What Film Noir Can Teach Writers

Posted on by

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

You humble scribe with the “Czar of Noir” Eddie Muller

Recently, I joined my son in Hollywood for our annual ritual—dinner at Musso & Frank, followed by opening night of Noir City, the film festival at the Egyptian Theater hosted by Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation.

There’s always a pre-screening reception in the courtyard outside the theater, where many attendees come dressed in 1940s fashion. Local distilleries provide liquid refreshment, and a band with a torch singer performs vintage songs from the era (classic American film noir ran from 1941 and The Maltese Falcon to 1958’s Touch of Evil).

Just what is film noir, and why does it have such a loyal following?

As the French name implies, this is “dark film.” It always revolves around crime, and who among us hasn’t had a passing thought of such ilk from time to time? Even if it is just to wonder “Could I get away with it?” Film noir allows us to indulge that fascination without getting too close.

Film noir has a distinctive look—rich black-and-white (as opposed to neo-noir, like Body Heat). Indeed, cinematographers, like the great John Alton, were just as important as the writer and director. (See Alton’s masterpiece He Walked by Night sometime).

The noir world grinds out rough justice. No bad deed goes unpunished. A guy makes one bad move years ago, and has managed to find a new life…until that past catches up with him to exact retribution (Out of the Past).

Sometimes, the hammer falls on a decent guy who makes one bad choice.

In Side Street, Farley Granger plays Joe Norson, a mailman working like a dog to support himself and his pregnant wife. One day he delivers mail to a lawyer’s office and, alone there, finds $200 in cash. On impulse, he takes it. What he doesn’t know is the dough is part of the lawyer’s extortion racket.

And then there’s a murder.

Soon enough, the bad guy is after Joe, and so is the law, considering Joe a suspect in the murder. Hoo boy. Can he possibly get out of this? We watch to find out, pulling for the guy. Noir justice happens, but exacts a heavy price.

Not all noir leads are good guys who make a bad choice. Sometimes they’re bad guys through and through, and we watch to see if he gets away with it (Touch of Evil). Heist noir (Criss Cross; The Asphalt Jungle) is like that.

Thus, shades of black and white mix, which is just like life.

And makes for compelling fiction, too. The character with a “moral flaw” is more interesting—and more realistic—than a pure, immaculate hero. We relate to characters like that because deep down we know we have flaws, too, and that should our flaws get out of hand, it will lead to disaster.

In a way, noir is like classic Greek tragedy. The purpose of tragedy was to create “catharsis” and warn us of what happens when we follow the dark side.

Thus:

  • Give your Lead a moral flaw, and show it via inner conflict and the “mirror moment.”
  • Indeed, give all your characters, even minor ones, a moral flaw. Even if those are never revealed, it help you come up with more original actions and dialogue.
  • Consider exacting a price the Lead must pay for justice to prevail, a “wound.”

If you want to explore film noir more deeply, I recommend Dark City by Eddie Muller (affiliate link). There are also scores of B-movie noirs available for free on YouTube.

Here are ten of my favorites:

The Maltese Falcon (1941, Dir. John Huston)
Double Indemnity (1944, Dir. Billy Wilder)
Out of the Past (1947, Dir. Jacques Tourneur)
Too Late For Tears (1949, Dir. Byron Haskin)
Act of Violence (1949, Dir. Fred Zinemann)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950, Dir. John Huston)
99 River Street (1953, Dir. Phil Karlson)
The Hitch-Hiker (1953, Dir. Ida Lupino)
Pickup on South Street (1953, Dir. Sam Fuller)
Touch of Evil (1958, Dir. Orson Welles)

Are you a film noir fan? What are your favorites? 

23 thoughts on “What Film Noir Can Teach Writers”

  1. I don’t know if this counts but love Frank Miller’s Sin City movies and books.

    Ed Brubaker’s Criminal comic book series.

    Veronica Mars to me is noirish. She wasn’t always the good guy.

  2. Morning, Jim. James Cagney was terrific in gangster films like Public Enemy, Roaring Twenties, White Heat. He was a little guy, only 5’5″, but filled the screen with intense energy. “I made it. Top of the world, Ma!”

    A side note: I’ve been researching the Hayes Code, enacted in 1930, intended to protect the unsuspecting public from the corrupting influence of movies: “…the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.”

    IOW, crime doesn’t pay and bad guys always get punished.

    Strict guidelines against nudity, profanity, sexual depictions, etc., were enforced by the Production Code Authority which restricted wide theatrical release of films that didn’t meet approval.

    Outstanding directors Billy Wilder often found themselves in conflict with restrictive rules. In 1959, Some Like it Hot/i> didn’t receive PCA approval but went on to gross $25mm in the US and $49mm worldwide.

    By 1968, the code was abandoned in favor of the parental rating code.

  3. Laura made a big impact on me when I first saw it. The psychological danger of your own imagination was great and Gene Tierney, wow. I”am a big sucker. for early Hitchcock like Shadow of Doubt and Strangers on a train.
    The look of noir also spilled over into horror films like The Cat People. The shadowy staging was fascinating.

    Love it all

    • Laura is terrific, and has a beautiful score, too.

      Cat People was directed by Jacques Tourneur, who helmed what many consider the greatest of all noirs, Out of the Past.

  4. Guess I’m not a noir fan. The only movie I’ve seen from your list is Maltese Falcon. Not everything is for everyone, I guess. Book Club discussion last week proved that. Everyone liked the book, but all had different parts/characters they loved or hated.

  5. I do enjoy classic film noir, Jim. “Pickup on South Street” is a favorite, along with of “The Maltese Falcon,” and 1947’s “Kiss of Death,” starring Victor Mature and Richard Widmark.

    “Kiss of Death” of death helped me when I worked on an early version of my series “The Empowered.” One of my oldest friends, Anthony Pryor, also a writer, and a huge noir fan, was a sounding board for my story, featuring a former criminal who possessed a super power and was now out of parole, and urged me to watch “Kiss of Death” for inspiration and to get a sense of a character having to secretly work with the police to bring down the bad guys.

    My plot is my own, with Mat being recruited by the secret agency Support to infiltrate the cell of a notorious criminal and terrorist empowered organization, to help bring them down. Mat did it in order to protect her ailing grandmother and two younger sisters, and stay out of prison, since she’d violated her parole using her superpower to protect those sisters from a gang.

    “Kiss of Death”‘s tone and, “vibe” of a former criminal caught between his past and his desire to protect his family that proved especially instructive and inspirational as I worked out the series over several years, which, along with lots of craft study and workshopping, pushed me over the top to a successful story that worked for the right readers.

    Widmark’s Tommy Udo also provided inspiration for my psychopathic empowered villain, Mutter.

  6. I remember watching Double Indemnity with my mom one Saturday afternoon when I was a teenager. Barbara Stanwyck scared me to death. I remember thinking that when I grew up, I didn’t want to be like her. So cold and calculating. Fred MacMurray was almost as much her victim as her husband was. Almost.

    I also remember Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Great series. I guess some of those qualify as noir. When my mom passed away, we inherited a DVD collection of his best. I re-discovered it just the other day. Better than watching the news, I say. 🙂

    • A lot of good little noir episodes on Hitchcock. The very first one, “Revenge” is soooo good. The one with Ralph Meeker and Vera Miles with a twist ending that’ll haunt you.

  7. I’ve only seen a few of the ones on your list, Jim, but my favorite is Double Indemnity. For some reason, I always want Fred MacMurray to be a good guy. That must be why they cast him in the role of the insurance salesman.

    (Btw: sharp outfit!)

    • MacMurray was an underrated actor. We remember him as the lovable absent-minded professor, or the dad on My Three Sons.

      But arguably his three best performances were as sleazebags: Double Indemnity, The Caine Mutiny, and The Apartment. That he wasn’t nominated for an Oscar for any of these is a crime.

  8. I taught a seminar taking apart Jim Butcher’s first Harry Dresden novel, STORM FRONT, as a noir mystery in a fantasy setting. Lots of fun. I also showed how it was the perfect set up for a first book in a series. The seminar is posted on my blog. Click the Jim Butcher link or the right.

    MALTESE FALCON and LAURA as my favorite noir films.

Comments are closed.