FILM NOIR: A PERVERSE VALENTINE

I want to write about THE THIRD MAN next time, but we should have a little discussion about film noir first.

Film noir is a French phrase to describe the cynical, tough-talking crime films of the 1940s and 50s.  It literally translates to “dark film”, meaning that America was churning out stories that didn’t have the happy endings made so glossy and artificially satisfying by the Hollywood studios.

The dark stories were born out of the rise of urban living in the 20^th century.  People came with the hope of making it big in the city, even though the odds were stacked up against them everywhere.  Every person and every thing represented a racket working against you — the government, the cops, the crooks, your boss, your spouse, and your so-called friends.  They squeezed money, love, blood, sweat and tears out of you and left you bitter and on the skids.

The “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller writes in his book DARK CITY that “…film noirs were the only movies that offered bracing respite from sugarcoated dogma, Hollywood-style.  They weren’t trying to lull you or sell you or reassure you — they insisted that you wake up to the reality of a corrupt world.”

The cynicism and brutal truths intensified after World War 2, when men returned from the virtual hell of fighting to the now surreal normalities of the home front.  Surviving the Depression and the war changed men and women and had them scrabbling to redefine their roles in life.  It would be a disillusioning transformation.

In a great lecture a couple of years ago (August 18, 2011 to be exact), the aforementioned Muller interviewed author Dennis Lehane at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.  Muller described film noir as “working class tragedy”.  Lehane noted that “in noir, [people] fall from the curb” and not from great heights.  Both are brilliant observations I wish I’d come up with myself.

However, my earliest personal take on film noir was this:  the whole genre was a beautifully perverse valentine to Humphrey Bogart.  Bogart was a man’s man, but he wasn’t John Wayne in stature or handsome like Cary Grant.  Instead, Bogart had a receding hairline requiring a toupee, spoke with a lisp, and always looked dog-years-older than his actual age.  He spent the first decade of his career in gangster films and getting shot down in the last reel.  These were ignoble deaths with no one left to regret his demise.

Things finally turned around for Bogart with starring roles in HIGH SIERRA and THE MALTESE FALCON (both released in 1941).  He was playing another gangster-type in HIGH SIERRA, but his portrayal of Roy Earle was excitingly nuanced and even sympathetic.  Earle wanted enough money to retire and get out of the crime racket and a nice girl to settle down with, but life just wouldn’t let him have it.  These themes would fuel nearly every film noir to come.  Bogart comes to a punishing finish in HIGH SIERRA, but unlike his earlier films, he had a love interest (Ida Lupino) and the audience lamenting his failure.

THE MALTESE FALCON is often regarded as the first bona fide film noir.  Dashiell Hammett’s original novel had been adapted twice for the screen, before they got it right with Bogart, directed by John Huston (who had written the screenplay for HIGH SIERRA).  Bogart’s casual cool as detective Sam Spade just barely reigns in the volatile and ruthless man underneath.  It’s a stunning balance of tempers and Bogart’s performance is a revelation.

Humphrey Bogart faces off with Mary Astor in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941).

A pattern was established with THE MALTESE FALCON that became the DNA for the noir genre — the motley cast of characters; danger lurking in shadows; a twisty plot driven by competing motivations; a wicked, world-wise sense of humor; and indelible style in clothes and manner.  What would noir be without men in the fedoras, veiled women, and cigarettes burning?  When his client Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) flutters with a school-girl manner, Spade calls her out: “You’re good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice…”  

Even the supporting characters have their bits of business.  Punctilious dandy Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) must have his gardenia-scented calling cards and walking stick.  As Kasper Gutman, Sydney Greenstreet radiates flair with a booming laugh and a penchant for “talking with men who love to talk.”

What sets film noir apart from the tradition of gangster and crime films before it is debatable.  For me, these are the deciding earmarks:

1)  The aspect of horror. 

There’s something grotesque in the protagonist’s pursuits and something stalking him in the dark, ready to pounce savagely. 

In THE MALTESE FALCON, Spade is involved a woman he can’t trust and pursuing a treasure that kills everyone who comes in contact with it. 

And vividly, in the carny noir classic, NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947), Tyrone Power is a smooth-talking con artist who climbs his way to the top, only to fall to the depths of becoming the alcoholic and half-mad sideshow attraction known as “The Geek”.

2)  The nemesis. 

The worst enemies are the ones closest to our main character, including the protagonist himself/herself.  And in the final moments, a lover or best friend can be the one who fires the fatal bullet.  In noir, it’s important that reckoning is delivered before the cops get there. 

This is beautifully played out in another quintessential noir classic OUT OF THE PAST (1947) starring Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum.  Greer plays one of the all-time, doe-eyed femme fatales who ensnares Mitchum, only to be betrayed by him and drawn into her own spectacular crash.

Killer best friends are at the core of THE THIRD MAN which we’ll go into next time.   

3)  Confusion. 

By the end of a noir film, we find ourselves re-examining and questioning the outcome. What could’ve happened to make things different for the characters?  How did we the audience get here?  Is life really that desperately bad?  A conventional crime story would end with less ambiguity.  Transgressors must be punished by the law or the cops, and there are no alternative outcomes.

In Billy Wilder’s noir masterpiece, DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944), Fred MacMurray’s character narrates how the whole crazy, complicated story came to be.  Even as the active protagonist of the film, he needs to think it all over and attempt to make sense of it.  He got suckered into murder for the love (or rather the lust) of a woman.  Not just any woman, but a knockout Barbara Stanwyck. 

This leads me to another assertion — Barbara Stanwyck is the other reason why film noir exists.  It’s a genre honoring her as much as it does Bogart.  Throughout the 1930s, Stanwyck churned out films featuring tough dames who knew the score.  She worked with directors like Frank Capra and William Wellman who understood and captured her ferocious tenacity and blazing intelligence.  But the resolutions of those dramas in the 1930s imposed happy endings or punished her as a moral necessity.  Stanwyck needed film noir to fulfill what she started.

Barbara Stanwyck gives Fred MacMurray an eyeful in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944).

Watching DOUBLE INDEMNITY, you can see Stanwyck manipulating Fred MacMurray with a turn of her body, enigmatically masking her emotions behind sunglasses, or staring calmly ahead during the murder that she carefully plotted with MacMurray.  She doesn’t ever have to break a sweat.  He’s doing all the heavy lifting and she’s getting exactly what she wants.

Stanwyck’s beauty tricks in DOUBLE INDEMNITY are resurrected in film noir culture over and over — the overdone styling of her hair; the heavy lipstick; those tarty heels that MacMurray sees tripping down the stairs, seducing him; and the little outfits alternating between tight sweaters and luscious glamour.  As smart and clever as he is, MacMurray still can’t save himself from this siren.

Film noir is about these driven women who outsmart their men.  It’s about men who don’t look like matinee idols.  It’s a world you have to talk your way in and out of.  You have to understand the cosmic joke, the cosmic irony of life.  Danger is right at your hip like a gun, and shooting yourself in the foot is inevitable.  Having the gun taken away and used against you is also par for the course.  Nearly every noir film is a tribute to Bogart and Stanwyck in some way.  See for yourselves.  Audiences of the 1940s and 50s never got over them and neither will you.