The Editors of LIFE - LIFE Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films

Film Noir

75 Years of the

Greatest Crime Films

UNITED ARTISTS, COURTESY PHOTOFEST

Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter

CONTENTS

FRONT COVER 20th Century Fox, courtesy Photofest

THIS PAGE: Joseph Cotten in The Third Man. Silver Screen Collection/Getty

1941

EVERETT

The Maltese Falcon

DIR. JOHN HUSTON

WARNER BROS., COURTESY PHOTOFEST

A bird in hand is worth... well, a lot, given the murders and double-crossings that Humphrey Bogarts Sam Spade encounters in this early noir.

Sure, Humphrey Bogarts portrayal of Sam Spade in John Hustons The Maltese Falcon remains the very model of the modern movie detective, but the role was reportedly first offered to tough-guy actor George Raft. And Bogie wasnt the first to step into Spades gumshoes: Dashiell Hammetts jazz age novel had been made into a film twice before (in 1931, and in 1936 as, of all things, a comedy starring Bette Davis). But in Hustons directorial debut, it became the definitive adaptationand what has been called the first film noir.

Hammetts reworking of two of his 1925 stories from the pulp magazine Black Mask, The Maltese Falcon begins when a mysterious, beautiful woman who calls herself Miss Wonderly visits Spade. Though she claims shes looking for her missing sister, it isnt long before the focus shifts to the search for a black figure of a bird, a.k.a. the titular falcon. After multiple murders, double-crosses, fisticuffs, and a drugging... well, its hard to figure out what the heck the mysterious statue actually has to do with anything. But when it comes to noir, a coherent plot is often strictly for the birds.

Unlike the works of noirs two other great pulp progenitors, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, The Maltese Falcon was (in Hustons hands, at least) faithfully adapted to the screen. Though the director streamlined the action and (due to the censors) trimmed the sex, he kept much of the dialoguewith one significant exception: The famous line referring to the falcon as the stuff that dreams are made of was Hustons own (well, paraphrasing Shakespeare). It both joined the cinematic lexicon and reflected the theme of failed quests that would come to define many of Hustons subsequent films.

In addition to kick-starting a lifelong friendship and collaboration between Huston and Bogart, the film featured such marvelous character actors as Sydney Greenstreet; Peter Lorre; and Hustons father, Walter, in roles that were reportedly inspired by people Hammett met in his own career as a Pinkerton detective. Spade, however, has no original, the writer himself once said. He is a dream man in the sense that he is what most of the private detectives I worked with would like to have been, and, in their cockier moments, thought they approached.

WARNER BROS., COURTESY PHOTOFEST

From left to right: An unknown actor with Peter Lorre (Joel Cairo) and Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade) at the Hotel Belvedere in the film that defined the detective genre.

1943

EVERETT

Shadow of a Doubt

DIR. ALFRED HITCHCOCK

UNIVERSAL PICTURES, COURTESY PHOTOFEST

Uncle Charlie, the Merry Widow Murderer (played by Joseph Cotten), menaces his niece (Teresa Wright) in Shadow of a Doubt.

Reportedly inspired by a real-life serial killer who took refuge with his extended family in a small California town, Hitchcocks Shadow of a Doubt focuses on the relationship between a young woman nicknamed Charlie (Teresa Wright) and her namesake, the beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten). The two are so close, theyre almost psychically linkeduntil Charlie begins to suspect that her uncle is the so-called Merry Widow Murderer, and that he has come to stay with her family in Santa Rosa, California, to escape capture back east.

Her growing unease is hardly surprising, given that the genial uncle eventually drops his defenses, revealing a glimpse of the sick monster behind the slick faade. Do you know the world is a foul sty? he says to her. Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses, youd find swine? In this, he echoes the sentiments of serial killers everywhereboth on- and offscreen. (What sick ridiculous puppets we are, Kevin Spaceys killer says in 1995s Seven. And what gross little stage we dance on.)

Co-written by playwright Thornton Wilder ( Our Town ) and Sally Benson ( Meet Me in St. Louis )two eminent chroniclers of small-town Americanathe film was among Hitchcocks favorites, in part because he loved working with Wilder. In England Id always had the collaboration of top stars and the finest writers, the master told the French filmmaker Franois Truffaut, but in America things were quite different. I was turned down by many stars and by writers who looked down their noses at the genre I work in. Thats why it was so gratifying for me to find out that one of Americas most eminent playwrights was willing to work with me and, indeed, that he took the whole thing quite seriously.

In the process, the two created something of an anomaly. Though Hitchcock loved stories about wrongly accused menthink Cary Grant in North by Northwest or Henry Fonda in, well, The Wrong Man Uncle Charlies guilt is rarely in question, though its belied by Cottens genial blandness. The film is atypical as far as noir goes, too. Much of the genre takes place in urban darkness, but Shadow of a Doubt (despite its title) is awash in wholesome sunlight. But the contrast between the superficially serene surroundings and the dark underbelly represented by Uncle Charlie is what gives the film its subversive heft. (Think a portrait of Norman Bates by Norman Rockwell.)

This is Hitchcocks most wicked vision of America, noir expert and novelist Jake Hinkson tells LIFE. Go beyond the manicured lawns and the loving family faade, Hitch seems to be telling us, and youll find neurosis and sociopathy and murder. This is basically 40 years early. Blue Velvet s director, David Lynch, even paid homage to the surreally dancing figures shown in the Hitchcock films beginning in the opening of 2001s Mulholland Drive.

Though Hitchcock isnt generally associated with noir, he had worked in Berlin early in his career and was deeply influenced by German expressionism, which helped define the genres look. He also admired Raymond Chandler, the pulp writer who exerted such an influence on Billy Wilders , which was released a year after Shadow of a Doubt.