Film noir, with its darkly urban settings and its population of gangsters and femmes fatales, cops, private eyes and fall guys, gave the American cinema many of its finest films of the 1940s and 1950s – among them Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, Out of the Past and Kiss Me, Deadly. Its central characters were frequently criminals, sometimes attempting in vain a last big job that would allow them to escape to a new life. In a world that should have felt liberated by victory, failure or the threat of it haunted the petty criminal, the potential fall guy, the tired gumshoe and the two-bit femme fatale.

The genre brought together an unrivalled assembly of talent: directors such as Orson Welles, Howard Hawks and Billy Wilder, writers including Raymond Chandler and William Faulkner, and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum and Barbara Stanwyck. Aimed at the informed filmgoer and the film student, The Movie Book of Film Noir provides a definitive account of the phenomenon of film noir and in-depth analyses of many of the most notable movies, among them The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Out of the Past and Kiss Me, Deadly, and of the film noir revival in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Full chapter list

FILM NOIR: INTRODUCTION Michael Walker

THE POLITICS OF THE MALADJUSTED TEXT Richard Maltby

NOIR IS ALSO A FRENCH WORD: The French Antecedents of Film Noir Ginette Vincendeau

HOW HOLLYWOOD DEALS WITH THE DEVIANT MALE Deborah Thomas

PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FILM NOIR Deborah Thomas

TAME WOLVES AND PHONEY CLAIMS: Paranoia and Film Noir Jonathan Buchsbaum

FILM NOIR AND SUPPRESSIVE NARRATIVE: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Douglas Pye

ROBERT SIODMAK Michael Walker

THE MAN’S MELODRAMA: The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street Florence Jacobowitz

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (or Bringing Up Baby) Peter William Evans

DETOUR Andrew Britton

FALLEN ANGEL Bob Baker

THE BIG SLEEP: Howard Hawks and Film Noir Michael Walker

OUT OF THE PAST a.k.a. Build My Gallows High Leighton Grist

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI: Betrayed by Rita Hayworth Andrew Britton

IN A LONELY PLACE V.F. Perkins

ANGEL FACE Edward Gallafent

KISS ME, DEADLY Edward Gallafent

THE BIG COMBO: Production Conditions and the Film Text Chris Hugo

ECHO PARK: Film Noir in the ’Seventies Edward Gallafent

MOVING TARGETS AND BLACK WIDOWS: Film Noir in Modern Hollywood Leighton Grist