Film Noir?

[Lily Powers]

Some people think DOA is a quintessential noir - a hapless, 'everyman' who stumbles in a world of criminal activity, but is no saint himself on a couple of levels; urban setting (most of the action taking place in San Francisco) with bars and bad girls; a guy who tries to solve a murder, in this case, his own... It's a good example of noir.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Thanks for the reference. Is it published by McFarland? Tuska also wrote Dark Cinema: American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective (as well as The Vanishing Legion: A History of Mascot Pictures).I would also recommend The Detective in Film, by William K. Everson.

My copy is a first edition from Doubleday; I don't know if it's been republished.

Tuska also wrote The Filming of the West, which I need to take a look at soon.

Other Noir books that I refer to often:

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller- I bought this in 1999 and read it obsessively for months.

Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward. Essential reference!

 

[Atomic Age]

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller- I bought this in 1999 and read it obsessively for months.

Eddie Muller is a very cool guy and in my opinion does the best commentaries on movies.

He has also written some very good novels.

Doug

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Eddie Muller is a very cool guy and in my opinion does the best commentaries on movies.

He has also written some very good novels.

Doug

He sure seems that way! I like his commentary for Fallen Angel and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Muller breathes life into Noir, unlike those stilted, wooden, ivory tower academic types who treat these films like dusty museum pieces to be analyzed but never enjoyed and who talk like they're eating a bag of cotton balls.

Muller's great.

 

[Atomic Age]

He sure seems that way! I like his commentary for Fallen Angel and Where the Sidewalk Ends. Muller breathes life into Noir, unlike those stilted, wooden, ivory tower academic types who treat these films like dusty museum pieces to be analyzed but never enjoyed and who talk like they're eating a bag of cotton balls.

Muller's great.

You nailed it right on the head. Muller seems like someone you'd want to sit down and watch a movie with. Some of these guys can be really dry but Muller is just lots of fun. Have you heard the commentaries he has done with James Ellroy on Crime Wave and The Lineup? The two guys together is just a riot!

Doug

 

[Mahagonny Bill]

Film Noir of the week

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I just found the Film Noir of the Week blog and have been enjoying reading the past entries. I especially liked last weeks entry for the Akira Kurosawa's film Stray Dog (Nora inu) (1949). I had forgotten how many of Kurosawa's early films could be interpreted as Noir.

 

[Widebrim]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I just found the Film Noir of the Week blog and have been enjoying reading the past entries.

Thanks for that link!

 

[Widebrim]

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller- I bought this in 1999 and read it obsessively for months.

Great book, and great commentator!

 

[Nathan Dodge]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I just found the Film Noir of the Week blog and have been enjoying reading the past entries. I especially liked last weeks entry for the Akira Kurosawa's film Stray Dog (Nora inu) (1949). I had forgotten how many of Kurosawa's early films could be interpreted as Noir.

That blog reviewed THE OUTFIT (1973), one of my wishes to come to DVD or back to TCM (they aired it around 2006). The film has several classic Noir actors in it and has a fine score by Jerry Fielding.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

I always felt that whether this was on purpose or not, film noir showed the underbelly of society that stayed out of fighting in WW2. When all the heroes are off fighting the good fight overseas, the home front is a country of criminals. Just one way of looking at it

Well I recently saw "The Blue Dahlia" and your theory fits very well to this film. But you also see that the fighting men came back from the war broken...
All in all it's a watchable film with a dark and pessimistic mood. But I have to say the acting is quite clunky sometimes.

 

[Atomic Age]

Originally Posted by mike
I always felt that whether this was on purpose or not, film noir showed the underbelly of society that stayed out of fighting in WW2. When all the heroes are off fighting the good fight overseas, the home front is a country of criminals. Just one way of looking at it

Interesting, but the fact is that more than half of the protagonists in Films Noir, identify themselves as war veterans. Part of the make up of the film noir movement, was veterans coming back from the war, and finding that home had changed, and they didn't fit in anymore. Often in film noir this leads the protagonist to the seedier elements (sometimes not willingly) and a life of crime.

Doug

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

The protagonist in "The Blue Dahlia" is also a veteran but he is disappointed of his wife who didn't support him at all and also lied about the dead of their son when he was at the front. Another homecoming fellow is completly nuts from his war experience. He hears voices and noise and is pretty aggressive.
So there is pretty much of tragedy and struggle even without the murder.

A movie with only one "bad" person and a lots of good ones would never be a Noir. So of course the postwar society plays a big role.

 

[Widebrim]

Interesting, but the fact is that more than half of the protagonists in Films Noir, identify themselves as war veterans. Part of the make up of the film noir movement, was veterans coming back from the war, and finding that home had changed, and they didn't fit in anymore. Often in film noir this leads the protagonist to the seedier elements (sometimes not willingly) and a life of crime.

Doug

Examples being The Crooked Way, The High Wall, Try and Get Me!, Somewhere in the Night, and (to a lesser degree) Kansas City Confidential. Dialogue from the latter demonstrates this in a succinct, yet powerful way. During a police interrogation, an insurance agent is speaking to John Payne's character, Joe Rolfe, who is accused of being part of an armored car heist:

Agent: "...left school to join the Engineers. Good Soldier, too. Bronze Star, Purple Heart..."
Rolfe: "Try buying a cup of coffee with them!"

 

[Widebrim]

Well I recently saw "The Blue Dahlia" and your theory fits very well to this film. But you also see that the fighting men came back from the war broken...
All in all it's a watchable film with a dark and pessimistic mood. But I have to say the acting is quite clunky sometimes.

Although there may be some "clunky" acting at times, The Blue Dahlia is a prime example of veterans "coming back from the war broken." In the original story, it is actually William Bendix's character who kills Ladd's wife, but the censors considered it disrespectful to have a vet turn out to be a murderer.

 

[Atomic Age]

Examples being The Crooked Way, The High Wall, Try and Get Me!, Somewhere in the Night, and (to a lesser degree) Kansas City Confidential. Dialogue from the latter demonstrates this in a succinct, yet powerful way. During a police interrogation, an insurance agent is speaking to John Payne's character, Joe Rolfe, who is accused of being part of an armored car heist:

Agent: "...left school to join the Engineers. Good Soldier, too. Bronze Star, Purple Heart..."
Rolfe: "Try buying a cup of coffee with them!"

Yep. Also in Kansas City Confidential, his buddy who runs the coffee shop says that Joe Rolfe saved his life on Iwo Jima.

In Dead Reckoning, Bogart and his buddy are just being released from the Army at the end of the war. Somewhere in the Night and The Crooked Way both have protagonists suffering amnesia from a war injury. All three films are examples of characters who enter the army at the start of the war to escape the law, but were "rehabilitated" by their war experience.

Doug

 

[Widebrim]

All three films are examples of characters who enter the army at the start of the war to escape the law, but were "rehabilitated" by their war experience.

Doug

That's a good way to put it...

 

[docneg]

Cursed by noir?

Does anyone else feel they have been adversely affected by film noir? I developed an affinity for these movies as a kid and have watched far more than any other genre over the course of my life. In recent years I've wondered if I gravitate toward them because I relate to the themes and circumstances, due to my making mistakes and having regrets, etc. Then I realized that I have been watching them far longer than I have had bad luck. Is it possible that I set myself up for a number of noirish real life experiences?

And is a steady diet of Busby Berkeley musicals the antidote?

 

[Widebrim]

And is a steady diet of Busby Berkeley musicals the antidote?

Oh, please, nooo!lol

As a youth, I was "adversely" affected by Noir in the sense that my perception of post-WWII urban life was heavily influenced by the genre. I now know that they are "just movies," but I often still find myself unwilling to separate celluloid fiction from historical reality, perhaps due to the fact that there are times when the two come dangerously close to colliding...

 

[Atomic Age]

Does anyone else feel they have been adversely affected by film noir? I developed an affinity for these movies as a kid and have watched far more than any other genre over the course of my life. In recent years I've wondered if I gravitate toward them because I relate to the themes and circumstances, due to my making mistakes and having regrets, etc. Then I realized that I have been watching them far longer than I have had bad luck. Is it possible that I set myself up for a number of noirish real life experiences?

And is a steady diet of Busby Berkeley musicals the antidote?

No I just think they are cool.

However the Busby Burkeley musicals are likely to drive you insane with all those human geometric patterns!

Doug

 

[John in Covina]

Military guys coming home to the US made me think of Key Largo and Bad Day at Black Rock.