Street with no name: a history of the classic American film noir

Description

Traces the genre of film noir back to German and French roots. Describes the development of the genre in the United States and examines its expression in modern cinema. To name the thing : film noir as style, as genre -- German expressionism and the roots of the film noir -- Fritz Lang -- Robert Siodmak -- The inception of the film noir in the French cinema of the 1930s -- The film noir in France in the immediate postwar years -- 1. The noir in America -- The noir city -- Archetypes- protagonists -- Abraham Polonsky -- Jules Dassin -- Nicholas Ray -- Orson Welles -- 2. The hard-boiled fiction influence -- Cornell Woolrich -- The private detective -- Humphrey Bogart, Spade, Marlowe, and the film noir -- The gangster figure and the noir -- John Huston -- Violence in the noir -- Samuel Fuller -- Robert Aldrich -- Don Siegel -- Sexuality in the noir -- Families in the noir -- Joseph H. Lewis -- 3. Women as seen in the film noir -- Otto Preminger -- 4. Noir production -- Noir iconography -- The use of voice-over narration -- The flashback device -- Amnesia as a storytelling device -- The B noir production -- Documentary realism in the noir -- Critical and popular reception of the film noir -- HUAC and the blacklist -- Fight pictures -- Caper films -- Crime syndicate exposés -- The Kefauver Crime hearings -- Anthony Mann -- Phil Karlson -- 5. The noir influence on the French new wave -- Jean-Pierre Melville -- Epilogue : Comments on the classic film noir and the neo-noir.