Akira Kurosawa's 'Stray Dog'

This shot is taken from the climactic scene where Mifune's character confronts the thief who stole his gun.
(the characters are just visible, - in this reduced image,- standing between trees in the middle background)
The girl had been playing the piano in the front room of her home and had been startled by a gunshot sound.
Its not too clear here, - the BFI print isn't the best but I don't think they were in early post WWII Japan, or, at least, not very well maintained, - but the scene is set in a misty early morning and parts of the scene reminded me of the climactic scene from Joseph H. Lewis' noir Masterpiece, 'Gun Crazy'.

I think 'Stray Dog' is probably my favourite of Kurosawa's three great contemporary crime dramas, - 'Drunken Angel' and 'High and Low' being the others.
The latter film is a stunning tour-de-force, but I think 'Stray Dog's wonderful blend of the intimate, poetic, and the neo-realist shade it for me

Ten Great Shots From Favourite B & W Movies

Nowadays if a director films in black and white he tends to be considered pretentious, or self-consciously arty.
Of course, up until, I think, the late 1930s pretty much every movie was made in black and white so the distinction didn't arise.

I remember looking forward to getting our colour television and seeing more and more of our favourite films and series in colour, but nowadays perhaps the majority of my very favourite films were filmed in black and white: in fact, Alfred Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' is the only one of my all-time Top 10 films which was shot in colour.
Which inspired this idea.

But, as a comparison, I'll also post 10 favourite colour film shots: not necessarily the most painterly beautiful, or aesthetically pleasing, but impressive shots