Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust and Murder Hollywood Style

by William Hare, Ken Annakin (Foreword by)

The name is French and it has connections to German expressionist cinema, but film noir was inspired by the American Raymond Chandler, whose prose was marked by the gripping realism of seedy hotels, dimly lit bars, main streets, country clubs, mansions, cul-de-sac apartments, corporate boardrooms, and flop houses of America. Chandler and the other writers and directors, including James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, Jane Greer, Ken Annakin, Rouben Mamoulian and Mike Mazurki, who were primarily responsible for the creation of the film noir genre and its common plots and themes, are the main focus of this work. It correlates the rise of film noir with the new appetites of the American public after World War II and explains how it was developed by smaller studios and filmmakers as a result of the emphasis on quality within a deliberately restricted element of cities at night. The author also discusses how RKO capitalized on films such as Murder, My Sweet and Out of the Past --two of film noir's most famous titles--and film noir's connection to British noir and the great international triumph of Sir Carol Reed in The Third Man.

Genres: Nonfiction

221 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2003

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing because some great insights here are muddled by the lack of editing. It is extremely repetitive and looping and long sections seem as though they are just paraphrased from biographies and film histories. About ten pages, though, of extremely insightful analysis of some of the great film noirs make this not a total waste.

[Rashmi Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like your movies filled with suspense and evil? Did you enjoy any of the following movies: The Maltese Falcon; Double Indemnity; Murder, My Sweet; Crossfire; Out of the Past; Laura; The Postman Always Rings Twice; The Third Man; or Across the Bridge? If you answered "yes" to either question, I highly recommend Early Film Noir to you.
Mr. Hare has written a fine exposition of how the film noir style evolved, the development of the key films in this genre and brief biographies of the important actors, directors, cameramen and producers who influenced the key films. If you are unfamiliar with any of the films, Mr. Hare does an excellent job of summarizing the story lines so that you can understand the subject without having seen the films. I have seen all of these films many times, and encourage you to use the book to decide which ones you would enjoy.
If you already have a great knowledge in this area, you may find the book to be mostly redundant to what you know already. As someone who had seen the films but not studied their backgrounds, this book added greatly to my understanding of the films and my appreciation of them. I especially enjoyed learning about how the scripts were developed. Some books translate easily onto the big screen, while others require substantial story and dialogue development. The Third Man is especially interesting from this perspective.
Each chapter includes one or more great stills from the films. Those add just the right touch of adding noir color.
Many books about film focus on the most famous people involved. Mr. Hare has made a great decision to focus instead on those who are most intriguing. I had always found Jane Greer to be fascinating on screen and was pleased to find a while chapter about her.
Before reading this book, I did not fully realize the connection between the detective novels of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and the later developments of film noir and Albert Camus's writing. Making that link was a very helpful perspective for me.
As I finished the book, I realized that one of the appeals for me about film noir is that the female characters have strength, texture and nuance . . . just like real women. Early film noir was way ahead of its time in portraying the image of women as having all of the potential to be saints and devils that men have. I wondered about why so many current films seem to present women as having more potential than men. Does that mean we will come to see that as the reality in the future

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly written

Although the book covers a topic I love, film noir, I only gave it 3 stars because of how poorly it is written. Sometimes the narrative is hard to follow, almost as if written by someone whose first language wasn't English. Also, there are so many spelling mistakes that it takes away from the enjoyment of the book. Some words make absolutely no sense and I couldn't figure out what they actually were supposed to be. That being said, the movies chosen to be written about are among the greatest noirs and there is a lot of very interesting information. I probably would have given the book 5 stars if it weren't so dang hard to read.

[Megha Sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you like your movies filled with suspense and evil? Did you enjoy any of the following movies: The Maltese Falcon; Double Indemnity; Murder, My Sweet; Crossfire; Out of the Past; Laura; The Postman Always Rings Twice; The Third Man; or Across the Bridge? If you answered "yes" to either question, I highly recommend Early Film Noir to you.
Mr. Hare has written a fine exposition of how the film noir style evolved, the development of the key films in this genre and brief biographies of the important actors, directors, cameramen and producers who influenced the key films. If you are unfamiliar with any of the films, Mr. Hare does an excellent job of summarizing the story lines so that you can understand the subject without having seen the films. I have seen all of these films many times, and encourage you to use the book to decide which ones you would enjoy.
If you already have a great knowledge in this area, you may find the book to be mostly redundant to what you know already. As someone who had seen the films but not studied their backgrounds, this book added greatly to my understanding of the films and my appreciation of them. I especially enjoyed learning about how the scripts were developed. Some books translate easily onto the big screen, while others require substantial story and dialogue development. The Third Man is especially interesting from this perspective.
Each chapter includes one or more great stills from the films. Those add just the right touch of adding noir color.
Many books about film focus on the most famous people involved. Mr. Hare has made a great decision to focus instead on those who are most intriguing. I had always found Jane Greer to be fascinating on screen and was pleased to find a while chapter about her.