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135-407: Race Street is a 1948 American crime film noir directed by Edwin L. Marin . The drama features George Raft , William Bendix and Marilyn Maxwell . It was one of several collaborations between Raft and Marin. When his bookie pal Hal is killed, nightclub owner Dan Gannin intends to do something about it. His police pal Lt. Runson warns him not to take the law into his own hands. Also concerned

270-473: A "pathway" in his screenwriters taxonomy; explaining that a pathway has two parts: 1) the way the audience connects with the protagonist and 2) the trajectory the audience expects the story to follow. Other critics treat film noir as a "mood," a "series", or simply a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir "canon." There is no consensus on the matter. The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by German Expressionism , an artistic movement of

405-500: A "slightly slower pace than the one released a year later and a touch less zingy interplay between Bogart and Bacall, but it's still an unqualified masterpiece". In 2003, AFI named Philip Marlowe the 32nd greatest hero in film . The film placed 202nd on the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films ever made and also received two directors' votes. The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The Big Sleep as one of his 100 favorite films. Roger Ebert included

540-584: A B-movie soul. Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German-born Robert Siodmak , who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood. Working mostly on A features, he made eight films now regarded as classic-era noir (a figure matched only by Lang and Mann). In addition to The Killers , Burt Lancaster 's debut and a Hellinger/Universal co-production, Siodmak's other important contributions to

675-405: A Dark Shadow (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert . Terence Fisher directed several low-budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions , including The Last Page (a.k.a. Man Bait ; 1952), Stolen Face (1952), and Murder by Proxy (a.k.a. Blackout ; 1954). Before leaving for France, Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English-language film of

810-679: A Lonely Place (1950) was Nicholas Ray 's breakthrough; his other noirs include his debut, They Live by Night (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1952), noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream. Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well-budgeted: The Lady from Shanghai (1947) received top-level, "prestige" backing, while The Stranger (1946), his most conventional film, and Touch of Evil (1958), an unmistakably personal work, were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases. Like The Stranger , Fritz Lang's The Woman in

945-482: A bookmaker who tries to corrupt the handicapper because he is costing the bookmaker money. The story changed and the female lead went to Marilyn Maxwell . Gale Robbins , who played Raft's sister, was a singer under contract to RKO. There was some location filming in San Francisco. At one time the film was going to be called Jackpot . The film was made by RKO when it was run by Dore Schary but before it

1080-432: A chase film as might have been imagined by Jean-Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood. Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner, having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah 's The Getaway (1972), adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson , as well as for two tough private eye films: an original screenplay for Hickey & Boggs (1972) and an adaptation of

1215-501: A film noir, it has largely disappeared from considerations of the field. Director Jules Dassin of The Naked City (1948) pointed to the neorealists as inspiring his use of location photography with non-professional extras. This semidocumentary approach characterized a substantial number of noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with neorealism, the style had an American precedent cited by Dassin, in director Henry Hathaway 's The House on 92nd Street (1945), which demonstrated

1350-468: A flirtatious Carmen waiting for him. She says she did not like Regan and mentions that Mars calls Vivian frequently. When she attempts to seduce Marlowe, he throws her out. The next day, Vivian tells him he can stop looking for Regan; he has been found in Mexico and she is going to see him. Mars has Marlowe beaten up to stop him from investigating further. He is found by Harry Jones: an associate of Agnes who

1485-399: A genre as determined by "conventions of narrative structure, characterization, theme, and visual design." Hirsch, as one who has taken the position that film noir is a genre, argues that these elements are present "in abundance." Hirsch notes that there are unifying features of tone, visual style and narrative sufficient to classify noir as a distinct genre. Others argue that film noir is not

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1620-480: A genre. It is often associated with an urban setting, but many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road; setting is not a determinant, as with the Western . Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are stock character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of films in the genre feature neither. Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as

1755-595: A good job as the detective. There is even professional dexterity to the direction, but all this energy is completely wasted on a shoddy, routine story." The Los Angeles Times said the film "didn't have much to say." The film made a minor profit. It was the third of four films Raft made for RKO. Film noir Film noir ( / n w ɑːr / ; French: [film nwaʁ] ) is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylized Hollywood crime dramas , particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as

1890-466: A greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir. Examples of British noir (sometimes described as "Brit noir") from the classic period include Brighton Rock (1947), directed by John Boulting ; They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti ; The Small Back Room (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger ; The October Man (1950), directed by Roy Ward Baker ; and Cast

2025-454: A hapless grifter ( Night and the City ), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime ( Gun Crazy ), a femme fatale ( Gilda ) or simply a victim of circumstance ( D.O.A. ). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions, the term has been used to describe films from around the world. Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of

2160-600: A humid, erotically charged Florida setting. Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo-noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse. The mainstreaming of neo-noir is evident in such films as Black Widow (1987), Shattered (1991), and Final Analysis (1992). Few neo-noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas . The film also demonstrates how neo-noir's polychrome palette can reproduce many of

2295-494: A limousine driven off the Lido Pier, having been struck on the back of the head. Vivian comes to Marlowe's office the next morning with scandalous pictures of Carmen that she received with a blackmail demand for the negatives. Marlowe returns to Geiger's bookstore and follows a car to the apartment of Joe Brody, a gambler who previously blackmailed Sternwood. He then finds Carmen outside Geiger's house, where she insists that it

2430-452: A mental haze, though Marlowe doubts Mars' credibility. He then forces Mars back outside, where he is shot by his own men. Marlowe calls the police, telling them that Mars killed Regan to cover for Carmen. He also convinces Vivian that her sister needs psychiatric care. Vivian then confesses her own problems but claims there's "nothing you can't fix." The Big Sleep is known for its convoluted plot. Similar to To Have and Have Not , there

2565-410: A monstrous scale. The work of other directors in this tier of the industry, such as Felix E. Feist ( The Devil Thumbs a Ride [1947], Tomorrow Is Another Day [1951]), has become obscure. Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status; for the most part, on unmistakable Bs. In 1945, while at PRC, he directed

2700-427: A month earlier. Marlowe goes to Geiger's shop, which is minded by Agnes Lowzier, and then follows Geiger home. Hearing a gunshot and a woman's scream, he breaks in to find Geiger's body and a drugged Carmen, as well as a hidden camera minus its film. After taking Carmen home he returns and discovers that the body has disappeared. During the night Marlowe learns that Sternwood's driver, Owen Taylor, has been found dead in

2835-417: A movie can be altered with just a few scenes... As for the 1946 version that we have been watching all of these years, it is one of the great films noir, a black-and-white symphony that exactly reproduces Chandler's ability, on the page, to find a tone of voice that keeps its distance, and yet is wry and humorous and cares. In a 1997 review, Eric Brace of The Washington Post wrote that the 1945 original had

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2970-578: A noir cult classic, Detour . Ulmer's other noirs include Strange Illusion (1945), also for PRC; Ruthless (1948), for Eagle-Lion, which had acquired PRC the previous year and Murder Is My Beat (1955), for Allied Artists. A number of low- and modestly-budgeted noirs were made by independent, often actor-owned, companies contracting with larger studios for distribution. Serving as producer, writer, director and top-billed performer, Hugo Haas made films like Pickup (1951), The Other Woman (1954) and Jacques Tourneur, The Fearmakers (1958) . It

3105-532: A noir mode than Preminger; his other noirs include Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (all for Fox) and Angel Face (1952). A half-decade after Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend , Billy Wilder made Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951), noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively. In

3240-617: A novel by Ross Macdonald , the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler, for The Drowning Pool (1975). Some of the strongest 1970s noirs, in fact, were unwinking remakes of the classics, "neo" mostly by default: the heartbreaking Thieves Like Us (1974), directed by Altman from the same source as Ray's They Live by Night , and Farewell, My Lovely (1975), the Chandler tale made classically as Murder, My Sweet , remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role. Detective series, prevalent on American television during

3375-531: A screenplay by Graham Greene . Set in Vienna immediately after World War II, it also stars two American actors, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles , who had appeared together in Citizen Kane . Elsewhere, Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice as Ossessione (1943), regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism. (This

3510-512: A second time. A number of actors from the first cut did not appear in the second cut. Pat Clark was initially cast as Mona Mars. However, Clark was unavailable when her scenes were reshot in January 1946. Peggy Knudsen was cast to replace her. James Flavin and Thomas E. Jackson were cast as Police Captain Cronjager and District Attorney Wade. However, they did not appear in the 1946 cut of

3645-399: A specialist in what James Naremore called "hypnotic moments of light-in-darkness". He Walked by Night (1948), shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker, directed in large part by Mann, demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of " police procedural " crime dramas. It was released, like other Mann-Alton noirs, by the small Eagle-Lion company; it

3780-550: A step up the ladder, known as "intermediates" by the industry, might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances. Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production. Robert Wise ( Born to Kill [1947], The Set-Up [1949]) and Anthony Mann ( T-Men [1947] and Raw Deal [1948]) each made a series of impressive intermediates, many of them noirs, before graduating to steady work on big-budget productions. Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton ,

3915-533: A trend, let alone a new genre, for many decades. Whoever went to the movies with any regularity during 1946 was caught in the midst of Hollywood's profound postwar affection for morbid drama. From January through December deep shadows, clutching hands, exploding revolvers, sadistic villains and heroines tormented with deeply rooted diseases of the mind flashed across the screen in a panting display of psychoneurosis, unsublimated sex and murder most foul. Donald Marshman, Life (August 25, 1947) Most film noirs of

4050-587: A vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952, which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States. During the classic period, there were many films produced in Europe, particularly in France, that share elements of style, theme, and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre's canon. In certain cases, the interrelationship with Hollywood noir

4185-554: A wholly American film style." However, although the term "film noir" was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies, it was an international phenomenon. Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period, there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir, for example, the French productions Pépé le Moko (1937), directed by Julien Duvivier , and Le Jour se lève (1939), directed by Marcel Carné . In addition, Mexico experienced

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4320-489: Is Kiss Me Deadly (1955); based on a novel by Mickey Spillane , the best-selling of all the hardboiled authors, here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer . As described by Paul Schrader , " Robert Aldrich 's teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit' [which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb." Orson Welles's baroquely styled Touch of Evil (1958)

4455-580: Is The Invisible Man (1933), directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson . Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon (1941), widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era. Josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood during the same period. Films of his such as Shanghai Express (1932) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style anticipated central elements of classic noir. The commercial and critical success of Sternberg's silent Underworld (1927)

4590-535: Is "arbitrary". Expressionism-orientated filmmakers had free stylistic rein in Universal horror pictures such as Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932)—the former photographed and the latter directed by the Berlin-trained Karl Freund —and The Black Cat (1934), directed by Austrian émigré Edgar G. Ulmer . The Universal horror film that comes closest to noir, in story and sensibility,

4725-460: Is Dan's girlfriend, Robbie, a war widow. But when two thugs working for a mob boss blindfold and beat Dan, a disloyal Robbie is also in the room. It turns out Robbie is not a widow at all but the showgirl ex-wife of the crime kingpin, Phil Dixon, and still working for him. She denies it at first, but Dan recalls recognizing the scent of her perfume while blindfolded. Lt. Runson tries to provide Dan protective custody, but another bookie betrays Dan to

4860-461: Is among the first crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). Directors such as Lang, Jacques Tourneur , Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz brought a dramatically shadowed lighting style and a psychologically expressive approach to visual composition ( mise-en-scène ) with them to Hollywood, where they made some of

4995-478: Is besotted with her. Jones conveys her offer to reveal Mars' wife's location for $ 200. When Marlowe goes to meet him and be taken to her hiding place, he spots Lash Canino, a gunman hired by Mars, who is there to find Agnes. As Marlowe watches from hiding, Canino threatens Jones until Jones tells him Agnes' address. Canino then forces Jones to have a "drink" which turns out to be poison. Afterward, Marlowe discovers that Jones lied about Agnes' location. Agnes telephones

5130-452: Is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period. Some scholars believe film noir never really ended, but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside

5265-512: Is mirrored in the Warner Bros. drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), a forerunner of noir. Among films not considered noir, perhaps none had a greater effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles . Its visual intricacy and complex, voiceover narrative structure are echoed in dozens of classic films noir. Italian neorealism of

5400-636: Is obvious: American-born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist , and made one of the most famous French film noirs, Rififi (1955). Other well-known French films often classified as noir include Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Les Diaboliques (1955), both directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot . Casque d'Or (1952), Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), and Le Trou (1960) directed by Jacques Becker ; and Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), directed by Louis Malle . French director Jean-Pierre Melville

5535-552: Is set in 1930s Los Angeles, an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler. Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with Taxi Driver (1976), a crackling, bloody-minded gloss on bicentennial America. In 1978, Walter Hill wrote and directed The Driver ,

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5670-609: Is shot dead. Marlowe chases the killer and apprehends Carol Lundgren, Geiger's former driver, who believes Brody is swindling him. Marlowe calls the police to arrest Lundgren. Marlowe visits Mars' casino where he asks about Regan, who supposedly ran off with Mars' wife. Mars is evasive and tells Marlowe that Vivian is running up gambling debts. Vivian wins a big wager and then wants Marlowe to take her home. A stooge of Mars' attempts to rob Vivian, but Marlowe knocks him out. While driving back, Marlowe presses Vivian on her connection with Mars but she admits nothing. Back at home, Marlowe finds

5805-453: Is the pursuer rather than the pursued. A woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture, when he is most vulnerable. [Her] eventual betrayal of him (or herself) is as ambiguous as her feelings about him. Nicholas Christopher , Somewhere in the Night (1997) While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing. Foster Hirsch defines

5940-536: Is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir— Bob le flambeur (1955), from the classic period, was followed by Le Doulos (1962), Le deuxième souffle 1966), Le Samouraï (1967), and Le Cercle rouge (1970). In the 1960s, Greek films noir " The Secret of the Red Mantle " and " The Fear " allowed audience for an anti-ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability. . Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences

6075-539: The Nouvelle vague' s deeper waters), and Alan J. Pakula (1971's Klute ) directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir, inviting audiences in on the game. A manifest affiliation with noir traditions—which, by its nature, allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred—can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions. In 1973, director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with The Long Goodbye . Based on

6210-498: The American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all time—it tells the story of a boxer's moral self-destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as Body and Soul (1947) and Champion (1949). From 1981, Body Heat , written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan , invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in

6345-553: The National Film Registry . Philip Marlowe , a private detective in Los Angeles , is summoned to the mansion of General Sternwood, who wants to resolve a series of personal debts his daughter Carmen owes to bookseller Arthur Geiger. As Marlowe leaves, Sternwood's older daughter Vivian stops him. She suspects her father's true motive for hiring a detective is to find his protégé Sean Regan, who had disappeared

6480-399: The gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture —any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time. It is night, always. The hero enters a labyrinth on a quest. He is alone and off balance. He may be desperate, in flight, or coldly calculating, imagining he

6615-536: The major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits, from the relatively well-off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) . Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs (a few now highly regarded, most forgotten) before directing the A-level Out of the Past , described by scholar Robert Ottoson as "the ne plus ultra of forties film noir". Movies with budgets

6750-616: The "classic period" of American film noir . Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key , black-and-white visual style that has roots in German expressionist cinematography . Many of the prototypical stories and attitudes expressed in classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression , known as noir fiction . The term film noir , French for "black film" (literal) or "dark film" (closer meaning),

6885-575: The 1910s and 1920s that involved theater, music, photography, painting, sculpture and architecture, as well as cinema. The opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and then the threat of Nazism led to the emigration of many film artists working in Germany who had been involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners. M (1931), shot only a few years before director Fritz Lang 's departure from Germany,

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7020-476: The 1940s, with its emphasis on quasi-documentary authenticity, was an acknowledged influence on trends that emerged in American noir. The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder , another Vienna-born, Berlin-trained American auteur , tells the story of an alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism. It also exemplifies the problem of classification: one of the first American films to be described as

7155-560: The Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed " noir fiction ". For much of the 1940s, one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was Cornell Woolrich (sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish). No writer's published work provided the basis for more noir films of the classic period than Woolrich's: thirteen in all, including Black Angel (1946), Deadline at Dawn (1946), and Fear in

7290-466: The Cold War. This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era. This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films. The violence was also more potent. While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as Blast of Silence (1961) and Cape Fear (1962) and the noirs of

7425-450: The Lake (1947)—he was an important screenwriter in the genre as well, producing the scripts for Double Indemnity , The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951). Where Chandler, like Hammett, centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye, Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving;

7560-403: The Night (1947). Another crucial literary source for film noir was W. R. Burnett , whose first novel to be published was Little Caesar , in 1929. It was turned into a hit for Warner Bros. in 1931; the following year, Burnett was hired to write dialogue for Scarface , while The Beast of the City (1932) was adapted from one of his stories. At least one important reference work identifies

7695-470: The Third Floor still lost its studio, RKO , US$ 56,000 (equivalent to $ 1,217,900 in 2023), almost a third of its total cost. Variety magazine found Ingster's work: "...too studied and when original, lacks the flare [ sic ] to hold attention. It's a film too arty for average audiences, and too humdrum for others." Stranger on the Third Floor was not recognized as the beginning of

7830-535: The Window (1944) was a production of the independent International Pictures. Lang's follow-up, Scarlet Street (1945), was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored: filled with erotic innuendo, it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and New York State. Scarlet Street was a semi-independent, cosponsored by Universal and Lang's Diana Productions, of which the film's co-star, Joan Bennett ,

7965-417: The basis for Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Slightly Scarlet (1956; adapted from Love's Lovely Counterfeit ). A decade before the classic era, a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets (1931), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes , who worked regularly with Sternberg. Released

8100-408: The classic era to be something other than genuine film noir. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion . These later films are often called neo-noir . While

8235-437: The classic films noir were referred to as " melodramas ". Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it should be considered a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing and heavy debate among film scholars. Film noir encompasses a range of plots; common archetypical protagonists include a private investigator ( The Big Sleep ), a plainclothes police officer ( The Big Heat ), an aging boxer ( The Set-Up ),

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8370-489: The classic noir period in Great Britain: Night and the City (1950). Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors— Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney —it is technically a UK production, financed by 20th Century-Fox 's British subsidiary. The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed 's The Third Man (1949), from

8505-473: The classic period were similarly low- and modestly-budgeted features without major stars— B movies either literally or in spirit. In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints. There was more visual experimentation than in Hollywood filmmaking as a whole: the Expressionism now closely associated with noir and

8640-452: The classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially . Latter-day works are typically referred to as neo-noir . The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s. The question of what defines film noir and what sort of category it is, provokes continuing debate. "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric , strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ..."—this set of attributes constitutes

8775-434: The conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived, rejected, or reimagined. These efforts typify what came to be known as neo-noir. Though several late classic noirs, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) in particular, were deeply self-knowing and post-traditional in conception, none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time. The first major film to overtly work this angle

8910-671: The draft. Wartime rationing also influences the film: dead bodies are called "red points", which referred to wartime meat rationing and Marlowe's car has a "B" gasoline rationing sticker in the lower passenger-side window, indicating he is essential to the war effort and therefore allowed 8 US gallons (30 L) of gasoline per week. Soon after completing The Big Sleep , Bogart divorced Mayo Methot and married Bacall in May 1945. In June, Bacall began filming for her first film without Bogart, Confidential Agent . The film, released in November 1945,

9045-409: The end. Time film critic James Agee called the film "wakeful fare for folks who don't care what is going on, or why, so long as the talk is hard and the action harder" but insists that "the plot's crazily mystifying, nightmare blur is an asset, and only one of many"; it calls Bogart "by far the strongest" of its assets and says Hawks, "even on the chaste screen...manages to get down a good deal of

9180-406: The era; at least four qualify by consensus: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Wrong Man (1956), Otto Preminger 's success with Laura (1944) made his name and helped demonstrate noir's adaptability to a high-gloss 20th Century-Fox presentation. Among Hollywood's most celebrated directors of the era, arguably none worked more often in

9315-494: The expressionistic effects of classic black-and-white noir. Like Chinatown , its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson 's Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, demonstrates the opposite tendency—the deliberately retro film noir; its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953, the year in which it is set. Director David Fincher followed

9450-493: The facts of the case, thus far, are laid out. Others consider the 1946 release to be the better due to its focusing more on the Bogart-Bacall pairing. Chandler praised Martha Vickers' performance in the original 1945 cut, feeling that she overshadowed Bacall's performance. He felt that the deletion of many of her scenes in the 1946 release were done to enhance Bacall's performance. Film critic Roger Ebert , who described

9585-458: The femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade , and Murder, My Sweet (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe . The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example

9720-444: The film cost $ 1.6 million to produce, and earned $ 3,493,000 domestically and $ 1,375,000 foreign. At the time of its 1946 release, Bosley Crowther said the film leaves the viewer "confused and dissatisfied", points out that Bacall is a "dangerous looking female" ..."who still hasn't learned to act" and notes: The Big Sleep is one of those pictures in which so many cryptic things occur amid so much involved and devious plotting that

9855-414: The film in his list of "Great Movies" and wrote, Working from Chandler's original words and adding spins of their own, the writers (William Faulkner, Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett) wrote one of the most quotable of screenplays: it's unusual to find yourself laughing in a movie not because something is funny but because it's so wickedly clever. A region-1 (U.S. and Canada) DVD version of The Big Sleep

9990-604: The film when their scene – set in the District Attorney's office – was removed. In the mid-1990s, the original 1945 cut was found in the UCLA Film and Television Archive . It was discovered that this version had been released to the military to show to troops in the South Pacific. Upon learning of this, numerous benefactors, such as American magazine publisher Hugh Hefner and Turner Classic Movies , raised

10125-647: The film's commercial success and seven Oscar nominations made it probably the most influential of the early noirs. A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946), and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to

10260-431: The film's original 1945 cut was removed and replaced, twenty minutes was either condensed, altered, or eliminated with new footage. For example, in the 1945 cut, Marlowe explores Geiger's house, where he doesn't in the 1946 release. A new sequence of Marlowe and Vivian meeting in a restaurant was also added, replacing a ten-minute sequence of them meeting at the District Attorney's office, and Vivian coming to Marlowe's office

10395-529: The film's release was delayed by over a year due to the studio wanting to release war films in anticipation of the end of World War II . A cut was released to servicemen overseas in 1945 shortly after its completion. During its delay, Bogart and Bacall married and Bacall was cast in Confidential Agent . When that movie failed, reshoots were done in early 1946 meant to take advantage of the public's fascination with "Bogie and Bacall". The Big Sleep

10530-461: The first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster . Hungarian émigré Peter Lorre —who had starred in Lang's M —was top-billed, although he did not play the primary lead. (He later played secondary roles in several other formative American noirs.) Although modestly budgeted, at the high end of the B movie scale, Stranger on

10665-559: The first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde  [ fr ] and Étienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 ( A Panorama of American Film Noir ), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject. They emphasize that not every noir film embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike; another, particularly brutal. The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship, but in

10800-490: The genre include 1944's Phantom Lady (a top-of-the-line B and Woolrich adaptation), the ironically titled Christmas Holiday (1944), and Cry of the City (1948). Criss Cross (1949), with Lancaster again the lead, exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B-movie to the A noir. In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets, the nature of B production lent itself to

10935-588: The genre's films. Because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style". Alain Silver , the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to film noir as a "cycle" and a "phenomenon", even as he argues that it has—like certain genres—a consistent set of visual and thematic codes. Screenwriter Eric R. Williams labels both film noir and screwball comedy

11070-418: The glamorous tawdriness of big-city low life, discreetly laced with hints of dope addiction, voyeurism and fornication" and characterizing Lauren Bacall's role as "an adolescent cougar". Between the 1945 cut and the 1946 release, critics have become divided as to which version is superior. Some consider the 1945 cut to be the better, partly due to the inclusion of a scene at the District Attorney's office where

11205-483: The immensely successful neo-noir Seven (1995) with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original, disappointing release: Fight Club (1999), a sui generis mix of noir aesthetic, perverse comedy, speculative content, and satiric intent. Working generally with much smaller budgets, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir, with films such as Blood Simple (1984) and Fargo (1996),

11340-414: The inceptive noir, Stranger on the Third Floor , was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown, many of the films noir still remembered were A-list productions by well-known film makers. Debuting as a director with The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston followed with Key Largo (1948) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from

11475-409: The industry blacklist—as well as Henry Hathaway ( The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss of Death (1947)) and John Farrow ( The Big Clock (1948), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)). Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie. Some were Bs in the most precise sense, produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low-budget unit of one of

11610-427: The late 1950s, new trends emerged in the post-classic era. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer , Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Samuel Fuller , and Brainstorm (1965), directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad , all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir. The Manchurian Candidate examined

11745-440: The latter as a film noir despite its early date. Burnett's characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots—his protagonists were often heroic in their own way, which happened to be that of the gangster. During the classic era, his work, either as author or screenwriter, was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as noir, including three of

11880-562: The latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo-noir mode. The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama Miller's Crossing (1990)—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key —and the comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of The Long Goodbye . The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as

12015-492: The major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry . Of the others, one was a small-studio release: Detour . Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists , the "studio without a studio": Gun Crazy ; Kiss Me Deadly ; D.O.A. (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick . One

12150-408: The mind becomes utterly confused. And, to make it more aggravating, the brilliant detective in the case is continuously making shrewd deductions which he stubbornly keeps to himself. What with two interlocking mysteries and a great many characters involved, the complex of blackmail and murder soon becomes a web of utter bafflement. Unfortunately, the cunning script-writers have done little to clear it at

12285-533: The mob. The lieutenant is about to be shot when Dan intercepts the bullet. He dies as Dixon is placed under arrest. The script was based on a magazine serial by Maurice Davis which appeared in Turf and Sport Digest from December 1945 to March 1946. Film rights were bought by RKO. Raft signed in January 1947. According to the New York Times , Raft was to play a newspaper handicapper and William Bendix would play

12420-470: The money to pay for its restoration. The original version of The Big Sleep was released in art-house cinemas in 1997 for a short exhibition run along with a comparative documentary about the cinematic and content differences between the 1945 cut and 1946 release. The Big Sleep premiered in New York City on August 23, 1946, before being released on August 31. According to Warner Bros. records,

12555-455: The monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film , the speculative leaps of the science fiction film , or the song-and-dance routines of the musical . An analogous case is that of the screwball comedy , widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre": screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some—but rarely and perhaps never all—of which are found in each of

12690-452: The month before Lang's M , City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir; both its style and story had many noir characteristics. Raymond Chandler , who debuted as a novelist with The Big Sleep in 1939, soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school. Not only were Chandler's novels turned into major noirs— Murder, My Sweet (1944; adapted from Farewell, My Lovely ), The Big Sleep (1946), and Lady in

12825-474: The most famous classic noirs. By 1931, Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade, making as many as six films a year. Movies of his such as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and Private Detective 62 (1933) are among the early Hollywood sound films arguably classifiable as noir—scholar Marc Vernet offers the latter as evidence that dating the initiation of film noir to 1940 or any other year

12960-612: The most famous: High Sierra (1941), This Gun for Hire (1942), and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang, are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms. The film now most commonly cited as

13095-481: The most understandable of femme fatales; Dan Duryea , in one of his many charismatic villain roles; and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber, doomed by a romantic obsession. Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States; Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, for example, argue, "With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form ...

13230-403: The movie as being about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results", preferred the 1946 version and said, The new scenes [of the 1946 version] add a charge to the film that was missing in the 1945 version; this is a case where "studio interference" was exactly the right thing. The only reason to see the earlier version is to go behind the scenes, to learn how the tone and impact of

13365-459: The movie's credits was removed when Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner got into a feud with her agent Arthur Pine following the film's completion. Principal photography on the film took place on the Warner Bros. backlot from October 10, 1944, to January 12, 1945. Filming was meant to be completed in late November, but was continually delayed due to Bogart's increased drinking. He

13500-501: The noir style for economic reasons: dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets (mist and smoke also served the cause). Night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules. Plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts. There was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene. In Criss Cross , Siodmak achieved these effects, wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo , who played

13635-485: The novel also became more thinly veiled. To pass the censorship Carmen had to be fully dressed and the pornographic elements could only be alluded to with cryptic references to photographs of Carmen wearing a "Chinese dress" and sitting in a "Chinese chair". A scene of her in Marlowe's bed was replaced with a scene in which she appears sitting fully dressed in Marlowe's apartment, for him to promptly kick her out. This scene

13770-416: The novel by Raymond Chandler, it features one of Bogart's most famous characters, but in iconoclastic fashion: Philip Marlowe, the prototypical hardboiled detective, is replayed as a hapless misfit, almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality. Where Altman's subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics, around the same time Woody Allen

13905-682: The office while Marlowe is still there, and he arranges to meet her. She has seen Mona Mars behind an auto repair shop near a town called Realito. When he arrives, Marlowe is attacked by Canino. He awakes tied up, with Mona watching over him. Vivian is also present and frees Marlowe, allowing him to get his gun and kill Canino. They drive back together and Marlowe calls Mars from Geiger's house, pretending to be still in Realito. Mars arrives with four men, who set up an ambush outside. He enters, surprised to see Marlowe, who accuses him of blackmailing Vivian, as Carmen had killed Regan; Mars claims she did this in

14040-578: The parallel influence of the cinematic newsreel. The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction , led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett (whose first novel, Red Harvest , was published in 1929) and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask . The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Glass Key (1942) were based on novels by Hammett; Cain's novels provided

14175-459: The period, updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways, but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy, Long Goodbye -style humor: Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange, usually supernatural occurrences. The turn of the decade brought Scorsese's black-and-white Raging Bull (1980, cowritten by Schrader). An acknowledged masterpiece—in 2007

14310-542: The post-classic area. Some of these are quintessentially self-aware neo-noirs—for example, Il Conformista (1969; Italy), Der Amerikanische Freund (1977; Germany), The Element of Crime (1984; Denmark), and El Aura (2005; Argentina). Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir, such as Castle of Sand (1974; Japan), Insomnia (1997; Norway), Croupier (1998; UK), and Blind Shaft (2003; China). The neo-noir film genre developed mid-way into

14445-566: The proto-noirs They Drive by Night (1940), Manpower (1941) and High Sierra (1941), now regarded as a seminal work in noir's development. Walsh had no great name during his half-century as a director but his noirs The Man I Love (1947), White Heat (1949) and The Enforcer (1951) had A-list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle. Other directors associated with top-of-the-bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk ( Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947))—the first important noir director to fall prey to

14580-415: The screen role of Carmen. Hawks cast Vickers in the role after seeing a modeling photo of her. He worked with Vickers closely on the role of Carmen and later convinced Warner Bros. to buy out her contract with Universal . Sonia Darrin was cast in the role of Agnes. Hawks did not like her initial screen test but after supervising her makeup and wardrobe for another test, he cast her in the part. Her credit in

14715-559: The semi-documentary style that later emerged represent two very different tendencies. Narrative structures sometimes involved convoluted flashbacks uncommon in non-noir commercial productions. In terms of content, enforcement of the Production Code ensured that no film character could literally get away with murder or be seen sharing a bed with anyone but a spouse; within those bounds, however, many films now identified as noir feature plot elements and dialogue that were very risqué for

14850-470: The situation of American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War . Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post-war functioned as an inspiration for a "Cold War Noir" subgenre. The television series The Fugitive (1963–67) brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run. In a different vein, films began to appear that self-consciously acknowledged

14985-702: The sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986) and the delusionary protagonist of Lost Highway (1997). The Twin Peaks cycle, both the TV series (1990–91) and a film, Fire Walk with Me (1992), puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms. David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in Naked Lunch (1991), inspired by William S. Burroughs ' novel . The Big Sleep (1946 film) Initially produced in late 1944,

15120-558: The time. Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on portrayals of women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity , directed by Billy Wilder; setting the mold was Barbara Stanwyck 's femme fatale , Phyllis Dietrichson—an apparent nod to Marlene Dietrich , who had built her extraordinary career playing such characters for Sternberg. An A-level feature,

15255-480: The two versions that is narrated by Robert Gitt, who worked on the restoration of the 1945 version. Film critic Walter Chaw writes of the DVD releases of The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not (1944), "The fullscreen transfer of The Big Sleep is generally good but, again, not crystalline, though the grain that afflicts the earlier picture is blissfully absent. Shadow detail is strong – important given that The Big Sleep

15390-411: The words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon." Though film noir is often identified with a visual style that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions , films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream. Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from

15525-405: Was Brody who killed Geiger. They are interrupted by the landlord, gangster Eddie Mars. Marlowe goes to Brody's apartment, where he finds Agnes and Vivian. They are interrupted by Carmen, who wants her photos. Marlowe disarms her and sends Vivian and Carmen home. Brody admits he was behind the blackmailing, having stolen the negatives from Taylor, but denies having murdered him. Answering his door he

15660-425: Was French director Jean-Luc Godard 's À bout de souffle ( Breathless ; 1960), which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day. In the United States, Arthur Penn (1965's Mickey One , drawing inspiration from Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste and other French New Wave films), John Boorman (1967's Point Blank , similarly caught up, though in

15795-464: Was adapted into film in 1960. Among the first major neo-noir films—the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition—was the French Tirez sur le pianiste (1960), directed by François Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers, David Goodis . Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in

15930-436: Was an independent distributed by MGM , the industry leader: Force of Evil (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield , both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s. Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but Sweet Smell of Success , despite the plans of the production team, was clearly not made on the cheap, though like many other cherished A-budget noirs, it might be said to have

16065-432: Was deemed a critical and commercial disappointment, with Bacall's acting panned by critics. To capitalize on the "Bogie and Bacall" phenomenon that had developed, Bacall's agent Charles K. Feldman asked the studio to re-shoot scenes for The Big Sleep . Warner agreed, and these scenes were shot in early January 1946. Julius Epstein wrote the reshoots, but he was not given a credit. Although only about twenty minutes of

16200-444: Was delayed by Warner Bros. until they had turned out a backlog of war-related films. Because the war was ending, the studio feared the public might lose interest in the films, while The Big Sleep 's subject was timeless. However, there are several indications of the film's wartime production, such as the female taxi driver who picks up Marlowe in one scene, with many traditionally male occupations being taken up by women following

16335-413: Was finally released by Warner Bros. on August 31, 1946. The film was a critical and commercial success, and led to two more "Bogie and Bacall" films by Warner Bros.: Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). In 1997, the original 1945 cut was restored and released. That same year, the U.S. Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant," and added it to

16470-400: Was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era. Frank is believed to have been inspired by the French literary publishing imprint Série noire , founded in 1945. Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of

16605-529: Was in the process of ending his tumultuous marriage to his wife Mayo Methot following his affair with Bacall during To Have and Have Not . As a result of his drinking and abuse from Methot, Bogart was unable to work for several days. When Jack Warner heard that in spite of this the cast was getting along, he sent this ribbing memo: "Word has reached me that you are having fun on the set. This must stop." Although post-production ended in March 1945, The Big Sleep

16740-400: Was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. She does not appear in the best-known film she directed, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), developed by her company, The Filmakers, with support and distribution by RKO. It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of

16875-414: Was initially omitted from the 1945 cut but restored for the 1946 version. Midway through filming, Hawks and the cast realized that they did not know whether the chauffeur Owen Taylor had killed himself or was murdered. A cable was sent to Chandler, who told his friend Jamie Hamilton in a March 21, 1949 letter: "They sent me a wire ... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either". Nina Foch had tested for

17010-501: Was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films. Successful films in that genre such as Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) demonstrated that there was an audience for crime dramas with morally reprehensible protagonists. An important, possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism , with its romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes. The movement's sensibility

17145-465: Was no finalized script during filming due to the constant changes during production. The composition of the screenplay involved Hawks and three writers. Leigh Brackett and William Faulkner wrote alternating sections of the initial draft before exiting once they turned in their final draft. Jules Furthman and Hawks rewrote during production to help appease censorship from the Hays Office , which

17280-494: Was not even the first screen version of Cain's novel, having been preceded by the French Le Dernier Tournant in 1939.) In Japan, the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir, including Drunken Angel (1948), Stray Dog (1949), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and High and Low (1963). Spanish author Mercedes Formica's novel La ciudad perdida (The Lost City)

17415-480: Was paying affectionate, at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with Play It Again, Sam (1972). The " blaxploitation " film Shaft (1971), wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African-American private eye, John Shaft , takes conventions from classic noir. The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski 's 1974 Chinatown . Written by Robert Towne , it

17550-416: Was released in 2000. It is a double-sided, single-layer disc; with the 1946 theatrical version on side-A (114 m), and the 1945 version (116 m) on side-B. The 1946 opening credits appear on both versions, including Peggy Knudsen, who never appears in the original version. Nowhere is the original actress, Pat Clark, ever credited. The DVD also contains a 16-minute, edited version of the 1997 documentary comparing

17685-404: Was released the studio was bought by Howard Hughes and Schary left the company. When the film was released, The New York Times film critic, Thomas M. Pryor, panned the film, writing, "everything about this dreary exercise in violence is strictly formula, depressingly juvenile and dull...Mr. Raft, an old hand at this sort of thing, handles himself with ease and authority, and William Bendix does

17820-684: Was the inspiration for the Dragnet series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951. Several directors associated with noir built well-respected oeuvres largely at the B-movie/intermediate level. Samuel Fuller 's brutal, visually energetic films such as Pickup on South Street (1953) and Underworld U.S.A. (1961) earned him a unique reputation; his advocates praise him as "primitive" and "barbarous". Joseph H. Lewis directed noirs as diverse as Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). The former—whose screenplay

17955-762: Was the second biggest shareholder. Lang, Bennett and her husband, the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger , made Secret Beyond the Door (1948) in similar fashion. Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist , Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major/independent line: Brute Force (1947) and the influential documentary-style The Naked City (1948) were developed by producer Mark Hellinger , who had an "inside/outside" contract with Universal similar to Wanger's. Years earlier, working at Warner Bros., Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh ,

18090-513: Was vehement about excluding sexual themes. In the novel, Geiger is selling pornography – then illegal and often associated with organized crime – and is homosexual, having a relationship with Lundgren. Carmen is described as being nude in Geiger's house and later nude and in Marlowe's bed. The sexual orientation of Geiger and Lundgren goes unmentioned in the film because explicit references to homosexuality were prohibited. Carmen's sexuality from

18225-412: Was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo , disguised by a front—features a bank hold-up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential. The Big Combo was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits. The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson ( The Phenix City Story [1955] and The Brothers Rico [1957]) tell stories of vice organized on

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