# Film noir



## Guest (Apr 17, 2020)

I've been talking about film noir and Preminger on another thread and decided to start another one for enthusiasts, like me, who like to watch and discuss this genre. Here's a very well known one, "*Night and the City*", made in the UK in 1950. Directed by Jules Dassin:






The favourite tropes are all there and worthy of exploration.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

I have always enjoyed film noir. I believe Robert Mitchum fits the style in a fine way. I do not watch it a lot, though.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

What I like most about the genre is the cinematography, over story line. The Third Man had some memorable cinematography. I first came across Double Indemnity through its screenplay (couldn't get a copy of the movie at the time), and thought it was great. When I finally watched the film it didn't meet my expectation through the screenplay. I think it was a combination that I didn't like Barbara Stanwyck's acting, and the cinematography wasn't as great as I envisioned from the screenplay.


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> What I like most about the genre is the cinematography, over story line. The Third Man had some memorable cinematography. I first came across Double Indemnity through its screenplay (couldn't get a copy of the movie at the time), and thought it was great. When I finally watched the film it didn't meet my expectation through the screenplay. I think it was a combination that I didn't like Barbara Stanwyck's acting, and the cinematography wasn't as great as I envisioned from the screenplay.


I love "Double Indemnity", thinking it taut and gripping all the time. I think Stanwyck was excellent as the manipulating dame. She wasn't conventionally noir like, say, Lizabeth Scott or Veronica Lake, but she had that hard-boiled quality about her which we usually associated with males in that genre. It was actually Dietrichson (Fred MacMurray) who was the vulnerable character.

Another favourite is "*The Postman Always Rings Twice*" with Lana Turner and John Garfield. The hideous old husband, Cecil Kellaway (who was usually cast as such a benign avuncular type), was actually the rapacious and controlling figure and audiences were encouraged to lose sympathy with him so that Cora (Turner) could turn the axis of action back onto herself and Garfield. When he is bumped off we begin our journey of complicity with the two lead characters. Hitchcock did much the same thing with "Psycho" when he swung the film away from Marian towards the dutiful Norman (who cleaned up after 'mother').

I've never liked "*The Third Man*" thinking it overwrought, and that endless zither and canted framing got in the way of the action. But I'm aware that it is a celebrated film.

Here's a classic but rare Technicolor 'noir'; "*Leave Her to Heaven*" from 1945 (John M. Stahl). Gene Tierney made quite a few noir pictures, starting with Preminger's "Laura".

Highly recommended!! And THE most glorious cinematography from Leon Shamroy.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ I finished watching it. Nice pictures. The danger of being a 3rd wheel in a marriage.


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## Guest (Apr 17, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> ^ I finished watching it. Nice pictures. The danger of being a 3rd wheel in a marriage.


You've nailed it here. I was worried about Danny all the way through, but clearly Ellen was 'the third wheel' in her parents marriage as well. Actually that was quite Freudian!! And Ruth is 'the third wheel' in Ellen and Richard's marriage.

Having seen the film quite a few times, I suggest viewers take note of the cold treatment Ellen gets from the aunt at Rancho Jacinto upon their arrival!! You don't notice these things on the first viewing, but that coldness suggests a backstory about Ellen and her behaviour - one neither Richard nor the audience knows about. As the film is based on a book, the psychological elements are well and truly fleshed out and I think these work effectively, though the treatment by director Stahl is somewhat 'soapy' (as you might expect - "Imitation of Life", 1934, and "Magnificent Obsession", 1935).

But why is the film regarded a 'Technicolor noir"? Let's dip into Eddie Muller's book, "*Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir*":

"Ellen doesn't believe in sharing her paradise with anybody. This leads to two of the most notorious and memorable scenes in all noir. First, she decides that her husband's crippled younger brother Danny, is too much of a rival for Richard's attention. When Danny eagerly tries to impress Ellen with how well he's learned to swim, she turns his pubescent vanity against him, enticing him beyond his limits. As he sinks below the lake's surface, struggling for his life, Ellen watches implacably from behind her fashionable sunglasses. Later, when she fears that the child she's carrying will purloin her husband's affections, she stages an 'accidental' tumble down a flight of stairs, killing the unborn baby. When Ellen's husband gets too friendly with her sister, Ruth, she delivers the coup de grace; she poisons herself, arranging it to implicate her two-timing husband and sister as her 'murderers'. There was no precedent for the morbidity of these scenes, somehow made all the more malignant by the overripe lushness of Shamroy's cinematography"(91).

Ellen is a classic noir character; seductive, cold, dangerous and leading the man to his doom. She inhabits the mean streets psychologically with her 'outlier' status within the family. I would argue with Muller; I think the rich Technicolor cinematography is a decoy; it strategically places us within the idyllic frame of security and affluence, seducing us as it does Richard Harlan!


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2020)

Another excellent film in this genre: Billy Wilder's "*Ace in the Hole*", which also had the title "The Big Carnival". The former title is MUCH more suitable.

Highly recommended, here is the Criterion restoration. It has that Wilder cynicism, "why are you so good to me?" and the hard-boiled, street-wise con man who has a big scam in mind. Typical noir. And there's a dame; a husband-weary, superannuated seductress right out of the noir playbook. One look at this dame from "Ace in the Hole" and you know the husband is in for trouble, and plenty!! But tables turn:


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Christabel said:


> You've nailed it here. I was worried about Danny all the way through, but clearly Ellen was 'the third wheel' in her parents marriage as well. Actually that was quite Freudian!! And Ruth is 'the third wheel' in Ellen and Richard's marriage.
> 
> Having seen the film quite a few times, I suggest viewers take note of the cold treatment Ellen gets from the aunt at Rancho Jacinto upon their arrival!! You don't notice these things on the first viewing, but that coldness suggests a backstory about Ellen and her behaviour - one neither Richard nor the audience knows about. As the film is based on a book, the psychological elements are well and truly fleshed out and I think these work effectively, though the treatment by director Stahl is somewhat 'soapy' (as you might expect - "Imitation of Life", 1934, and "Magnificent Obsession", 1935).
> 
> ...


I found the courtroom scenes were where it really went downhill and suspended logic. There is no way the lawyer who is the ex-fiance of Ellen could become the prosecutor. Too much conflict-of-interest. The judge and defense attorney were incredibly silent in a lot of the prodding by the prosecutor "Do you love her?" which isn't really necessary grounds that they committed murder.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Strange, my absolute favorite noir feels just like a movie, but it's not a movie. It's so much better than a movie. I remember it just like a really good flick (that happens to be 8 hours long, each.) _Grim Fandango_ and _Heavy Rain._ I don't even think I've found better films than these two games--at least the first game.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

*Double Indemnity* has already been mentioned; it's my favorite noir of all time.

Dont't forgot Spielberg's sci-fi neo-noir *Minority Report*, or the 50s style "classic" *L.A. Confidential.*

As for older noirs, I definitely enjoy *Crossfire* (which confronts anti-semitism) and *Le Corbeau* (a social commentary made in France during the Nazi occupation).

You can't go wrong with most Wilder noirs.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2020)

Tchaikov6 said:


> *Double Indemnity* has already been mentioned; it's my favorite noir of all time.
> 
> Dont't forgot Spielberg's sci-fi neo-noir *Minority Report*, or the 50s style "classic" *L.A. Confidential.*
> 
> ...


I haven't seen any of those films you mention but I do remember my daughter talking about "Minority Report" and "L.A. Confidential" some years ago and recommending that I watch them. For a modern noir I don't think you can beat the Coen Brothers and "*The Man Who Wasn't There*". Absolutely brilliant and, being lovers of film history, the Coens referenced earlier films and styles in the making of it.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> I found the courtroom scenes were where it really went downhill and suspended logic. There is no way the lawyer who is the ex-fiance of Ellen could become the prosecutor. Too much conflict-of-interest. The judge and defense attorney were incredibly silent in a lot of the prodding by the prosecutor "Do you love her?" which isn't really necessary grounds that they committed murder.


Noir doesn't follow 'logic' in the traditional sense. The action usually requires a significant suspension of disbelief and the narratives are compressed for convenience. This example you give is just one of these. I think Ellen's ex-fiance is another 'third wheel', which you mentioned earlier. That story is full of 'third wheels'. Noir has lots of all-too-convenient co-incidences but what the films explore is the dark side of human nature and the tripwires which are in place to bring people crashing down in the mean streets. There's a very good one with Robert Mitchum, "*Out of the Past*" from 1947. Mitchum plays a sympathetic character in a plot which has more twists than a large intestine!!!


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2020)

david johnson said:


> I have always enjoyed film noir. I believe Robert Mitchum fits the style in a fine way. I do not watch it a lot, though.


I've done a bit of reading over the years about film noir and some of it has been developed when reading particular biographies, eg. James Cagney. Noir developed out of gangster films which, in turn, developed from prohibition in the US. But urbanization is key to noir; the high-density city full of spivs and rackets and the lack of community per se. Characters are either escaping from or going towards the 'dark city'.

My beloved Howard Hawks made his share of noir films and one in particular, "The Big Sleep" is, of course, extremely well known. In reading a biographical tome about Hawks it appears he lost track of the plot in "The Big Sleep" and could never quite work out how the loose ends tied together!! This had something to do with fresh pages of script arriving on set hours before filming, but the plot contortions themselves were obviously too much even for the director!! The script and storyline were Raymond Chandler's and this was his metier. For Hawks, not so much - even though he did go on to make "*To Have and Have Not*".


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

One of my favourite noirs is _The Big Heat_ (1953). It's concise and well paced and has a number of memorable characters. The first time I saw it was on the big screen a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it greatly then and have since watched it at home more than once. They showed _In a Lonely Place_ as well, but I didn't enjoy that so much.


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2020)

Another unforgettable noir is, of course, "*Gilda*" (1946). I was reminded of this when I realized Glenn Ford was also in "The Big Heat". As in the case of "*Leave Her to Heaven*" there are strong psycho-sexual elements to this noir through the implied menage between the three central characters: Gilda, Johnny and Ballin (George Macready). And Gilda says "I hate you Johnny" as she kisses him (just as Sally says to Harry at the end of "When Harry Met Sally"!).






.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

Kathie Moffit, one of the great femme fatales. Jane Greer only made a couple noir but she was great in this one. And Robert Mitchum is always cool. Out of The Past, 1947.


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## Guest (Apr 19, 2020)

Great; thanks for posting that!! Actually, "*Out of the Past"* is a very fine film. One really sympathizes with the Robert Mitchum character and there is plenty of meat on the plot and mystery as gravy to keep a viewer very satisfied indeed. Look at the beautiful lighting in that scene in your clip between Mitchum and Greer!!

Oh, and you could find some great jazz music in film noir!!

Do try and watch "*Night and the City*" (I think I've posted it here, but it's on DailyMotion) with Widmark and Tierney; it's an exceptional film from a gifted director and is totally rivetting. Actually, Tierney doesn't occupy that much screen time but it was a very early film from Widmark and no wonder his career sky-rocketted after this film. Sam Fuller's "*Pick up on South Street*" is another good noir from Widmark.

Here is the Criterion restoration on Vimeo so I hope it works:


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

Christabel said:


> …" There was no precedent for the morbidity of these scenes, somehow made all the more malignant by the overripe lushness of Shamroy's cinematography"(91).
> 
> Ellen is a classic noir character; seductive, cold, dangerous and leading the man to his doom. She inhabits the mean streets psychologically with her 'outlier' status within the family. I would argue with Muller; I think the rich Technicolor cinematography is a decoy; it strategically places us within the idyllic frame of security and affluence, seducing us as it does Richard Harlan!


Now that's interesting. It makes the courtroom scene even more bizarre; what was up with that color palette and lighting? Not to mention that the room itself looked more like a parlor or a hotel meeting room. Anyway, wasn't the best part of the movie.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I'm a big *Hitchcock* fan, and Hitch "dabbled" in film noir for a time, although people still debate his film noir credentials.

In my mind, Hitchcock was a film genius and there are at least three or four of his films that are certainly bona fide film noir:

*Strangers on a Train
Notorious
Shadow of a Doubt 
The Wrong Man*

Personally, I'd add *Suspicion* and *Vertigo* to that list. And you'd get no argument from me if you also included *Rope, Dial M for Murder, Psycho, North By Northwest* and *To Catch a Thief* to that list.


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## Guest (Apr 19, 2020)

pianozach said:


> I'm a big *Hitchcock* fan, and Hitch "dabbled" in film noir for a time, although people still debate his film noir credentials.
> 
> In my mind, Hitchcock was a film genius and there are at least three or four of his films that are certainly bona fide film noir:
> 
> ...


I have some good books about film in my library, including the excellent biography of Hitchcock. ("A Life in Darkness and Light") by Patrick McGilligan. I'm unsure those films you mention are actually film noir; it's moot. But "The Wrong Man" is actually a true story, so I think that disqualifies it - despite the photography, setting and hardened detective manque of the narrative.

Hitchcock's early noir include "The Lady Vanishes" in the 1930s, but he was also heavily influenced by German Expressionism. I will explore the connection between noir and Hitchcock a bit further at some future point. Thanks for highlighting this.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

Caryatid said:


> One of my favourite noirs is _The Big Heat_ (1953). It's concise and well paced and has a number of memorable characters. The first time I saw it was on the big screen a couple of years ago. I enjoyed it greatly then and have since watched it at home more than once. (...)


"The Woman in The Window" (also directed by Fritz Lang) is also worth checking out.








US blu-ray








UK Blu-ray


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## Guest (Apr 19, 2020)

I think I've seen this one!! Yes, it's pretty good. About a man who becomes obsessed about a woman?


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

Christabel said:


> I think I've seen this one!! Yes, it's pretty good. About a man who becomes obsessed about a woman?


Middle-aged professor meets femme fatale and accepts a drink in her apartment. One of her suiters barges in and a scuffle ensues. Suitor accidentally dies. Now they have to dispose of the body. The professor gets updates about the police investigation from his friend, the DA. It does not look good for him...


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2020)

I do remember now; he was friendly with the DA and even went along to the police investigation!! Excellent movie. That restoration looks excellent too. A must-have!!

Younger people just don't seem to know how good these film noir are. They typically involved very good directors, cinematographers, writers, actors and other prestige studio technicians.

Let's look at some of the directors:

Nicholas Ray
Samuel Fuller
Robert Aldrich
Howard Hawks
Jules Dassin
John Huston
Carol Reed
Otto Preminger
Billy Wilder
Jacques Tourneur
Fritz Lang
Robert Siodmak
Anthony Mann
Raoul Walsh
Michael Curtiz
Henry Hathaway
Orson Welles


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2020)

Another pretty good noir, "*Nightmare Alley*" (Edmund Goulding, 1947) starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell. All perfect distractions for the Covid-19 prisoners under house arrest!!


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Red Rock West, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Last Seduction, and Kill me Again (in descending order of quality) for quality post 1980 noir movies. 

My favorite golden era noirs are The Big Sleep and The Postman Always Rings Twice but there are many minor masterpieces. Detective Story is a clever and very William Wyler take on the genre, albeit without the heart of some others. My Name is Julia Ross is another classic and often rehashed plot done well. Any of the Anthony Mann noirs, as well as his westerns which are essentially noir movies with cowboys, are worth seeing. The Mask of Dimitrios is an interesting Peter Lorre, worthy of being mentioned among more well-known noir/mystery films. And for my part I'll watch anything with Mitchum or Sterling Hayden.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2020)

bz3 said:


> Red Rock West, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, The Last Seduction, and Kill me Again (in descending order of quality) for quality post 1980 noir movies.
> 
> My favorite golden era noirs are The Big Sleep and The Postman Always Rings Twice but there are many minor masterpieces. Detective Story is a clever and very William Wyler take on the genre, albeit without the heart of some others. My Name is Julia Ross is another classic and often rehashed plot done well. Any of the Anthony Mann noirs, as well as his westerns which are essentially noir movies with cowboys, are worth seeing. The Mask of Dimitrios is an interesting Peter Lorre, worthy of being mentioned among more well-known noir/mystery films. And for my part I'll watch anything with Mitchum or Sterling Hayden.


I haven't heard of those post 1980 films you mention; thanks for the heads up!! Agree about Mitchum and Hayden. Also those Anthony Mann westerns were really something. I've seen one of his noirs but it was just under an hour long and wasn't memorable; I expect it was amongst his earliest films. Cannot remember the name. I have "Detective Story" (Wyler) on DVD and have mixed feelings about this film, probably because it censored the real subject matter of what really ailed Eleanor Parker. Sometimes allusion just isn't enough (same with "Kings Row"). I felt that Kirk Douglas was inclined to over-act and this sometimes became wearing. He was very good in "*Out of the Past*", though. Absolutely the epitome of evil. Like Widmark, he could play gentle and sympathetic characters.

The essential element in noir is, for me, the femme fatale. In that sense I'm wondering how you see Mann's westerns as noir films with cowboys. It's an intriguing idea. "Winchester 73" and "The Naked Spur" are about revenge and "The Far Country" is a colour film with two women vying for the affections of James Stewart. "Bend in the River" and "The Man from Laramie" are also excellent films which revised our notions of the old west; Mann's characters (often Stewart) went against type. Seeming to be law-abiding and reliable, there was often an undercurrent of violence and this was rendered in facial expressions in close-up. Such an interesting director who died at age 60.

Fifteen years ago I had to teach "Unforgiven" at senior high school level. My colleagues insisted that this was a 'revisionist' western and that Clint Eastwood was breaking new ground - until I argued that this had already been done from the early 1950s by Anthony Mann. (Naturally they hadn't heard of him at all!!)


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ Naked Spur is one of my favourite westerns. I thought it captured well the no-so-goodness of Stewart in the role, especially at the end. Great acting by Stewart. I rewatched Double Indemnity. Edward G. was great. Stanwyck was all right to me this time.


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2020)

I remember this famous 'transformational' scene with the body being dragged by the bounty hunter Stewart in "*The Naked Spur*". Janet Leigh was never better in a film, either, IMO. It's an excellent example of the revisionist western oeuvre of Anthony Mann. Stewart was a very fine actor and this scene you've posted demonstrates that, as does the amazing last scene in "Vertigo". I really believed!!


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## Guest (Apr 20, 2020)

I watched "*The Woman in the Window*" against last night, Fritz Lang's somewhat stylish noir. I hadn't seen it for some years and felt cheated by the anti-climax of the end, which I'd forgotten about.

A bit of trivia: I recently watched a documentary about Edward G. Robinson and I found out he had one of the best private art collections during the 1940s. He was a connoisseur of fine art and music, and you'd never know this when you hear him utter the line, "Well, is this the end of Rico?". Anyway, to cut a long story short, he had a wife and one child and when they divorced he had to sell MOST of that private collection to pay her out and then return to the screen to recoup some of his former standard of living. (Is anybody at all going to mention the immoral wealth redistribution which occurred in the USA when men lost everything in divorce and its continuance today. To say I'm appalled is putting it mildly.)


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

Bogart is one of my all time favorite actors, and even with as much as I have sold off my DVDs, I still hold onto my copies of the Maltese Falcon and the Big Sleep. I don't know if it is noir, or pre-noir, but I really like Lang's M, with Peter Lorré.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Christabel said:


> I haven't heard of those post 1980 films you mention; thanks for the heads up!!


None are truly great, Bad Lieutenant probably comes closest but it falls so far short of Herzog's greatest that I think its quality as a film is underrated simply because a great director made it. They all beat the glitzier forays into the neo-noir from that period like Fatal Attraction IMO, however.


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## Guest (Apr 21, 2020)

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Bogart is one of my all time favorite actors, and even with as much as I have sold off my DVDs, I still hold onto my copies of the Maltese Falcon and the Big Sleep. I don't know if it is noir, or pre-noir, but I really like Lang's M, with Peter Lorré.


Both those films, The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep (Huston and Hawks respectively) are classic noir. I'm pretty sure Lang's "M" is a thriller, though it has noir elements and is influenced by German Expressionism.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

How about Sunset Boulevard? Again, there's disagreement on how much it fits the genre. I just rewatched it. Crazy, funny, and tragic.


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## Radames (Feb 27, 2013)

Third Man has been restored. I would love to see the restoration sometime. It would be best in a movie theater, but no theater around me shows classics like that. It's hard to come up with a firm definition of the genre imo. Maltese Falcon is definitely one and one of the best films ever. The Big Sleep is another classic, but I can never figure out who killed the chauffeur. Chinatown is considered a neo-noir and is one of the best 70's films. Fargo in the 90's. 

Does Soylent Green count as sci-fi noir? 12 Monkeys? Minority Report? 

A old TV show that had noir qualities was Kolchak: The Night Stalker. It was pretty cool when I was a kid.


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2020)

Phil loves classical said:


> How about Sunset Boulevard? Again, there's disagreement on how much it fits the genre. I just rewatched it. Crazy, funny, and tragic.


"*Sunset Boulevard*" is regarded as classic noir; black and white, femme fatale (though faded), street-wise 'gumshoe'/reporter, deception, a murder, intricate plot, psychological undercurrents, urban location, far-fetched scenario, voice-over, snappy and cynical dialogue and an obsession with the past.

An erstwhile Australian Prime Minister has just released his memoirs; a 700 page tome damning the current government and especially our Prime Minister (my son's boss). I wrote a response in our national newspaper comments section online under the article about the contents of the memoir and its narcissistic author, thus:

"You used to be big"

"I am big; it's the pictures that got small".


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2020)

Radames said:


> Third Man has been restored. I would love to see the restoration sometime. It would be best in a movie theater, but no theater around me shows classics like that. It's hard to come up with a firm definition of the genre imo. Maltese Falcon is definitely one and one of the best films ever. The Big Sleep is another classic, but I can never figure out who killed the chauffeur. Chinatown is considered a neo-noir and is one of the best 70's films. Fargo in the 90's.
> 
> Does Soylent Green count as sci-fi noir? 12 Monkeys? Minority Report?
> 
> A old TV show that had noir qualities was Kolchak: The Night Stalker. It was pretty cool when I was a kid.


"Chinatown" is definitely a colour noir (unusual but there were some made - personally I prefer monochrome!). Also the Coen's "The Man Who Wasn't There" - an outstanding film, BTW.

And, as I said elsewhere, Hawks lost the plot of "The Big Sleep" and didn't know himself who did what to whom!! True.


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## Biwa (Aug 3, 2015)

Some of my favorite film noir disguised as horror films.

Cat People (1942)






I Walked with a Zombie (1943)


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Biwa said:


> Some of my favorite film noir disguised as horror films.
> 
> Cat People (1942)
> 
> ...


Nice choices. I've enjoyed all four Jacques Tourneur films I have seen.

I need to watch The Leopard Man at some point.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

bz3 said:


> None are truly great, Bad Lieutenant probably comes closest but it falls so far short of Herzog's greatest that I think its quality as a film is underrated simply because a great director made it. They all beat the glitzier forays into the neo-noir from that period like Fatal Attraction IMO, however.


I think there were some very good neo's made in the 70's and 80's, starting with, of course, _Chinatown_. But also worth a view are_ Body Heat, Mulholland Drive, Memento, Blood Simple, Point Blank, Blade Runner_. Also the vastly underrated sequel to Chinatown, _The Two Jakes_.


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## Guest (Apr 23, 2020)

Caryatid said:


> Nice choices. I've enjoyed all four Jacques Tourneur films I have seen.
> 
> I need to watch The Leopard Man at some point.


I remember watching this whole film, "*I Walked With a Zombie*", when I was a teenager - with my teenaged sisters. We laughed with rollicking hilarity, aided and abetted by our (very funny) mother - not least because of George Sanders and his "The Picture of Dorian Grey" dead-pan, yet cynical, delivery. "_The glitter of putrescence_"!!:lol: And he says it with a straight face. And those drums and the zombies and that 'dead' woman in the diaphanous gown! I'd say the whole film would be regarded as racist today; the fearful 'other' with its death-cult obsessions and black, exophthalmic zombies.

The film is a "_brooding masterpiece_"? This adds to the humour, this comment, and demonstrates how far beyond the pale film criticism has actually wandered. Like the predestined zombies of the narrative, film criticism walks an inevitable trajectory towards its own demise.

These B grade horror moves were essentially training grounds for film directors and technicians.


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

Christabel said:


> I remember watching this whole film, "*I Walked With a Zombie*", when I was a teenager - with my teenaged sisters. We laughed with rollicking hilarity, aided and abetted by our (very funny) mother - not least because of George Sanders and his "The Picture of Dorian Grey" dead-pan, yet cynical, delivery. "_The glitter of putrescence_"!!:lol: And he says it with a straight face. And those drums and the zombies and that 'dead' woman in the diaphanous gown! I'd say the whole film would be regarded as racist today; the fearful 'other' with its death-cult obsessions and black, exophthalmic zombies.
> 
> The film is a "_brooding masterpiece_"? This adds to the humour, this comment, and demonstrates how far beyond the pale film criticism has actually wandered. Like the predestined zombies of the narrative, film criticism walks an inevitable trajectory towards its own demise.
> 
> These B grade horror moves were essentially training grounds for film directors and technicians.


You laughed at it when you were a teenager, but try it again. This is a completely different kind of horror film that what Universal was putting out. Val Lewton was a genius and one of the greatest filmmakers of his time. He conceived, wrote the scripts (although he always gave full credit to the writers he had contracted), hired the directors, and was involved in every aspect of the film: casting, locations, wardrobes, set design and lighting. But once filming started, he never interfered with the direction or acting.

The result was a completely unique horror film; the psychological depth of his films was something that was not being done at that time (especially in horror). It's the difference between horror and terror, the seen versus the unseen. His characters, despite the unease and dread they were feeling, do not run from the darkness; they are drawn to it.

He did all this on a budget of 150k per movie, a three week shooting schedule, and mandated running time of 75 minutes. And for this they paid him $250/week. So, yeah, they are 'B' movies in that sense. It makes what Lewton did all that more remarkable. In the end, RKO tired of his artsy style and fired him after the release of his last film, _Bedlam_.


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2020)

gregorx said:


> You laughed at it when you were a teenager, but try it again. This is a completely different kind of horror film that what Universal was putting out. Val Lewton was a genius and one of the greatest filmmakers of his time. He conceived, wrote the scripts (although he always gave full credit to the writers he had contracted), hired the directors, and was involved in every aspect of the film: casting, locations, wardrobes, set design and lighting. But once filming started, he never interfered with the direction or acting.
> 
> The result was a completely unique horror film; the psychological depth of his films was something that was not being done at that time (especially in horror). It's the difference between horror and terror, the seen versus the unseen. His characters, despite the unease and dread they were feeling, do not run from the darkness; they are drawn to it.
> 
> He did all this on a budget of 150k per movie, a three week shooting schedule, and mandated running time of 75 minutes. And for this they paid him $250/week. So, yeah, they are 'B' movies in that sense. It makes what Lewton did all that more remarkable. In the end, RKO tired of his artsy style and fired him after the release of his last film, _Bedlam_.


I take your point about Val Lewton - but he's rarely turned up in any of my readings about film. He was a Producer, not a Director. Jacques Tourneur was also a very good film-maker and he directed "*I Walked with with a Zombie*". And he directed film noir, of course.

It wouldn't be any use my re-visiting the film as the same old racist tropes are there, in abundance; the film still has comedy value for me. The primitive, sexualized rituals of 'the other' - beating drums and strange calls to which a white woman is drawn - could provide some excellent Freudian analysis, but only if film criticism is so effete that this would become necessary!! A curious blend of "La Sonnambula" and "The Homecoming"!! But I also think psychological depth had not been missing from film at this time: try some of the wonderful films of Lon Chaney!! Here's a great documentary: (couldn't find one online of better quality, and it starts here just a few seconds from the beginning - credits to come).






It's hard to imagine that "*I Walked with a Zombie*" was made as the war was raging in Europe and the Pacific. Fear of 'the other' may have had some propaganda value. But, as you rightly suggest, tastes changed and these films were consigned to history - or late night television from the 1950s.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Christabel said:


> I take your point about Val Lewton - but he's rarely turned up in any of my readings about film. He was a Producer, not a Director. Jacques Tourneur was also a very good film-maker and he directed "*I Walked with with a Zombie*". And he directed film noir, of course.
> 
> It wouldn't be any use my re-visiting the film as the same old racist tropes are there, in abundance; the film still has comedy value for me. The primitive, sexualized rituals of 'the other' - beating drums and strange calls to which a white woman is drawn - could provide some excellent Freudian analysis, but only if film criticism is so effete that this would become necessary!! A curious blend of "La Sonnambula" and "The Homecoming"!! But I also think psychological depth had not been missing from film at this time: try some of the wonderful films of Lon Chaney!! Here's a great documentary: (couldn't find one online of better quality, and it starts here just a few seconds from the beginning - credits to come).
> 
> ...


What's your opinion of Jacques Tourneur's other horror films?


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## Guest (Apr 25, 2020)

I have only seen "*Cat People*" in that genre; again, produced by Val Lewton. (A bit of trivia: the female star of that film, Simone Simon, had an affair with George Gershwin.) It's only the noir films of Tourneur that interest me, of which "*Out of the Past*" is his very best.

You might be interested in this article, which I've just found. A criticism from me is that Tourneur is attributed as an 'auteur' with these films when, in fact, the Producer and Writer both had a significant role in the choice of materials and their themes; the Director was the person who fleshed that out visually.

https://lwlies.com/festivals/jacques-tourneur-cinema-of-anxiety/


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Christabel said:


> I have only seen "*Cat People*" in that genre; again, produced by Val Lewton. (A bit of trivia: the female star of that film, Simone Simon, had an affair with George Gershwin.) It's only the noir films of Tourneur that interest me, of which "*Out of the Past*" is his very best.
> 
> You might be interested in this article, which I've just found. A criticism from me is that Tourneur is attributed as an 'auteur' with these films when, in fact, the Producer and Writer both had a significant role in the choice of materials and their themes; the Director was the person who fleshed that out visually.
> 
> https://lwlies.com/festivals/jacques-tourneur-cinema-of-anxiety/


I agree that the term "auteur" has become all but meaningless. Any director who makes a few good films is called an auteur now.


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2020)

I may have inadvertently misled you; the 'auteur' moniker was *implied* rather than stated. I felt that it attributed all the ideas to the director in terms of plot and themes when in actuality, he wasn't responsible for these (as was, say, Hitchcock who had a massive role in script development and whose wife actually co-wrote some of his films).


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## Guest (Apr 30, 2020)

I've discovered another film noir, "*Johnny Eager*", 1941, starring Robert Taylor and Lana Turner. My attention was drawn to this during a documentary about Robert Taylor last night and the fact that he could play bad, psychological characters as well as sympathetic romantic leads in matinee idol mode. This one directed by the splendid Mervyn Le Roy ("Waterloo Bridge" and "Quo Vadis"). Mahin and Grant were very good, seasoned screen writers. I always found Taylor stiff and starchy overall, but he was good in "Waterloo Bridge". See what you think of this one:


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## Fenestella (Oct 4, 2015)

My top 10+: 
Double Indemnity (1944) 
Angel Face (1953)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) 
A Place in the Sun (1951)
They Won't Believe Me (1947)
The Woman in the Window (1944)
Scarlet Street (1945)
The Prowler (1951)
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
Footsteps in the Fog (1955)
I Confess (1953)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) 
Detour (1945)
So Evil My Love (1948)
No Man of Her Own (1950)
The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
Fury (1936)
The Suspect (1944)


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

_Scarlet Street_ and _The Woman in the Window_ are often treated as a pair. But I watched _Scarlet Street_ and didn't like it. Do you think this means I'm unlikely to enjoy _The Woman in the Window_ as well? How similar are they?


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## gregorx (Jan 25, 2020)

^ I think they're pretty much the same movie, both a remake of Jean Renoir's La Chienne (1931). I've never really understood why Lang would do The Woman then Street a year later. Maybe someone here can fill us in on that. I've seen both of them and really can't remember which one I preferred.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

gregorx said:


> ^ I think they're pretty much the same movie, both a remake of Jean Renoir's La Chienne (1931). I've never really understood why Lang would do The Woman then Street a year later. Maybe someone here can fill us in on that. I've seen both of them and really can't remember which one I preferred.


Thanks for your input. I wasn't aware of the Renoir precursor. I'll probably give _The Woman in the Window_ a miss for the time being. It's a shame because I have enjoyed some of Lang's other films.


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## Guest (May 1, 2020)

Fenestella said:


> My top 10+:
> Double Indemnity (1944)
> Angel Face (1953)
> The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
> ...


Great movies but not all are typically film noir. "I Confess" _looks like_ noir, filmed in Montreal and is about a priest, but it's a suspense film primarily, of the early genre of black and white Hitchcock. Noir has to have a femme fatale, a central character haunted by a past and with psychological connections to it, a big deal in the making - usually involving scams and criminals - and a reckoning at the end. The mean streets are usually (but not always) the backdrop and noir is interested in the corrupting influence of urbanization.

I've looked at quite a few of these films again recently and I'd say that out of most of them "Out of the Past", "Night and the City", "Kiss of Death" and "Pick up on South Street" are classic noir. Most starred Richard Widmark, as it happens. "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Asphalt Jungle" are two peak noir as well as "The Third Man" and the films of Howard Hawks also mentioned. A recent colour noir is "Chinatown" - which is a very good film.

Many films have noir characteristics, and some invert those elements yet still belong to the genre - eg. "Leave Her to Heaven" as previously discussed. Hard-core noir was a specific genre which arose from the crime films of the 1930s - such as "The Public Enemy" and "Angels with Dirty Faces", just to name two.

The genre evolved into the 1950s, where the films became even more psychological and some had a cold-war backdrop rather than the mean streets. "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" could be regarded as noir, but it's essentially an espionage thriller.


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## Guest (May 1, 2020)

Caryatid said:


> _Scarlet Street_ and _The Woman in the Window_ are often treated as a pair. But I watched _Scarlet Street_ and didn't like it. Do you think this means I'm unlikely to enjoy _The Woman in the Window_ as well? How similar are they?


"The Woman in the Window" with the excellent Edward G. Robinson (he of the famous "is this the end of Rico?"); I watched it last week and the ending is extremely weak and anti-climactic. To all intents and purposes the film is noir, but this is subverted part way through when it reminded me of "Ball of Fire", with its eccentric group of male professors intensely interested in language. In the case of "Woman in the Window" it was about solving crime; also elements of Watson and Holmes. If they are re-makes of a Renoir film, as has been suggested, then that explains quite a lot. They often end up as pastiche, for reasons I've never understood. Such is the fate of "The Woman in the Window"; a film which starts out with lots of promise but loses its way by the end. The last line is a kind of joke.

Many films have been destroyed by poor or cryptic endings; I think of "Red River" as a major example - "Citizen Kane" as another. But that's another topic!


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

1955

Not on anyone's great noirs list; but a favorite of mine-- more for the actors and characters they play rather than the plot. Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman as gunmen with a suggestive relationship fascinate as does Brian Donlevy's comeuppance without benefit of hearing aide. Conte enlivens any role he takes.


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## Guest (May 2, 2020)

Excellent; yes, I remember this film and will check it out to see if it's on the internet. Saw it years ago. Richard Conte has always rubbed me up the wrong way since he starred with Susan Hayward in that biopic about the singer, "With a Song in My Heart". Froman was an alcoholic and Conte married her and fed her booze so that he could control her and spend her money. It was a deal breaker for me with Conte; yes, I know - it was only a movie!!!

I found "*The Big Combo*" on Dailymotion: now for a feast as the cold wind roars outside.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Turner Classic Movies had a double feature starring Elizabeth Taylor. I taped them and have seen each more than once. 

"Secret Ceremony" (1968) and "Night Watch" (1973). They don't make them like this anymore. Anyone know them? 

I guess today they call them psychological thrillers. I don't suppose they can be categorized as film noir?


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## Guest (May 2, 2020)

Open Book said:


> Turner Classic Movies had a double feature starring Elizabeth Taylor. I taped them and have seen each more than once.
> 
> "Secret Ceremony" (1968) and "Night Watch" (1973). They don't make them like this anymore. Anyone know them?
> 
> I guess today they call them psychological thrillers. I don't suppose they can be categorized as film noir?


I would say they're thrillers rather than noir, though I haven't seen either.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Christabel said:


> I would say they're thrillers rather than noir . . .


Yeah, the problem is that you simply cannot give a list of film noir attributes, and list only films that have them all. And I think that the debate on what defines film noir will never be settled.

You have to decide how many of those film noir-defining attributes any particular film has, then decide where your cutoff is.

Let's say that there are 25 things, and a "Film A" has 20 of them, then that's probably good enough.

1. Black & White
2. Cynical attitudes
3. Sexual motivations
4. Femme fatal
5. Low key
6. Cinematography rooted in German Expressionism, notably low-key lighting, and use of shadows.
7. Crime fiction
8. A Private Investigator or plainsclothes policeman
9. An aging boxer or a hapless grifter

Or you could go with the Big Five attributes from *Panorama du film noir américain 1941-1953*: _"We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ..."_

oneiric, 
strange, 
erotic, 
ambivalent, and 
cruel

I've run into this same "problem" and solution in two other instances: One was defining *Progressive Rock*, or Prog.

The other is in *medical diagnosis*: If you have enough of the symptoms of a particular disease, then that's the disease you probably have.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

Do you guys count _Sweet Smell of Success_ as a noir?


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## Guest (May 2, 2020)

Caryatid said:


> Do you guys count _Sweet Smell of Success_ as a noir?


Most definitely, and this is how it is described and written about in the book I have on Film Noir. As I've said before the subject of film genre is worthy of a lengthy topic all on its own where we can encounter the same generic ambiguities as occurs with music!!

Pianozach lists black and white photography as a characteristic of noir yet there is general agreement that the lush Technicolor "*Leave Her to Heaven*" definitely falls within that categorization.

Yesterday I watched "Side Street" with Cornel Wilde and Cathy O'Donnell. The opening helicopter shots of New York were an impressive start and set the scene in a very original way (just as Robert Wise did at the start of "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music"). Anthony Mann directed this film and it's a taut drama with plot contortions which are right up there with "The Big Sleep". The characteristic Mann techniques were already in evidence: close-ups of tortured faces, a lead character who is psychologically ambivalent and quickly resorts to anger and violence (James Stewart in those famous Mann westerns) and interesting and unusual framing including, but not limited to, confronting images of violence; dead bodies etc. Deep shadows and stark lighting were part of Mann's signature mise-en-scene as well; he was a very good Director. One of the notable affects in 'Side Street' is incredible editing of the chase scene towards the end of the film. This was quality film-making!!


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Caryatid said:


> _Scarlet Street_ and _The Woman in the Window_ are often treated as a pair. But I watched _Scarlet Street_ and didn't like it. Do you think this means I'm unlikely to enjoy _The Woman in the Window_ as well? How similar are they?


I don't like either one that much. American Lang is not very good IMO, but I'm not even a huge fan of German Lang FWIW. I do like Edward G. Robinson though and I'd say they're both worth it if you're a fan of his. Scarlet Street was the better of the pair IMO.


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## Guest (May 3, 2020)

You might be interested in this list of "The 20 Best Film Noir" and some discussion of each. I note that the majority of directors were European emigres to the USA:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...y-shadow-of-a-doubt-the-killing-a8816426.html


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Christabel said:


> . . . Pianozach lists black and white photography as a characteristic of noir yet there is general agreement that the lush Technicolor "*Leave Her to Heaven*" definitely falls within that categorization. . . .


Exactly.



Christabel said:


> You might be interested in this list of "The 20 Best Film Noir" and some discussion of each. I note that the majority of directors were European emigres to the USA:
> 
> https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...y-shadow-of-a-doubt-the-killing-a8816426.html


Those northern European directors brought that stylistic cinematography with 'em.


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## Guest (May 3, 2020)

And I love every frame of these films!! And what does it tell you about Hollywood moguls that they were able to engage these incredibly talented Europeans and Scandinavians? I've always said they understood talent right down to their boot straps.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Christabel said:


> You might be interested in this list of "The 20 Best Film Noir" and some discussion of each. I note that the majority of directors were European emigres to the USA:
> 
> https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...y-shadow-of-a-doubt-the-killing-a8816426.html


Interesting list but your comment does tease out the bias. Less than half of their list would make my personal top 20. For me film noir can get really bogged down in mood at the expense of story (which is the essence of the genre for me) to the point where you think you fell into a French new wave picture at certain times. For this reason I think many of the best B-pictures in the noir genre are more interesting than the big money affairs - similar to the horror genre.


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## Guest (May 4, 2020)

bz3 said:


> Interesting list but your comment does tease out the bias. Less than half of their list would make my personal top 20. For me film noir can get really bogged down in mood at the expense of story (which is the essence of the genre for me) to the point where you think you fell into a French new wave picture at certain times. For this reason I think many of the best B-pictures in the noir genre are more interesting than the big money affairs - similar to the horror genre.


I think you are referring to noir which have 'arthouse' characteristics, like "M". As to whether they're 'big money affairs' I cannot say. Almost certainly many great directors made noir films and many budding directors (like Anthony Mann) and these were technically very accomplished films. In the case of either extremely convoluted or downright unbelievable plot trajectories, it is much easier to enjoy a well-crafted film when there are these other 'deficits'. Cornel Wilde was very one-dimensional in "Side Street" but I'm wondering if his determination to play the hard-boiled gumshoe overtook his ability to nuance a performance to suit the plot contrivances. Finally, there's a lot of 'forgiveness' at play when one is a hardened film enthusiast like myself!!!


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