After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, it took several decades before President Kemal Atatürk’s modernization efforts were able to sustain commercial film production, but once it took off in the 1950’s, Turkey would have one of the largest film industries in the world, commencing a golden era of Yeşilçam (“Green Pine”), the Hollywood-like industry moniker named after a fashionable street in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district. Amidst the sector’s youthful excitement in 1954, director Metin Erksan made Cingöz Recai (US: The White Hell), an adventure noir featuring a “gentleman thief” named Cingöz Recai who steals from the criminal rich to give to the poor. Played by Turan Seyfioglu, Recai here investigates the murder of a millionaire whom he learns was a heroin smuggler who left behind $400,000 in cash now sought by Recai, police chief Mehmet Riza (Avni Dilligil), and an array of the smuggler’s dangerous criminal associates, including beautiful women like dancer Persia (Pola Morelli) and singer Aynur Işık (Emine Engin). While certainly lacking the psychological depth of American noir, the film deftly paces the action (more murders, shootouts, kidnapping, grave robbing) while leaving room for occasional musical performances at the nightclub. The lovely Neriman Köksal plays Jale, Recai’s fiancée and partner in crime, whose appearance on screen is consistently and inexplicably accompanied by a muted variation on Stravinksy’s “Rite of Spring.”