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Unimpressed with recent neo-noir films, William Park, author of the new book What Is Film Noir?, confesses: “As much as I admire Chinatown I come away disappointed that John Huston can get away with incest and murder. I thought The Long Goodbye the very worst of all Raymond Chandler’s adaptations. And I detested the triumph of evil in Se7en.” Park also doesn’t understand Camille Paglia’s admiration of Basic Instinct, criticising the amount of moral pollution enclosed in Verhoeven’s film.
Brian De Palma expressed a similar opinion to Park’s: “I think traditional noir doesn’t work in contemporary storytelling because we don’t live in that world anymore.”
Through its eight chapters — “Theory of Genre”, “Film Noir: The Genre Defined”, “Objections”, “Style”, “Period Style”, “Alfred Hitchcock”, “Meanings”,”Last Words” — and three appendices: “Within the Genre”, “Borderline” and “Period Pieces”, Park dissects with academic detail the definition of the noir film as genre and style and its progression during the Golden Age (1940-1958).
Park explains that Hitchcock is often excluded from this list on the basis that his films lack the integration provided by voiceovers and flashbacks. But if we think of the canonized noir which lack these two elements we have: The Maltese Falcon, The Asphalt Jungle, The Big Combo, The Big Sleep, The Dark Corner, Fallen Angel, In a Lonely Place, Kiss Me Deadly, Scarlet Street, This Gun for Hire, Woman in the Window and Touch of Evil.
Park also cites Paul Schrader’s essay “Notes on Film Noir”: “…most every dramatic Hollywood film from 1941 to 1953 contains some noir elements”, and some of these “one-shots” were terrific: Edmund Goulding’s adaptation of Nightmare Alley, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise, Lewis Milestone’s The Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Fred Zinnemann’s Act of Violence were made by directors who had never been previously associated with film noir.
Fritz Lang’s The Blue Gardenia (1953), while not quite a noir, morphs into a tale of romantic despair (the Wagnerian theme of Tristan und Isolde) and an exploration of America’s obsession with pulp, tabloids and personal violence, starring Anne Baxter as telephone operator in fear of becoming a murderess.
One of my favorite chapters of What Is Film Noir? is Chapter Five as it covers the theory of period style, and in which Park condenses the several notions that have remained embedded in the thesis about the significance of the style and the concept of noir, entwining American critic and essayist Robert Warshow on the Gangster Film, author and literary critic John T. Irwing’s views about hard-boiled detective fiction, and its historical influence in modern thrillers:
The demise of Bogart in The Roaring Twenties is justified. Killing him thus gives the down-and-out Cagney protagonist an opportunity to redeem himself. The scene is set in the darkness of the rain-slicked streets. ‘He used to be a big shot’. With this statement, the gangster ceases to exist as a glorified motion picture hero. Yet interest in criminals and amoral characters, or in violence generally for that matter, never completely vanishes. Film noir is one outlet. All genres which feature lonesome, melancholy, gunslinging protagonists. Audiences tastes really never changed much at all.
Park analyzes the uneasy balance between our identity and our super-ego as the essential premise of noir concept in film and, as a member of the audience for whom film noir was first created, Park suspects he’s not the only one disappointed with most of neo-noir modern movies, since he supposes “our moral instincts are just as strong as our voyeuristic ones.”
The heroes in the classic noir tended to be cynical, tough, and overwhelmed by sinister forces beyond their control. Although most of the settings in the noir were urban spaces in the downtowns of big cities (Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Chicago), they appeared in exotic enclaves too, i.e. in Cornered (1945) directed by Edward Dymytrk: Dick Powell is an ex-POW who acts relentless and ends harming some of the good guys before killing in self-defense a Nazi collaborator. Buenos Aires is here the dark city.
In Appendix A, Park categorizes in his list Within the Genre the films that established their plots immersed entirely in the noir concept, such as Criss Cross (1949): directed by Robert Siodmak, shot almost entirely in the day, as dark as it gets, with multiple double-crosses, flashbacks, the iconic Dan Duryea, a genuine femme fatale (Yvonne De Carlo) and a script to die for.
What Is Film Noir? is a highly recommended reading for fans of the genre who want to elucidate their doubts about the categories and context their favorite noir films belong to.
In this Dark Land the usual suspects who inhabitated their shady alleys and seedy dives were actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea, Richard Widmark, Sterling Hayden, Elisha Cook Jr., Richard Conte, Raymond Burr, Dennis O’Keefe, Lawrence Tierney, Victor Mature, etc.
As wicked femmes, some of the actresses who impressively played these eternal dames were: Claire Trevor (The Queen of Noir), Gloria Grahame, Barbara Stanwyck, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Audrey Totter, Ida Lupino, Mary Astor, Lizabeth Scott, Joan Bennett, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Rhonda Fleming, Jean Peters, Coleen Gray, Mary Beth Hughes, etc.
As a colophon below, a video-compilation of vintage stills of actors and actresses include Ann Savage, Tom Neal, Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Lana Turner, John Garfield, Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, James Stewart, Jean Harlow, Gene Tierney, Ida Lupino, Irene Manning, Ava Gardner, Lawrence Tierney, Ann Jeffreys, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Mary Astor, Lizabeth Scott, Peggy Cummins, Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Glenn Ford, Cornel Wilde, Helen Stanton, Linda Darnell, Marlon Brando, Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson, Dan Duryea, Dorothy Lamour.
Plus, Sterling Hayden, Shelley Winters, Barbara Stanwyck, Jayne Mansfield, June Vincent, Yvonne De Carlo, Robert Mitchum, Deanna Durbin, Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Ann Sheridan, James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Marsha Hunt, Mary Beth Hughes, Claire Trevor, Dennis O’Keefe, Fred MacMurray, Robert Ryan, Jean Gabin, Mamie Van Doren, Faith Domergue, Jean Gillie, Marie Windsor, Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Audrey Totter, Kim Novak, Hedy Lamarr, Sylvia Sidney, Jeanne Crain, Jan Sterling, Dolores Moran, Gail Patrick, Martha Vickers, Ann Dvorak, Virginia Grey, Barbara Payton, Ramsay Ames.
Classic/Noir Films include Detour, From Here to Eternity, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Out of the Past, In a Lonely Place, Suspicion, Laura, High Sierra, The Big Shot, The Killers, Step by Step, The Lady from Shangai, The Maltese Falcon, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Dark City, The Company She Keeps, I Walk Alone, Desert Fury, Gun Crazy, The Blue Dahlia, Gilda, The Big Combo, Fallen Angel, The Wild One, The Prowler,
And: Touch of Evil, Scarlet Street, Manhandled, Too Late for Tears, Johnny Stool Pigeon, Ball of Fire, The Burglar, Black Angel, The Woman in the Window, Criss Cross, Macao, Lady on a Train, Cry Danger, They Drive by Night, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Roaring Twenties, Winner Take All, Kid Glove Killer, The Great Flamarion, Murder My Sweet, Raw Deal, Double Indemnity, On Dangerous Ground, Moontide, Naked Alibi, The Racket, My Forbidden Past, Where Danger Lies, Decoy, Dead End, The Two Mrs. Carrolls, The Killing, Human Desire, The Long Haul, Lady in the Lake, Vertigo, etc.
