More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts

Settings and locales, film-noir, 65, 66, 68, 118-19, 142, 172-73, 193, 213 (figs.), 214, 244, 249, 292n63;

Asian, 225-27;

big business office, 88;

carnival or festive, 229, 233, 261;

cheap or sleazy, 139-40, 149, 172, 173;

city sewers, 79, 80 (fig.), 173;

city streets, 9, 158, 171, 172, 173, 181 (fig.);

consumer-world, 89, 90 (fig.), 153;

domestic architecture, 84, 250;

foggy or rainy; 22-23, 148, 173, 174, 181 (fig.);

grocery market, 89, 90 (fig.);

home and family, 84, 250, 253, 268, 292n63;

hospital, 269;

hotel or motel room, 88, 149; labyrinths, 24, 79, 80 (fig.), 173, 261;

Latin American, 229-31;

massified public-world, 88-89, 90 (fig.),;

nightclubs and bars, 197, 218-19, 223-24, 230, 231, 233, 237, 240 (fig.), 242 (fig.);

on-location city, 126-27, 172, 215;

police station, 249;

suburban, 153, 268;

upper-class interior, 187-88, 197;

urban diners, 23, 145, 179 (fig.), 193;

Watts neighborhood, 250, 253.

See also Mise-en-scene; Urban settings; names of cities Sexual perversity:

father-daughter, 207, 252; mother-son, 133, 134 (fig.); of noir villains, 98-99, 144; and voyeurism, 182, 184 (fig.), 207, 264.

See also Sadism

Sexual politics of film noir, 224, 304n2 Sexuality:

black male hedonist, 244; censorship of illicit, 96, 98, 99, 100; exotic forbidden, 226; fear of a woman's, 182; and jealousy, 227;

and kissing scenes, 101, 133, 134 (fig.), 152, 227;

mechanical modern, 44, 89, 265;

noir hero, 20, 34, 35;

noir heroine, 20, 89, 264, 265;

and obsession, 157, 158, 264;

and paranoia, 209;

and pornographic themes, 152, 158, 161, 162, 247, 264, 274; and sex by ellipsis, 99; surrealist, 17, 265;

of women as a weapon, 91 (fig.), 182, 185 (fig.), 195 (fig.). See also Eroticism, noir; Homosexuality Sexuality and violence, 12, 266; censorship of, 99, 100; film criticism on, 29-30; pathological, 207, 208, 264; rape, 99, 100, 245 Shades of Noir (Copjec), 246 Shamroy, Leon, 186- 87

Shaw, Joseph T. 'Cap,' 50, 51 Shaw, Victoria, 226

Shelden, Michael, 66

Shepherd, Cybill, 213 (figs.), 214

Shigeta, James, 216-27

Shock Illustrated magazine, 258

Shock Suspenstories, 258

Short subject, noir, 194-96, 195 (fig.)

Showtime cable network, 163 Shue, Elizabeth, 268 Signorelli, Tom, 193 Silhouette lighting. See Lighting Silver, Alain, 4, 9-10, 103, 151, 261 Simmons, Jerrold L., 82 Sin City comic books, 256, 266 Sinatra, Frank, 133-34, 226 The Singing Detective (Potter), 196 Siodmak, Robert, 267-68, 299n25 Sirk, Douglas, 190 Sistrom, Joseph P., 107 Sizemore, Tom, 250 Skouras, Charles P., 140 Skyline, Manhattan, 171-72, 188 'Sleeper' movies, 142, 165-66 Smart Set magazine, 51 Smith, Art, 128

Smoking, ritualized, 99, 101, 212; parodies of, 200, 215 Social class. See Class Social criticism:

disdain for, 216;

in films noirs, 21, 73, 130-31, 246-48 Social realism and film noir, 103, 215, 234, 236; post-1947 left-wing, 124-30 Socialism, 64, 289n33 Social-problem pictures, 103; about returning veterans, 107-14, 114-23; left-wing school of, 124-35 passim; non-systemic, 120-21 Social-protest literature, black, 8, 235-36 Sociologists, cold-war, 105, 106 Soderbergh, Steven, 160, 267-70 Soundtracks. See Dialogue; Music; Narration South America. See Latin America Southern California. See Los Angeles Spanish, noir films in, 232-33 Sparkuhl, Theodore, 65 The Spectator periodical, 66-67 Spectatorship, the politics of, 238, 239.

See also Audience reactions Spielberg, Steven, 191 Spillane, Mickey: dialogue by, 152;

success and popularity of, 22, 102, 130, 151, 155, 200, 256, 260, 293n9 Spillane, Mickey, novels by:

I, the Jury by, 102, 152;

Kiss Me Deadly, 22, 27, 151, 152-55 Spy stories, 68, 74, 225

Standards. See Censorship, motion-picture; Morality

Stanton, Harry Dean, 197 Stanwyck, Barbara, 292n65; in Double Indemnity, 89, 90 (fig.), 91 (fig.), 95 Steiner, Max, 1,61 Steinman, Clay, 122, 295nn22, 24 Sternberg, Josef von, 55, 226 Stevens, Andrew, 163 Stevens, Craig, 260 Stewart, James, 101, 188, 212, 259 Stoltz, Eric, 219 Stone, Oliver, 193 Stone, Sharon, 264, 283n28 Stories and plot structures, noir:

'blood melodramas,' 45, 48, 69, 216;

'buddy' pictures, 241-42; by female or gay artists, 223;

dreamlike, 21, 100, 118-19, 134, 144, 212-14, 213 (fig.), 238, 248, 273-75, 147-48; incoherent or confusing, 18, 21, 26, 35, 100, 282n21; multiple-perspective, 24, 25, 135; nonlinear, 215-19;

Poverty Row production, 143-44, 147-49;

'wrong man' pictures, 110, 233.

See also Narrative themes, noir Stream of consciousness, visual, 269 Street lamps, 116, 148, 173

Street photography, New York School, 158, 171, 172 Stringer, Julian, 228-29 Studios, 117;

'B'-picture units at, 141; cable network, 163;

DTV and major, 162-63; insurance business parallels to, 86;

Poverty Row, 140-41, 143-44, 147-49, 162; reorganization of Hollywood, 123; and unions, 123.

See also Politics in the film community Suicide, 98, 133; seen as escaping justice, 128 Sullivan, Vernon (pseud.). See Vian, Boris Sundance Film Festival, 267 Surrealist film criticism:

British, 29, 30-31;

French, 17-18, 19, 21, 22; the ideal cinema of, 274, 275 Surtees, Robert, 191 Suzuki, Seijun, 227-28 Sydney, Sylvia, 55, 58 (fig.)

Sylbert, Richard, 205, 212

T

Taboos. See Censorship, motion-picture Tanguy, Yves, 19

Tarantino, Quentin, 5, 165-66, 232; and Pulp Fiction, 215-19, 217 (fig.), 245-46 Taylorism, 83.

See also Fordism; Mass culture; Mass production