Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
4/19/2021 10:29:40 AM
Subject:
RE: Identifying film noir
So, some elaboration:
Movie stars are often your early warning signs that something is at least potentially noir. I noted that Robert Mitchum is a good instrument in this regard. He is so typically and correctly identified with this genre that even if you've never heard of one of his movies, you automatically are prepared to watch a noir.
Another (for some people surprising) actor I think of as a cinch to be cast in a noir is Alan Ladd. Of course, he eventually went another direction, but the impression he made in This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, and The Blue Dahlia still, to my mind, make him identifiable with noir.
Second to Mitchum would be Dana Andrews. I can't think of anyone, besides Mitchum, who so immediately evokes the whole noir ethos. Even when he wasn't making a noir, you expected him to go all hard-boiled and trenchcoat.
As for women, of course you have Veronica Lake and Rita Hayworth (right up through The Lady from Shanghai and -- gasp -- the western, They Came From Cordura). In my opinion, though, hardly anyone comes close to Ida Lupino for noir linkage. Well, maybe Gloria Grahame.
Anyway, pretty quickly I would qualify my claim about Hitchcock not being a noir guy. I must go away and do something frivolous first.
