L.A. Confidentialarrived in theaters on this day in 1997. The 50s-set potboiler received almost unprecedented universal acclaim, and if you were of a certain age then, it very likely introduced you to film noir.
Film noir was a genre that, like the Western, used to be the most popular style of film for the early movie studios but fell out of favor by the 60s. Like Westerns, film noir was frequently considered a lower class of cinema in comparison to the sweeping adaptations of epic popular fiction. And the immense regard that many of the older films now have, most of that came later as film criticism grew to become more respected and international film embraced the shadowy works of detective fiction.
Film noir itself was an important genre for legitimizing cinema as an artform — the use of shadows for terror, the seductive placement of limbs, glances, and the way someone smoked a cigarette substituted for dialogue. The Hayes Production Code made it harder to convey sex, but film noir coded it by using characters that work just outside the respectability of the police force, but instead are hired in private to unravel mysteries that the people hiring would also like to keep private and out of the police dossiers and headlines. And that distance from societal order opened up narratives to include other perceived lessers: gamblers, alcoholics, burlesque dancers, prostitutes, and desperate men and women. As such, the femme fatale was born to counterpart the brooding and mysterious private detective. Acclaimed film directorJean-Luc Godardfamously began his career as a film critic writing for France’sCahiers du cinema, where he frequently championed this post-WWII cinematic movement for portraying a level of unease and disbelief that the rest of popular cinema was avoiding. Godard famously quipped that all you need to make a movie is a gun and a girl. And that’s partly what made noir so popular at movie studios: it was cheap to make and it could create a movie star out of an actor/actress who was on contract.
Film criticism also shifted in the 40s and 50s to include more artful analysis of movies (suggestion: read some of the early 1940s film criticism from novelistJames Ageewhen he started atTimein 1942; Agee was hugely influential to our big American critics of the 60s onward—like theCahierswriters, andPauline KaelandRoger Ebert.) Agee himself was excited by noir and pulp films, and he often fought to include them inTimewhich boosted their profile in intellectual circles and was extremely formative for elevating many genres decades later, such as horror. Agee also later went on to write the seminal, noir-inspiredNight of the Hunterscript that attacked the potential for hypocrisy in religion. Attacking convention and the open embrace of the status quo is precisely what intrigued Agee. That and the camera angles and use of lighting that conveyed much more than good vs. evil in it’s heightened black and white status.
L.A. Confidentialperfectly captured the influence of film noir on the city of Los Angeles itself. From the vice detective who makes extra money by setting up and busting b-level celebrities to the publisher of pulp daily news that charts the fall from grace of movie stars, this public desire of tawdriness ran side-by-side to the respectable side of America that was represented by our police force, elected officials, and A-list movie stars. But everything is for sale and everyone is a potential suspect inL.A. Confidentialbecause nothing is truly respectable and that’s something that film noir has always made its audience sniff.
DirectorCurtis Hansonwon an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay forL.A. Confidential(which he co-wrote withBrian Helgeland), one of the biggest Oscar achievements for the genre. And crime. The film was based on a sprawlingJames Ellroynovel that was originally set for television before Hanson got the go ahead to make a movie at Warner Brothers. Under Hanson’s careful direction,Confidentialwas a resounding financial and critical success, which confirmed an immense gamble on the part of the studio when Hanson assembled an amazing group of character actors for a period detective genre that Hollywood had long ignored. The biggest “star” wasKevin Spacey, who was not yet widely known to the public (despite an Oscar win forThe Usual Suspects). Hanson’s film was not only responsible for castingRussell CroweandGuy Pearcein their first major Hollywood roles, as detectives Bud White and Ed Exley, but the immensely textured story of corruption in the LAPD—and how it intersected with both Hollywood coverups and mobster drug trafficking—also revived Hollywood’s long dormant interest in the labyrinthine plotting of classic film noirs such asThe Big Sleep.
Communication was a major theme in film noir, as detectives are following words from characters that put them in a situation to observe the truth while hiding. InL.A. Confidentialit was the trail of information that various policemen find but need each other to fully put together, as the web of corruption is so large it stretched across both vice and homicide departments.
Personally,L.A. Confidentialwas my cinephile-molding movie. It was released when I was 15 years old. I’d never seen a story like it. It was released at a time that I was hungry for cinema, butConfidentialdid something amazing for me. It so enraptured me from the opening credit narration (byDanny DeVito) on the promise of Los Angeles— before Hanson revealed its ugly (but still glamorous) underbelly—that it made me look backward and watch the films that 1997’s leading critics very favorably compared it to. First toThe Big Sleepand then toChinatownand on to even more meticulously layered mysteries that were set amidst broken dreams, empty glasses of booze, and complex femme fatales. In essence, Hanson’s film was so rich, smoky and beguiling, he was able to push me toFritz Lang, Roman Polanski, Humphrey Bogart, Otto Preminger, John Hustonand the list goes on and on. What a gift to a young burgeoning cinephile.
In honor ofConfidentialbecoming a gateway movie drug for myself—and many others—on its 20-year anniversary, we present 19 other film noirs that are necessary to see in order to better understand and love the genre. Dames, hats, cigarettes, and late hours. This is our beginner’s guide to film noir, kicked off by the modern classic ofL.A. Confidential. And it’s a handy list we wish we had 20 years ago.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Don’t say there’s no such thing as a good remake.Dashiell Hammett’s classic detective novel was first adapted in 1931, but the one we all remember is the 1941 version featuringHumphrey Bogartas jaded private investigator Sam Spade.John Huston’s adaptation pretty much defined the P.I. noir, and although future directors would find ways to play with the rules, the melding of Huston’s sensibilities with Hammett’s incredible book made for a film that’s still as searing today as it was over 75 years ago.
The plot follows Sam Spade (Bogart), who begins investigating the death of his partner, which in turn becomes a hunt for a priceless artifact, the Maltese Falcon. Much like the Continental Op of Hammett’sRed Harvestwho begins playing each side against each other to achieve his own goal, Spade comes into contact with a cast of colorful characters, all of whom are seeking the Falcon and will do anything to get it.
But whereThe Maltese Falconreally sinks its claws into you (if it hasn’t already with its crackling dialogue and electric performances) is the ending where we see the fatalistic code of noir heroes. One of the things I love about noir is that it isn’t afraid of bittersweet or downer endings. Not everyone gets what they want, and since the Hayes Code basically forced a universal morality onto pictures, smart noir was able to upend this requirement into tragedy that leaves you with “the stuff dreams are made of.” -Matt Goldberg
The Woman in the Window (1944)
When the film noir took off in the 1940s it seemed to be able to get away with more scandalous words, more seductive sleepwear and more hard drinking because usually those who’d done wrong were punished at the end.Fritz Langpushed the noir envelope as far as he possibly could against the Hayes Production Code inThe Woman in the Window. And when they rejected his ending for being immoral, he tacked on a 30-second over-the-top, gee-golly-I’m-glad-to-be-alive second ending (that would later be done with earnestness in Frank Capra’sIt’s a Wonderful Life). Despite ending in a tonally odd manor when viewed today, if Lang’s final decision was a cinematic “fuck you” to (what’s now) the MPAA then his film is among the best film noirs ever. Lang ratcheted up the tension, gave a dark ending and then tap-danced expletives at the censor board.
What’s also interesting aboutThe Woman in the Windowis that, instead of giving us another weary detective, Lang drops his anti-hero (Edward G. Robinson) into academia. Robinson plays a professor who opens the film by teaching the psychological acceptance of when murder is agreed to be just (in defense) and when it is viewed as immoral (for personal gain; again distinctions from the Production Code). Once he’s seduced by the titular “woman in the window” (Joan Bennett) he’ll soon find his theories put to the test.
WithWoman in the Window(which was in the middle of four consecutive film noirs from the auteur who gifted many of the visual techniques that would become prevalent in Hollywood in his early German serial killer film,M), Lang took an academic approach to murder by including a main character who, despite being an everyday academic, can also easily be seduced by those same pulpy, “lower class” shenanigans. And then, unable to have the ending he wanted due to the Hayes Production Code, Lang films his desired darker ending and then flips off the censors by tacking on their desired happier ending. It’s jarring to watch now because the ending feels so out of place, but if you are aware of the Production Code rules it’s easy to forgive.
Woman in the Windowwas very far ahead of its time and now it’s been overlooked in the canons of the great original noirs, most likely because of its tacked on final minute. But the first 105 minutes still hold up as one of the most suspenseful, artful noirs ever made. Up until the final minute. Afterward, you should laugh. We’re sure that Lang did.— Brian Formo
Laura (1944)
As World War II was ramping up Hollywood was a refuge for many filmmakers who’d put a massive stamp on the US film industry (as evidenced by how many times Fritz Lang shows up on this list after he fled Germany a day after being asked by Joseph Goebbels to head Nazi Germany’s propaganda film machine; he couldn’t decline so he just straight up and left).Otto Premingerwas a unique Hollywood filmmaker who left Austria-Hungary when war was breaking out and his career is dotted with films that stood up for the marginalized (Preminger updatedCarmen Jonesas an all-black cast musical and worked hard to verify that blacklisted screenwriterDalton Trumbowas credited with his real name onExodus). And like many during this time period, Preminger got his biggest Hollywood break making a film noir.
Lauraessentially takes aDaphne du Maurierpremise—a detective (Dana Andrews) is working on a murder case and ends up falling in love with the dead woman he’s investigating—and acknowledges a limitation that film noir will forever have: that its women are mere canvases for men to project their desires upon.Gene Tierneyis a stunning beauty and thus, for noir, her death is tragic and that tragedy becomes all consuming for a detective for how could such a fallen angel become embroiled in such deceit? Could the right man have saved her before her untimely fate?
Laurais an elegant whodunit that’s immensely forward thinking about gender and the hollowness of the genre in its infancy stages. And again, an extremely capable visualist, Preminger shows immense fluidity with the camera and how genre can push the medium into entirely new dream realms via pans, dollies, and push ins.— Brian Formo
Double Indemnity (1944)
Double Indemnityis an incredibly fun watch, especially if, like me, you first saw starFred MacMurrayon the wholesomeMy Three Sonson Nick at Nite. He plays a far different character here with director Billy Wilder adaptingJohn M. Cain’s novel (with a dialogue assist fromRaymond Chandler)about a woman who teams up with an insurance salesman to murder her husband in order to collect big on his policy (the “double indemnity” clause is if her husband dies in accidental death).
The film works brilliantly on so many different levels. First, it’s got a crackerjack framing device with MacMurray’s salesman, Walter Neff, bleeding out in his own office, recording a confession to the agency’s adjustor Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). In the first five minutes, we know it’s all gone horribly wrong for Neff, and now he’s going to tell us how. From there, we see a classic noir protagonist–a guy who’s jaded and cynical, but ends up getting duped just the same.
And thenBarbara Stanwyckenters the picture as the nefarious, seductive, classic femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, and the movie is off to the races as the chemistry between MacMurray and Stanwyck sizzles, but it’s all cemented with the undertones of us knowing that either they get away with and they’ve done something horrible, or they don’t get away with it, and something horrible happens to them.Double Indemnityrelishes the duplicity and cynicism of its characters, and it makes for one of Wilder’s best movies, which, looking at his filmography, is saying something. -Matt Goldberg
Scarlet Street (1945)
Fritz Lang’sScarlet Streetis a circus of dopes who are duped into doing extra dopey things all due to assumptions. It’s a spiritual sequel of sorts toThe Woman in the Windowin that three principal players are the same:Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett,andDan Duryea. Robinson is a man who’s been neutered by his Victorian-styled marriage. When he rescues a beautiful young woman from an attack (Bennett) he feels a surge in his libido. However, he cannot ever recapture that feeling of being a man because the young woman and her (probable) pimp cohort start wanting things from him because they think he’s rich. In reality, his wife has all the money and his paintings are just a side diversion; although his paintings are for himself he’s still emasculated by his older wife by wearing a frilly apron for his smock. His impulse to save the young woman came from natural human awareness separate from the perceived duties of his gender to provide safety and to stimulate. Once he’s aware that he’s capable of being a man, he blunders every attempt to recapture that masculine stance that the younger woman is trying to manipulate, rendering himself impotent. Needless to say the middle-aged crisis blackmail does not go as planned.
Scarlet Streetisn’t a comedy but it does feel like a satire of pulp. Lang adds immense plotting to emphasize the ludicrous expectations of an ordinary man within this genre.— Brian Formo
The Big Sleep (1946)
It’s been almost 20 years since I first sawThe Big Sleep(I probably peddled my bike to the video store the day after seeingL.A. Confidential,for which the immense plot of deceit was originally compared). The plot is still a smashing zigzag that probably inspired the Coen brothers’ to include the line inThe Big Lebowski(“I love your style: playing one side against the other, in bed with everybody”).Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe cannot rest on his case. A wealthy man’s youngest daughter tries to sit on his lap while he’s standing up, the oldest daughter (Lauren Bacall) is a gambling love interest, and his stakeout cohort at the bookstore closes shop for some off-screen hanky panky.
It’s easiest to focus on the sex ofThe Big Sleepbecause the plot seems to just exist as a fever dream in between all the various couplings. I love thatHoward Hawksand co. ditched scenes of extra explanation in favor of Bogart and Bacall flirting scenes. Give the people what they want! Lap-sitting while standing up! I also loved theDorothy Malonebookshop scene because she knows how to whistle alright (Bogart’s “hello there” is the gateway drug for her Oscar-winning performance inWritten on the Wind).
It is imperative to do a double feature ofThe Big SleepwithThe Long Goodbye,Robert Altman’s response to this and all 40s film noirs that features Marlowe. Philip Marlowe finally goes to bed and wakes for a three decade slumber to neighbors of bathing nude girls who ask him to pick up brownie mix for their pot. Hawks shields the Hayes Code 1940s audience from blatantly using words that’d reveal the obvious pornography and drug plot points inThe Big Sleepand the 70s Marlowe just wakes up next to it on full giggling display inThe Long Goodbye.— Brian Formo
Out of the Past (1947)
Robert MitchumandKirk Douglasstar in the Battle of the Film Noir Chin Dimple! Mitchum plays the former mafia tough who’s reinvented himself as a gas station owner after Douglas’ mafioso has him tail a woman that he falls for.
Most film noirs start from the beginning and follows a case as the walls start to close in, butOut of the Pasttells the story of a previous case that closed the walls in on Mitchum and picks up when it comes back to haunt him. I love that this noir is essentially Mitchum attempting to resist the femme fatale (Jane Greer) because she’s actually fatal (unlike other women men attempt to save in this genre or women who connive but never use violence, Greer is the most violent person in the film).
When we pick up with Mitchum in his new, less shadowy life he’s just trying to settle down and fish with the girl next door. The past comes back, though, and it’s shady as hell. Throw in a great opening scene at a fill station/cafe, some mountain vistas, a glow on Mitchum’s caterpillar eyelashes as his heart gets manipulated again and you’ve got an atypical noir that still fits in some great shadowy fistfights and Mexico hideouts.
For horror fans,Out of the Pastshould be of extra interest because it shows whatJacques Tourneur(Cat People) could do outside of his RKO horror work. Tourneur’s shadows remain but the meaning is so much more human and full of regret.— Brian Formo
Ride the Pink Horse (1947)
I’m not sure ifRide the Pink Horseis great for a noir novice but for fans of noir it’s endlessly fascinating. Noir itself is frequently a critique of urban capitalism and what people do for money, particularly after WWII when more people seem to have it in America making those who don’t feel even more desperate. Border towns are frequent noir settings for obvious reasons of crossing over there grants magical immunity but being caught there is a separate plight. But inThe Pink Horsethe Mexicans are not saloon background characters but are major parts of the story.
Lucky (director and starRobert Montgomery) is foolishly thinking he’s showing loyalty to his dead friend by blackmailing his killer, but that only selfishly gives Lucky money and uses his friend. It’s the opposite of loyalty. When Pancho (Oscar nomineeThomas Gomez) shows loyalty to Lucky by taking a beating rather than speaking Lucky offers to give him a percent of the money. His humanity and ability to show gratitude is tied to money. There’s a great “small fry” monologue by the mobster tuff, in which he mocks Lucky for not asking for more money, which highlights the American disdain for those who don’t upsell. It’s Lucky’s immersion with the locals that make him more human because they show him humanity without charging for it (unless it’s drinks at the bar, that is!).— Brian Formo
The Third Man (1949)
Carol Reed’s masterpiece used the expressionist “Dutch angle” technique to reference how disoriented an American (Joseph Cotton) feels abroad in this post-WWII but pre-Cold War mystery. Supposedly, cinematographerRobert Kraskerjokingly gifted Reed a level after filming so many titled scenes. The Academy gave Krasker an Oscar and Krasker thanked Reed.
The Third Manis the best film noir export, set in Vienna and made by the UK.Steven Soderberghcheekily stated, “One of the amazing things aboutThe Third Manis that it really is a great film, in spite of all the people who say it’s a great film." It goes into the sewers for a pre-Vertigochase scene and though it has spy elements it holds the noir ending: nothing goes as planned. Especially getting the girl.
Although it’s Harry Lime’s (Orson Welles) chase that’s most famous, the final shot is one of the best endings in all of cinema; in a static shot, a woman silently walking past the man who’s kept her in deception; willfully choosing to close a chapter in his life. The End.— Brian Formo
They Live by Night (1949)
Nicholas Rayis most fondly remembered forRebel Without a Cause(and less fondly for seducing one of its young stars,Sal Mineo). So it comes as no surprise that the best teen noir came from Ray in his feature film debut,They Live By Night.
A majority of film noirs were set in Los Angeles due to the film industry’s presence but also to sell the City of Angels short of being angelic (checkLos Angeles Plays Itself). But there are many great rural noirs about people attempting to escape their past.They Live By Nightis a sleepy Texas noir that follows a young couple (Farley GrangerandCathy O’Donnell) who are on the run from his past. The young boy was jailed at 16 for killing his father’s murderer and he escapes prison with some bank robbers. He joins them on their crime spree due to his youthful loyalty he feels he owes them for the escape—but being jailed so young has sentenced him to a life of hard times regardless of the route he takes.
Godard, the Greek Chorus of film noir champions, famously said “cinema is Nicholas Ray.” And Ray’s first film is a swelling heart. These kids make bad choices but it doesn’t come innately, there’s a pause an awareness of their wrongdoing, but they don’t know what else to do other than to attempt to just make it to the next day with each other. This is every Bruce Springsteen “born to lose” couples song, done up in black-and-white cinema.— Brian Formo
