3 on 3: Film Noir

Each week this month, the Cafe will present a "3 on 3 panel" in which three experts will answer three questions on a single classic film topic. This week, the Cafe poses three questions on film noir to: Gary Cahall from MovieFanFare!; Dorian from the blog Tales of the Easily Distracted; and Sheri Chinen Biesen, author of Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir.

1. What is your definition of a film noir and what film do you consider the prototype--the one that best exemplifies the genre?

Stanwyck and MacMurray in
Double Indemnity.

Gary: Film Noir is the accidental love child of German silent expressionist cinema and Warner Bros.’ 1930s crime dramas, raised in an atmosphere of World War II heroism and Cold War paranoia. Along with the requisite shadowy streets (big city or small town) and shadowy deeds (premeditated or accidental), a successful noir picture often has a protagonist who is walking the fine line between good and evil, and who--if it’s a male--is just as likely to kill or be killed by the female lead as he is to kiss her at the movie’s close. And no matter how many characters are in the film, the one constant presence is Fate.

I know it’s not the most daring of choices, but to me the picture that best captures these elements is director Billy Wilder’s 1944 thriller Double Indemnity, starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson. A seemingly smart guy in over his head, a seductive and amoral temptress, and a “fool-proof” murder plot that’s not as simple as it appears...all with whip-smart dialogue from Wilder and co-scripter Raymond Chandler, of Philip Marlowe fame.

Dorian: I’d define a film noir as a story in which the bleakest aspects of humanity keep trying to get the upper hand, and the protagonist(s) keep trying to thwart those aspects against all odds. Those “bleakest aspects” can range from one character’s problem to an overall tough situation affecting many characters.

Peter Lorre in Stranger on
the Third Floor.

Sheri: The antihero in Stranger on the Third Floor complains, “What a gloomy dump. Why don't they put in a bigger lamp?” Paul Schrader defines noir as “Hollywood films of the 1940s and early 1950s that portrayed the world of dark, slick city streets, crime and corruption.” Film noir is a series of atmospheric black-and-white wartime-postwar Hollywood crime films known for shadowy style, doomed antiheroes, lethal femme fatales and cynical hardboiled worldview. Literally, “black film” or “dark cinema,” film noir was coined in 1946 by French critics discovering dark wartime Hollywood films they were seeing for the first time. This dark film trend was recognized in the U.S. In my book Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir, I explain how wartime Hollywood blackouts and censorship influenced film noir. Double Indemnity is an exemplar of noir style.


2. If you had to single out one director that influenced film noir than any other, who would it be?

Gary: Austrian-born Fritz Lang, who presaged the noir style with such films as M and the Dr. Mabuse movies in Europe before fleeing to America when Hitler came to power. His first Hollywood project, the 1936 lynch mob drama Fury with Spencer Tracy, contained a number of noir sensibilities, as did his 1941 “let’s kill Hitler” thriller Man Hunt. Within the noir demimonde itself, Lang’s resume includes The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, The Big Heat, and a picture that’s my answer to question #3.

MacMurray and Robinson in
Wilder's classic film noir.

Dorian: Of all the talented directors who’ve influenced film noir, I’d single out Billy Wilder because of his gleefully jaundiced view of humanity. Even Wilder’s comedies have a strong undercurrent of cynicism, so it’s only natural that his dramas and suspense films would fit so well in the noir universe, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Ace in the Hole (1951), and of course, my personal favorite, Double Indemnity (1944).

Sheri: So many fine noir directors. Tough choice. . . .While Fritz Lang is very important, as is Robert Siodmak, one of the most influential noir auteurs was émigré writer-director Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, Ace in the Hole).


3. What is your favorite underrated film noir, the one film that doesn't get the attention it should?

Gary: While the City Sleeps, a later (1956) genre entry that’s part “psycho killer” suspenser and part hard-boiled newspaper drama. A serial murderer dubbed “The Lipstick Killer” is preying on women in New York City, and Vincent Price, the ne’er-do-well son of a deceased media mogul, offers a promotion to whoever among his top newsmen can break the story and bring the maniac to justice. The suspense comes not so much from trying to guess the murderer’s identity (we see him “in action” before the opening credits), but from watching how far reporter Dana Andrews, photo editor James Craig, city editor Thomas Mitchell, and wire service head George Sanders will go—from office politicking and backstabbing to using their wives/girlfriends (Rhonda Fleming and Ida Lupino, among others) as “bait”—to win Price’s contest. Oh, and Lang clearly shows that one of the things driving the “mama’s boy” madman into his flights of homicidal rage is EC horror comics.

Dorian: I’ve always felt that Henry Hathaway’s The Dark Corner (1946) was an underrated noir. It covers so many classic tropes that it’s almost like “Film Noir’s Greatest Hits,” in a good way! One of the things I like most about it was Lucille Ball’s character Kathleen. She’s warm, loving, and practical, yet also strong and able to think on her feet and help save the day when hero Mark Stevens is up against it.

Elisha Cook, Jr. in Phantom Lady.

Sheri: Many underrated noir films. . . . Double Indemnity is more influential than many realize in spurring the film noir trend recognized in the U.S. film industry during the war. More modest early underrated noir include Stranger on the Third Floor and Phantom Lady (which needs to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray). Lang's Ministry of Fear is underrated with beautiful noir style shot during wartime blackouts just before Siodmak filmed Phantom Lady and Wilder shot Double Indemnity. Dead Reckoning, Out of the Past, Act of Violence and Tension are also great.