The list of noir films currently in circulation, previously overlooked, just plain forgotten, and dismissed as lost is constantly in flux, just as the material between covers that informs, analyzes, and educates the reader on this singular movement in cinema history is too vast to contain in the backmatter of one book. The revolution in home viewing that began with the VCR and exploded when DVDs came along has rescued thousands of features from storage vaults where many have remained for more than a century. Hundreds of noir entries have come to light, including titles previously unknown by accomplished film historians. The following sources are recommended (along with general works on film that were employed in researching Indigo):
Alton, John. Painting with Light. Berkeley: University of California, 1995.
I can’t praise this wonderful book too highly. The cinematographer whose use of contrast and composition gave noir its signature look shares with us the secrets of his genius. At a time when he and his colleagues were generally dismissed as mere technicians, Alton (T-Men, Raw Deal, He Walked by Night, Border Incident, The Big Combo) recognized the central part his craft played in the creation of this unique and powerful art. The chapter headings alone are enough to sell the book: “Hollywood Photography”; “Motion Picture Illumination”; “Mystery Lighting”; “Symphony in Snow,” etc. It was first published in 1949, at the height of his career. The introduction to this new edition by film critic and documentarian Todd McCarthy is excellent.
Baker, J. J., editor. Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films. New York: Life, 2016.
Decades after its demise as a weekly staple, this most American of magazine publishers remains current with its special issues examining single subjects. There’s nothing new here, but I have to applaud this institution for bringing film noir back into the spotlight, educating a new generation with this sumptuously illustrated primer.
Clarens, Carlos. Crime Movies. New York: Norton, 1980.
This is an early entry in the post-1970s renaissance of material on the crime thriller. The twelve-page chapter titled “Shades of Noir” alone contains tons of material on the evolution of the sub-genre from the novels of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, et al, through their screen adaptations, and films inspired by the adaptations, more than you’ll find in many whole books.
Kaplan, E. Ann. Women in Film Noir. London: British Film Institute, 1978.
This study was heavily revised in 1980 and reprinted many times. The essays, including the title piece by Janey Place, establish noir as an empowering influence on behalf of womankind and actresses; evil these characters may be, but their superior intelligence and determination broke them out of the stereotypical roles of Good Girl, Tramp, Tomboy, Victim. None of these ladies stood by wringing her hands while a man took care of business.
Mainon, Dominique and James Ursini. Femme Fatale: Cinema’s Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies. Milwaukee: Limelight, 2009.
From Theda Bara (the original Teddie Goodman) to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Mainon and Ursini provide a running tally of the Jezebels who have led their leading men (sometimes with their willing cooperation) to their doom. Exquisitely illustrated in glossy black-and-white and color plates, this one makes the descent into hell seem worth it.
Mordden, Ethan. The Hollywood Studios: House Style in the Golden Age of the Movies. New York: Knopf, 1988.
A general guide, essential in recognizing the trademark styles, business practices, and creative decisions of RKO, Warner Brothers, Universal, and United Artists; not forgetting those plucky independents whose B-movie budgets forced them to stay on point and make the best artistic use of the materials at hand, with results so impressive even their deep-pocket competitors co-opted their methods.
Muller, Eddie. The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics from the Classic Era of Film Noir. Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2002.
Muller, a fixture on TV’s Turner Classic Movies, frequent commentator on DVD releases, and a co-organizer of noir film festivals, knows his stuff. The Art of Noir, just one of his many books on this subject, is a coffee-table gem: 279 slick, folio-size pages of full-color reproductions of the advertising art that helped define the form, with capsule commentaries on the films themselves.
Silver, Allain and James Ursini, eds. Film Noir Reader, Vols. 1–3. New York: Limelight, 1996, 1999, 2002.
Scholarly, but by no means pedantic, this series takes us from Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton’s seminal 1955 French essay “Towards a Definition of Film Noir” through Philip Gaines’s “Noir 101,” published in 1999. The third volume, co-edited by Robert Porfiro, provides illuminating interviews with period filmmakers.
Silver, Allain, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porfiro, eds. Film Noir: The Encyclopedia. New York: Overlook, 2010.
Fanatics have awaited this new edition for years; in the meantime we had to content ourselves with occasional “update” volumes. This one makes use of colossal numbers of newly released DVDs, essays, and an expanded panel of experts to chronicle nearly every title in the noir canon (inexplicable snubs: Murder, Incorporated, Tight Spot), along with production notes, period reviews, and modern commentary. You may not agree with them all the time, but you’ll respect their dedication. A new section analyzes neo-noir remakes and originals. The word “indispensable” is overused, but if any source deserves it, this does. If it’s not on your shelves, you’re not one of us.
Silver, Allain and James Ursini. The Noir Style. Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 1999.
Another coffee-table treasure, lavishly illustrated in black-and-white, tracing the evolution of the genre from Scarface (1931) through The Silence of the Lambs (1991), tying in the neo-noir movement that began in the 1970s. It makes a prima facie case against director James Spader’s preposterous claim that this timeless school of moviemaking is a “historical” artifact, as dead as King Duncan.
Tuska, Jon. Dark Cinema: American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1984.
Treatises don’t get more scholarly than this. Tuska’s exhaustive research draws a straight line from Euripides and Shakespeare to Clifford Odets, exhibiting a trend that explains mankind’s fascination with the flawed heroes and heroines of tragedy. This historian’s intimacy with many Hollywood idols enlivens his narrative, preventing it from sinking into a morass of cant.
Here are some essentials; don’t stop there.
The Big Combo. Directed by Joseph Lewis, written by Philip Yordan, starring Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace, Robert Middlelton, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, and Helen Walker. Allied Artists, 1955.
This one rides on strong performances and John Alton’s genius behind the camera. Wilde’s detective sets out to nail mob boss Conte by tracking down the mysterious Alicia (Walker, as Conte’s forcibly institutionalized ex-wife: “I’d rather be insane and alive than sane—and dead”). Van Cleef and Holliman’s sadistic henchmen are patently homosexual; Lewis gets around censorship standards simply by letting them share a bedroom and some effeminate characteristics; who can object to that? Brian Donlevy’s death, mowed down by machine guns in eerie silence because Conte has taken away his hearing aid, is one of the iconic scenes in noir. Conte shone in gangster roles, managing to be evil and emotionally vulnerable at the same time (his final appearance, as Don Barzini in The Godfather, has touches of sardonic humor, and his slaying on the steps of a church echoes James Cagney’s at the end of The Roaring Twenties). Censors decried Lewis’ push-the-envelope love scene with Wallace and missed the homoerotic subtext mentioned above.
The Big Heat. Directed by Fritz Lang, written by Sydney Boehm (based on the novel by William P. McGivern), starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan. Columbia, 1953.
Lang, Billy Wilder’s fellow émigré from Nazi Germany, is most often praised for his silent Metropolis; but even restored and remastered, that one creaks (and Blu-ray is wasted on productions that predate the technology), while The Big Heat grows stronger with each viewing. It’s a simple revenge tale: Gangsters kill detective Ford’s wife, so he quits the corrupt force and sets out to destroy the mob. He seethes throughout, just under the boiling point. Marvin’s street soldier is a sadistic coward, deliriously easy to hate, Nolan as the widow of a bent cop is a heartless schemer, and Graham—noir’s best femme fatale by a league—stands out as Marvin’s kittenish, victim-turned-avenger moll. (To Nolan: “We’re sisters under the mink.”) McGivern was one of the best of the postwar hard-boiled novelists, and the film is faithful to the book.
Born to Kill. Directed by Robert Wise, written by Eve Greene and Richard Macauley (based on the novel Deadlier than the Male by James Gumm), starring Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook, Jr. RKO, 1947.
Trevor’s amoral, Tierney’s a psychopath. They marry: A match made in hell. Trevor gave up A-list stardom at MGM for roles she could get her teeth into, thanks be to God. Tierney (no relation to Gene), whose cruel good looks made him a convincing remorseless killer (and whose off-screen persona mirrored his screen image, as late as 1992’s Reservoir Dogs), was never less human. Cook excels as his stooge, constantly trying to govern Tierney’s rage (FYI: He fails). The presence of one of these players in a crime movie screams noir; all three settle the point.
The Dark Corner. Directed by Henry Hathaway, written by Jay Dratler and Bernard Schoenfield (based on the story by Leo Rosten), starring Mark Stevens, Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Kurt Krueger. 20th Century Fox, 1946.
Ex-con P.I. Stevens is framed for murder; simple premise, diabolic plot. Future TV megastar Ball sparkles as the take-charge Girl Friday, and the process shot in which Bendix falls to his death away from the camera is a honey.
Detour. Directed by Edgar Ulmer, written by Martin Goldsmith, starring Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald. PRC, 1945.
The fatalistic premise, sharp use of light and shadow, and Ulmer’s skill in whipping a Z budget into an A-minus production have made this a staple of the form; but for me, it’s a prime example of what some call “dumb s**t noir.” Hey, Einstein! Next time you want to stop someone (Savage, whose name fits this character) from incriminating you over the phone, skip the tug-of-war and rip the box out of the wall on your side of the door!
Double Indemnity. Directed by Billy Wilder, written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler (based on the novella by James M. Cain), starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson. Paramount, 1944.
The jewel in the crown. Insurance salesman MacMurray allows himself to be drawn by Stanwyck into a plot to murder her husband for his life insurance. A tale of seduction, betrayal, reprisal, and karma, with superior pace and some of the best dialogue in pictures, courtesy of Chandler, who made all the improvements on the overheated novella. MacMurray, Hollywood’s textbook nice guy, retains our sympathy throughout, in spite of (and maybe because of) his complicity in homicide. Stanwyck’s the ultimate femme fatale, cunning and ruthless, and Robinson’s insurance investigator steals every scene he’s in. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best picture, script, direction. No other noir ever came close.
The Glass Key. Directed by Stuart Heisler, written by Jonathan Latimer (based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett), starring Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, William Bendix. Paramount, 1942.
Critics who dismiss Alan Ladd as a “pint-size tough guy” are probably compensating for their own inadequacies; he was taller than James Cagney and a better actor than John Garfield, who was just Paul Muni with angst. Study the emotionally charged scene with William Bendix, who last time he got together with Ladd beat him nearly to death: Try to keep your eyes off Ladd, delivering his lines through his teeth and playing with the whiskey bottle he’s obviously planning to use to crown Bendix (he never does, making the tension all the more unbearable). The diminutive team of Ladd and Lake in several films set them apart as the Astaire and Rogers of noir. (Cheers also to Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1990 Miller’s Crossing, an uncredited remake that’s more faithful to Hammett’s vision, if not specifically to his plot.)
Kiss of Death. Directed by Henry Hathaway, written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer (from a story by Eleazar Lipsky), starring Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, Karl Malden. 20th Century Fox, 1947.
How do you make a stool pigeon sympathetic? Easy: Cast Richard Widmark as his antagonist. Mature’s solid, square build sets him apart from the weasely squealers who are almost invariably whacked in phone booths ratting out his pals to the cops, while Widmark’s slithery, jittery, giggling killer makes you want to squash him like a bug; if only you had the guts. For Tommy Udo (Widmark), shoving an old lady in a wheelchair down a long flight of stairs is like skipping rope, right down to the orgasmic giggle.
Laura. Directed (and produced) by Otto Preminger, written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Ring Lardner, Jr., and Betty Reinhardt (based on Vera Caspary’s novel), starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson. 20th Century Fox, 1944.
Glossy, glamorous, and psychologically ambiguous, Laura is the Tiffany of noir. Scintillating socialite Tierney, molded Pygmalion-fashion from common clay by catty columnist Webb (a tour-de-force performance by this second-string Claude Rains), murdered in her penthouse apartment, becomes the obsession of homicide detective Andrews, who falls in love with her through her backstory, personal effects, and above all her painted portrait. The hard-bitten cop, who when asked if he’d ever been in love replies, “A dame in Washington Heights got a fox fur out of me once,” turns hostile when the “victim” reappears from the dead (the corpse isn’t hers), and fixes upon her as the principal suspect, possibly in a fit of seeming betrayal. The cast is superb, with amusing and poignant support from cad Price and jaded doyenne Anderson. Unlike some suspensers that attempt to jam romance into the plot, Laura’s romantic subtext is both integral and inevitable.
The Maltese Falcon. Directed by John Huston, written by John Huston (based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett), starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook, Jr. Warner, 1941.
I confess I was disappointed the first time I saw this lodestone of the genre. Since it broke ground, its many imitators made it seem like nothing new. Later I came to appreciate it for Bogart’s spot-on cynicism (armor to protect his firm integrity), Lorre’s eel-like smarm, Cook’s murderous adolescence, and Greenstreet’s chortling villainy. Astor comes off too mature and sophisticated to convince us that Bogart’s Sam Spade is truly in love with her; but Huston’s insistence on breaking with Hollywood tradition and actually filming the novel (two earlier attempts had strayed and consequently failed at the box office), set a precedent that, praise be, is still with us.
Murder, My Sweet. Directed by Edward Dmytryk, written by John Paxton (based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely, by Raymond Chandler), starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki. RKO, 1944.
Powell, after an unsuccessful bid for the part that went to Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity, made a triumphant switch here from lightweight musicals to crime dramas. The neon-lit opening, with Mazurki’s apish face reflected enormously in Powell’s night-backed window, gave the genre its seductive look. (For a more direct interpretation of Chandler’s novel, snag Dick Richards’ 1975 Farewell, My Lovely; Mitchum, born to play Philip Marlowe, should have done it twenty years earlier—but, hey, it’s Mitchum! opposite slinky Charlotte Rampling, who never evoked Lauren Bacall so closely again; nor, for that matter, did Bacall. But enjoy Powell’s brash Marlowe, and yet another of Trevor’s delicious tramps.)
Out of the Past. Directed by Jacques Tourner, written by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring), Frank Fenton, and James M. Cain (based on Mainwaring’s novel Build My Gallows High), starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Dickie Moore. RKO, 1947.
This is numero uno on most aficionados’ lists. I agree as to the players: Vintage Mitchum, that sleepy, dangerous panther; Greer’s smoldering beauty; Douglas establishing his chummy-snake brand of perfidy early in his career; and Moore’s eloquent silence as Mitchum’s mute confidant. It was a mistake, however, to place Fleming’s and Greer’s scenes in San Francisco back-to-back, as two brunettes in updos (Greer’s hair is down on her shoulders everywhere else), confusing these two scheming females in the viewer’s mind and snarling the plot. That said, this is fine Greek tragedy, in which a single lapse in judgment leads to five violent deaths. This is what would have befallen Bogart’s Spade had he refused to “send over” Brigid O’Shaughnessy in Falcon (although with due respect to Astor’s charms, I’d have a harder time dumping Greer).
Pitfall. Directed by André de Toth, written by William and André de Toth and Karl Kamb (based on the novel by Jay Dratler), starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, Byron Barr. United Artists, 1948.
Powell’s an insurance investigator and a restless family man trying to collect insured goods stolen by jailed thief Barr and given to girlfriend Scott. Powell and Scott begin an extramarital affair, to the intense displeasure of sleazy private eye Burr, in one of Burr’s most threatening “heavy” (physically and figuratively) turns. To satisfy the Production Code, Powell must pay for his infidelity; but his penalty is the crux of a riveting and completely plausible plot. Wyatt, best remembered as Robert Young’s faithful hausfrau in TV’s Father Knows Best, excels as the dishonored wife: first furious, then defensively manipulative, finally resolved to pick up the pieces of a shattered marriage. (Powell’s best, bitterest line: “How does it feel to be a decent, respectable married man?”)
Too Late for Tears. Directed by Byron Haskin, written by Roy Huggins (based on his novel), starring Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy, Kristine Miller, Barry Kelley. United Artists, 1949.
Scott and Duryea are the dream team. Her Jane Palmer will sacrifice anything, even her spouse (another solid contribution from the undervalued Kennedy), for the satchel of cash that accidentally falls in her lap. The magic moment comes when Duryea, whose screen persona has been aptly described as “a lady-slapping heel”—a nasty gigolo always out for the main chance—realizes that when it comes to pitiless determination, Scott is way out of his league.
Touch of Evil. Directed by Orson Welles, written by Welles (based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson), starring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, Dennis Weaver, Mercedes McCambridge, Zsa Zsa Gabor. Universal, 1958.
Gloriously overheated, with enough deep-seared images to support a dozen noirs, Welles’s best film after Citizen Kane makes full use of the innovations he brought to Hollywood (and for which the industry never forgave him) to show this movement out with a bang. Heston’s often ridiculed for playing a Mexican, but his dignified aspect and stony resolve to see justice prevail do more honor to the race than so many Hispanics habitually cast as moronic bandits and comic relief. This is a stunning double-play, with Welles bringing all his genius to the direction and also to the part of the loathsome Detective Quinlan. Leigh as victim is far from helpless, Weaver’s bat-s**t motel manager is unique in cinema, and Dietrich’s border-town madam provides the Greek chorus. Despite what’s been said about the so-called “director’s cut”—ostensibly based posthumously on Welles’s production notes—watch the theatrical version first. That brilliant opening long take is more dramatic with the title crawl included.
White Heat. Directed by Raoul Walsh, written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts (based on a story by Virginia Kellogg), starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Margaret Wycherly, Steve Cochran, Fred Clark. Warner, 1949.
Cagney’s masterpiece. His Cody Jarrett, a Dillinger-type gangleader, albeit saddled with paranoid/schizophrenic tendencies and the mother of all Oedipus complexes, is nevertheless charismatic and impossible not to root for; especially with undercover cop O’Brien worming his way into his confidence in order to betray him. This is what would have come of Tom Powers, Cagney’s breakthrough role in The Public Enemy, had he survived Prohibition. Mayo is fatale as all get-out as his floozy wife, Cochran unforgettable as his rival for gang leadership. Raoul’s past as a director of classic westerns soups up the action from the opening shot of a charging locomotive all the way to the explosive finish, leaving no place to go out for popcorn.
So many more noirs; and our running time is so short. Happy hunting!