David J. Hogan - Film noir FAQ

Copyright 2013 by David J. Hogan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2013 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
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Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

All images are from the personal collection of the author.

The FAQ series was conceived by Robert Rodriguez and developed with Stuart Shea.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Snow Creative Services

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hogan, David J.
Film noir FAQ : all thats left to know about Hollywoods golden age of dames, detectives, and danger / David J. Hogan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55783-855-1 (paperback)
1. Film noirUnited StatesHistory and criticism. I. Title.
PN1995.9.F54H58 2013
791.436556dc23
2012048283

www.applausebooks.com

For Kim, always the femme fatale

A special note from Lizabeth Scott for readers of Film Noir FAQ

Contents

My thanks to Mark A. Miller for access to rare films; and to Ted Okuda, for film access, images, and invaluable thoughts and suggestions.

Thanks also to the Film Noir Foundation (www.filmnoirfoundation.org) for returning so many of these movies to the big screen, where they belong.

Special thanks to Lizabeth Scott, for her active interest in this project.

Introduction:
Negotiating the Night

The weather in LA is cool, but Mike Hammer cuts through the darkness in his Jaguar convertible, top down. When a young blonde wearing nothing but a trench coat suddenly dashes into the lonely road, Hammer wrenches the wheel in order not to splash her. The Jag slides onto the shoulder in a shower of dust and gravel. Hammer is still muttering when the dame approaches. Shes breathing hard and shes desperate for a ride. Hammer is disgusted. Get in, he says.

They drive, Hammer nearly silent but the blonde going on about poetry, the rocky terrain of man-woman relations, and a special entreaty: Remember me.

Minutes later, the Jag is cut off by a black Caddy, big as a house. Hammer is sapped and the woman is taken from his car. The Caddy positions its I-beam of a bumper behind the Jag and nudges forward. In a moment, Hammer and his little car jounce down a steep, overgrown grade, and near the bottom, something is ripped open and an evil blossom of flame explodes beneath the cars chassis. Hammer may have bought it this time. Hes a prosperous lousea conniving bedroom dick who specializes in divorce casesbut thats not a capital offense. And anyway, Hammer had never laid eyes on the dame before she forced him to stop. Hed just been driving from here to there, minding his own business, and got sucked into something mean, and isnt that a hell of a way to wrap up an evening?

Kiss Me Deadly , and scores more movies from the 1940s and 50s that we now call film noir, force us to acknowledge that the presumably solid foundation upon which we base our assumptions and our very lives is temporal and dangerously unstable. Its likely to not merely shift beneath our feet, but give way completely, turning the routine of our lives upside-down and annihilating our expectations. Were plunged into a disorienting place where everything we thought we knew is wrong.

This is the fact and the fearsome allure of film noirblack, or bleak, filma genre that established itself in Hollywood in the early 1940s and that found its fullest expression during World War II and the immediate postwar era. Film Noir FAQ is your guide to some two hundred noir thrillerswhat they mean, who made them and who starred in them, and how each came to be. Its mostly a story of low- to mid-budget moviemaking, and genre pictures that resonate strongly today, when many mainstream prestige releases of the noir period are long forgotten.

Before Italian-born French essayist and critic Nino Frank coined the term film noir in about 1945 (when noir was still developing), these movies were just thrillers, heavily steeped in crime, duplicity, and other bad behavior. Like any artistic movement or other cultural artifact, the films came from somewhere . Things larger than just the movies shaped these stories. Once upon a time, there was an origin.

Chaos and Disappointment

As well see, noirs genesis can be traced to specific events, but its important to begin by emphasizing that the key motivators of noir storiesfear, greed, hatred, and revenge, plus the complicating factor of sexarent events at all but ingredients of the soup called human beings, and have existed since time immemorial. Film noir is a landscape of mainly urban places that is returned to again and again, but, mainly, noir exists in the landscape of the mind. Noir, regrettably, is what is inside all of us.

The specific events that helped shape film noir are clear: the carnage of two world wars; the scarifying economic depression that separated those wars; bloody, hate-filled regional conflicts that flared across Europe and Asia even before World War II was officially over; the unnerving power of atomic weaponry; an escalating Cold War; and a feeling that our destinies were no longer in our hands. Even our institutions and leaders seemed inadequately prepared (or just disinclined) to prevent further mayhem.

As if to distract Americans from that sort of pessimistic thought, manufacturing and an increasingly sophisticated advertising industry enlarged upon the small taste of material comfort that had emerged during the illusory prosperity of the 1920s. While laborious rebuilding occupied Europe and Asia, America reveled in consumerism. People developed fresh aspirations. They had cars and mobility. The nations realignment from a rural to an urban society accelerated. Cities became increasingly significant to commerce and culture. The American imagination lived and fed in cities. City became synonymous with America.

Of course, the bible relates that historys first city was established by Cain, historys first murderer. In fact and symbol, Cain linked himself to that first city by calling it Enoch, after his son. Enoch was the city of Cain.

In American cities of the 1940s and 50s, a lot more than just shopping was going on. The public knew it, and so did Hollywood.

The Movies React

What was later called film noir developed and evolved during 194060, and for four general reasons: 1) as a reflection of anxiety produced by the events noted above; 2) because the films that best reflected that anxiety could be produced on low budgets (this is one reason why perpetually underfunded RKO had smashing success with noir); 3) the rise of hard-boiled crime and detective fiction in pulps, mainstream magazines, and books; and 4) the influx and influence of expatriate German filmmakers steeped in expressionism, fatalism, and psychological melodrama.

As noir evolved, themes became increasingly familiar. You do not control the circumstances of your life. Choices you agonize over are likely to be bad ones. Choices you make without thinking are likely to be worse. Whatever you love and value can be taken from you at any moment. Forces greater than you, and greater even than your leaders, can conspire to destroy you. Those forces are no smarter than you, but they have the power and you dont. You are not a true participant in events, only an observer. If you are particularly foolish, or just unlucky, you will be a victim.