by Conan Simmons – December 6, 2020 – 12:42 am
Welcome to another installment of our “What is Genre?” article series here at On Genre. In this installment we examine the sub-genre of crime known as film noir.
Film noir began when filmmakers started merging the deep shadows of German expressionist films from the 1920’s and 30’s, i.e. ‘Nosferatu’ (1922) and ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’ (1933), with hard-boiled detective fiction from pulp writers, i.e. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. It was a slow merging that took a few years to fully form.
The first film to truly establish the template for film noir was the 1941 hit, ‘The Maltese Falcon’ directed by John Huston and adapted from a Sam Spade detective mystery by Dashiell Hammett. Humphrey Bogart became a major Hollywood star when he played the cynical private detective, Sam Spade, investigating the murder of his business partner. As he navigates the shadowy underworld of San Francisco he encounters a web of colorful miscreants from the effeminate Joel Cairo, played by Peter Lorre, the maliciously jolly Jasper Gutman, played by Sidney Greenstreet, his hot-headed homosexual gun moll Wilmer, played by Elisha Cook, Jr., and the femme fatale in distress Ruth Wonderly, played by Mary Astor.
The success of ‘The Maltese Falcon’ naturally inspired Hollywood to begin adapting more hard boiled detective fiction and the filmmakers they enlisted took their visual cues from the John Huston classic. As the techniques were refined an undeclared film movement sprung up. A notable early example of the newfound sub-genre came from master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock with his 1943 film ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ starring Teresa Wright as a young woman who suspects her uncle, played by Joseph Cotten, of being a serial killer. The film further instilled one of the central tenants of film noir, that of the central character becoming obsessed with something that leads to perilous danger and potential ruin.
1944 is the year film noir solidified the archetypes that defines the genre. The film that launched film noir into a successful fifteen year run at the box office was 1944’s ‘Double Indemnity’ starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. Directed by Billy Wilder, the film depicts how an everyman, like MacMurray, can be seduced by a luscious femme fatale, like Stanwyck, into committing crimes he wouldn’t ordinarily consider in his normal life.
Another hit film noir from 1944 starred former musical star Dick Powell as hard-boiled private detective Philip Marlowe in ‘Murder, My Sweet’. Based on a novel by Raymond Chandler, ‘Murder, My Sweet’ was directed by Edward Dmytryk, who specialized in tough characters and earned an Oscar nomination for directing another film noir classic, ‘Crossfire’ in 1947.
Part of the success of film noir was the fact that filmmakers could make effective contributions to the genre no matter how low the budget. 1945 brought a prime example of this with director Edgar G. Ulmer’s ‘Detour’ starring Tom Neal, who later went to prison for manslaughter in real life, and Ann Savage as the silver screen’s most detestable femme fatale. Made at PRC Pictures, one of many so-called “poverty row” studios, ‘Detour’ is widely considered the best offering from poverty row and a classic of film noir.
Femme fatales hit their peak in 1946 as film noir enjoyed its spotlight during history’s biggest year for theater attendance. After the end of World War II, audiences were feeling the weariness of the world and a pessimistic cynicism about people in general, and they were just as willing as the tragic hero on screen to follow the femme fatale down the rabbit hole of crime. No femme fatale made more of an impact than Rita Hayworth as the titular ‘Gilda’, luring rambling gambler Glenn Ford into dangerous designs in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As Gilda, Rita Hayworth is the quintessential femme fatale.
Other standout femme fatales of 1946 include Lana Turner luring John Garfield into murder in ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’. Lauren Bacall providing guidance to Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe in ‘The Big Sleep’. And Ava Gardner inspiring Burt Lancaster into accepting his fate in ‘The Killers’.
1947 brought the onslaught of low budget entries into the genre as film noir leaned into its visual stylings more-so than ever. Directors began emphasizing the visual motifs with low-key lighting and extreme camera angles creating an imbalance with the realism of the stories being told on screen. The bigger budget noirs obliged as well with the dreamlike ‘Out of the Past’ directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Jane Greer as the femme fatale that leads both morally ambiguous detective Robert Mitchum and her gangster lover Kirk Douglas down the road to ruin.
The film that showcases the quintessential visual elements of noir is 1947’s ‘Raw Deal’. Directed by the genre’s top director, Anthony Mann, ‘Raw Deal’ stars Denis O’Keefe as a convict who must escape with his girlfriend, Claire Trevor, from the diabolical over-imposing crime boss, Raymond Burr. Though the film is a low budget offering its visuals, from the stark contrasting of shadows to the disorienting extreme camera angles, are the definition of film noir.
‘Kiss of Death’ in 1947 gave noir its most disturbing villain in Richard Widmark’s non-stop smiling killer, perhaps an early influence of the Batman comic books madman the Joker. ‘D.O.A.’ followed in 1948 adding even more garish characters in the vein of Raymond Burr’s heavy from ‘Raw Deal’. 1949 added the garishness of the previous films’ side characters to the central characters of ‘Gun Crazy’.
As noir influenced films overseas, notably Carol Reed’s ‘The Third Man’ (1949), the genre maintained its hold on the public as the 1950’s became flush with noir. From ‘711 Ocean Drive’ to ‘Pickup on South Street’ to ‘Night and the City’ and another John Huston classic, ‘The Asphalt Jungle’ noir was a formidable competitor amongst the multitude of genre films in the last decade of Hollywood’s old studio system dominance. Westerns were the decades most dominant genre and naturally film noir crossed its trail in 1952’s Fritz Lang directed ‘Rancho Notorious’ starring Marlene Dietrich.
Fritz Lang, whose early films in Germany provided the template for noir, went on to direct a popular favorite of the genre starring Glenn Ford as a detective out for revenge in 1953’s ‘The Big Heat’. Noir began losing favor at the box office toward the end of the 1950’s but not before leaving behind several more classics, from the colorful Marilyn Monroe suspense ‘Niagara’ in 1953, to the Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer atomic threat mystery ‘Kiss Me Deadly’ in 1955 and finally Orson Welle’s noir ‘Touch of Evil’ in 1958. Film noir even heavily influenced television when Billy Wilder brought ‘Peter Gunn’ to the small screen early in the decade.
The 1960’s were a noir winter of sorts as more and more films were filmed in color and the heavy contrasts of light, primarily used in black and white film, caused noir to sit on the sidelines as the old studio system made its last gasp and a New Hollywood took over.
Filmmakers of the New Hollywood who grew up on the noir of yesteryear couldn’t resist the urge to revisit the genre as the Vietnam War brought about a new cynicism to America. With the action-adventure film gaining popularity by the early 1970’s an early example of the neo-noir featured Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw in director Walter Hill’s 1972 film ‘The Getaway’. Raymond Chandler’s popular detective Philip Marlowe returned to the screen in 1973 as Elliot Gould took on the role in ‘The Long Goodbye’.
The biggest impact noir had on New Hollywood came in in 1974 when Roman Polanski directed Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in ‘Chinatown’, a film that also featured John Huston, the director that started it all in 1941 with ‘The Maltese Falcon’.
Noir took a controversially twisted turn in 1976 when Martin Scorsese directed Robert DeNiro as the sociopathic ‘Taxi Driver’. The foreboding violence of the film emphasized the character study of a man dangerously on the edge.
The 1980’s saw a slow resurgence of noir that crept across the decade. From Lawrence Kasdan’s ‘Body Heat’ in 1981, starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, to the 1984 remake of ‘Out of the Past’, this time entitled ‘Against All Odds’, starring Jeff Bridges and featuring Jane Greer and Richard Widmark, film noir was embracing more erotic overtones.
Film noir was coming back in a big way from big screen hits like 1985’s ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ to the small screen wunderkind series ‘Miami Vice’ to crossover genre pieces like 1982’s sci-fi noir ‘Blade Runner’, directed by Ridley Scott, and the animated noir ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ form 1988 starring Bob Hoskins and Kathleen Turner as the iconic animated femme fatale, Jessica Rabbit.
The erotic thriller blended well with noir as the 1990’s came around. As filmmaker’s and audiences were now consciously aware of noir, thanks in part to film critics writing about its defining characteristics for decades starting with Cahiers du Cinema in France, the first film to be advertised as film noir was Dennis Hopper’s 1990 directorial effort ‘The Hot Spot’, starring Don Johnson and Jennifer Connolly. As erotic thrillers flourished at the box office and on cable television the peak for the genre came in the form of 1992’s overhyped ‘Basic Instinct’, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.
Aside from the erotic thrillers there was a new director making his name starting with noir. Quentin Tarantino burst onto the scene with 1992’s independent hit, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and icon of noir, Lawrence Tierney. After Tarantino’s noir screenplay ‘True Romance’ was directed by Tony Scott in 1993, Tarantino returned to the director’s chair for the phenomenal hit ‘Pulp Fiction’ in 1994 starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis. Directing only one more feature in that decade, 1997’s ‘Jackie Brown’ starring Pam Grier and Robert Forster, it appears to be Tarantino’s last noir as he has gone on to other genre’s.
Noir began edging to the sidelines again as big budget Hollywood films favoring fantasy took a stranglehold on the box office. Other notable noirs from the 1990’s include David Fincher’s horror infused ‘Seven’ from 1995, to the expertly crafted ‘L.A. Confidential’ in 1997 starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger and Kevin Spacey. Noir once again crossed genre’s with sci-fi in 1998’s ‘Dark City’ starring Rufus Sewell and Jennifer Connolly.
The 2000’s were another down time for noir but interestingly it made its mark on the Oscars by winning the Best Picture award with ‘The Departed’ in 2006, directed by Martin Scorsese, an adaptation of a Hong Kong crime film, and winning again in 2007 with ‘No Country for Old Men’ directed by Joel Coen who, working with his brother Ethan, made their film directorial debut in 1984 with the noir ‘Blood Simple’.
Director David Fincher returned to noir with another horror infused thriller, ‘Zodiac’ in 2007, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo.
Jake Gyllenhaal made another notable imprint on noir when he starred as the sociopathic cameraman in 2014’s low-key thriller ‘Nightcrawler’.
The last few years has seen noir continuing to make an impression on audiences with the success of 2017’s sci-fi noir sequel, ‘Blade Runner 2049’ directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford. 2019 brought Edward Norton’s directorial effort, ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ which he starred in along with Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe.
The biggest move forward recently for the genre of film noir came in 2019 with the release of ‘Joker’. Adapted from the comic books of Batman the film takes a realist approach to examining the origin of the popular villain. Directed by Todd Philips with an Oscar winning performance by Joaquin Phoenix in the eponymous role, ‘Joker’ takes the constructs of the genre, and of storytelling, and turns it on its ear leaving the audience to wonder what is true or not.
As America and the world comes out of the last four years of political distrust amid a global pandemic that sees health precautions politicized and financial uncertainty causing further distress, film noir is seeing its popularity among audiences increasing again. A popular hashtag on social media, #noirvember, dedicates the entire month of November to film noir as people the world over indulge in the genre’s web of intrigue. The distrust people feel towards society’s governments and protocols make the genre ripe for a big comeback.
The next possible impact from the genre may come from a film currently in production. ‘Nightmare Alley’, a remake of a 1947 film of the same name, is being directed by master of macabre Guillermo del Toro, starring Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett.
TOP 5 FILM NOIR TO SEE
- ‘The Maltese Falcon’ (1941)
- ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944)
- ‘Chinatown’ (1974)
- ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)
- ‘Joker’ (2019)
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