Examines the movies and artists of film noir, describing the social climate and artistic skills that contributed to the genre.

A collection of essays exploring the philosophical elements present in Neo-Noir films. Film noir is a classic genre characterized by visual elements such as tilted camera angles, skewed scene compositions, and an interplay between darkness and light. Common motifs include crime and punishment, the upheaval of traditional moral values, and a pessimistic stance on the meaning of life and on the place of humankind in the universe. Spanning the 1940s...

The story of Elena and Vladimir, an older couple. The wealthy but stingy Vladimir treats Elena more like a servant than a wife. They each have children from their first marriages, a son and a daughter. Elena's son is unemployed and can't feed his wife and two children; they live only on the money Elena provides them, while Vladimir's daughter lives a bohemian life. In the hospital following a heart attack, Vladimir's daughter visits him. Their time...

Two urban intellectuals set out on a cross-country trip to research a book about serial killers. They share the ride with a couple they hardly know and find out firsthand about their subject.

"From actual murder to magazine fiction to movie, the history of Double Indemnity is as complex as anything that hit the screen during film noir's classic period. A 1927 tabloid sensation "crime of the century" inspired journalist and would-be crime-fiction writer James M. Cain to pen a novella. Hollywood quickly bid on the film rights, but throughout the 1930s a strict code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama...

A corrupt con-man teams up with a female psychiatrist to trick people into giving them money in 1940s New York.

"An analysis of Hollywood films that blend elements of musicals and film noir, from the author of Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir. Welcome to the world of "noir musical" films, where tormented antiheroes and hard-boiled musicians battle obsession and struggle with their music and ill-fated love triangles. Sultry divas dance and sing the blues in shrouded nightclubs. Romantic intrigue clashes with backstage careers. In her pioneering...

An amazingly original hybrid of film noir, supernatural fantasy, and backstage melodrama, the film stars Joan Leslie as a Broadway actress who magically relives the previous year of her life, but can she alter the fateful mistakes and misjudgments that led to a New Year's Eve tragedy? In the years after its 1947 release, REPEAT PERFORMANCE seemingly vanished. For many who'd seen it, the film's startling premise and stunning set-pieces became merely...