D.O.A. a film noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Rudolph Maté

Rudolph Maté

Born in Kraków , Maté started in the film business after his graduation from the University of Budapest. He went on to work as an assistant cameraman in Hungary and later throughout Europe, sometimes with noted colleague Karl Freund...

, is considered a classic of the genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

. The frantically paced plot revolves around a doomed man's quest to find out who has poisoned him – and why – before he dies.

Leo C. Popkin produced the film for his short-lived Cardinal Pictures, but failed to renew the copyright in 1977, so that it has fallen into the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

. The Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database

Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...

 shows that 22 companies offer the VHS or DVD versions, and the Internet Archive

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...

 (see below) offers an online version.
The film begins with what a BBC reviewer called "perhaps one of cinema's most innovative opening sequences." The scene is a long, behind-the-back tracking sequence featuring Frank Bigelow (Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien

Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...

) walking through the hallway of a police station to report his own murder.