typify the genre, noir westerns feature lower budgets and an overall gritty tone that dispels the idealized mythology of the American West.

Hearkening back to the earliest days of film, westerns were cheap and easy to produce, and usually featured edgy stories. That trend continued into Hollywood's Golden Age, even as mainstream westerns grew into legitimate first-run features. There were dozens of so-called B-movies in the western genre during that period, and some of them were downright classics.

Noir film burgeoned around the same time as westerns, and it had its own set of gray morals. Often

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