The first crime film produced in Yugoslavia, Zivorad ‘Zika’ Mitrovic’s Poslednji kolosek (US: The Last Track) illustrates how classic American noir influences — and narrative tropes like the nightclub chanteuse, the insurance investigator, and the stool pigeon — eventually made their way to communist Europe. Set in Belgrade, the film stars Jovan Milicevic as Vladimir Patrik, a railroad worker who has led several of his co-workers in a half-dozen smuggling schemes, the latest of which has prompted an insurance investigation by Islednik Marko (Marijan Lovric), whose initially wide canvas of potential suspects is methodically reduced down to one or more members of Group 91, the only workers on duty during each of the crimes. Before it’s all over, half the gang will be murdered. The grey, bland interiors and stale, darkened railyard remind us not only of the film’s meager budget but of Patrik’s motivation: crime is his only chance to rise above his workaday existence in Tito’s socialist republic and make proud his railroad pensioner father Stari (Salko Repak). It’s not an imaginative film, but a noble noir reflection of its time and place.