Review by Choice Review
Written by established scholars, the carefully researched essays in this fine collection range in quality from very good to excellent and in topic from character types and plot motifs to the uses of sound, music, and visual stylistics. Explored are unofficial female detection as a recurring motif; film noir as "fundamentally about gender and society"; theme music in conjunction with romance (e.g., Out of the Past and The Blue Gardenia); sound in noir as "auditory spectacle"; Jerry Wald, Adrian Scott, and Mark Hellinger and their influence on noir production; the careers of blacklisted directors who fled the US in the 1950s to make careers in England (Joseph Losey) and France (Jules Dassin); plot patterns and visual motifs, as linked themes of "labor, leisure, and loyalty," in heist films of the 1950s (notably The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing). In the final essay, Miklitsch (English and literature, Ohio Univ.) defends the canonical choice of Stranger on the Third Floor (1939) as the alpha noir film and Odds against Tomorrow (1959) as the omega film (or possibly the first neo-noir). An invaluable resource for anyone interested in film noir. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Robert Ducharme, Mount Saint Mary's University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
