Transcript film noir. - cloudfront.net

The War and PostWar Years
The Beginnings of
Film Noir
 The early years of the 40s
decade were not promising
for the American film industry,
especially following the late
1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by
the Japanese, and the
resultant loss of foreign
markets.
 profitable peak of efficiency
during the years 1943 to 1946 –
 Advances in film technology
(sound recording, lighting,
special effects,
cinematography and use of
color
 1946 (end of war), meant alltime highs recorded for
theatre attendance.
 The world was headed
toward rearmament and
warfare in the early to mid1940s, and the movie industry,
like every other aspect of life,
responded to the national
war effort
 Making movies, producing
many war-time favorites, and
having stars (and film
industry employees) enlist or
report for duty.
 The US government's Office of
War Information (OWI),
formed in 1942, served as an
important propaganda
agency during World War II.
 Films took on a more realistic
rather than escapist tone, as
they had done during the
Depression years of the 30s.
 Hollywood Canteen, the West
Coast's answer to Broadway's
Stage Door Canteen, was
typical of star-studded, plotless, patriotic extravaganzas,
one of several during the war
years which featured big stars
who entertained the troops.
 Big name stars and directors
either enlisted, performed
before soldiers at military
bases, or in other ways
contributed to the war
mobilization.
 Rationing, blackouts,
shortages and other wartime
restrictions also had their
effects on US film-makers,
who were forced to cut back
on set construction and onlocation shoots.
 Some of Hollywood's best
directors, John Ford, Frank
Capra, John Huston and
William Wyler, made Signal
Corps documentaries or
training films to aid the war
effort,
 Frank Capra's Why We Fight
(1942-1945) documentary series
 Ford's December 7th: The
Movie (1991) (finally released
after being banned by the US
government for 50 years)
 http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=MKBNBADbXCY
 and the first popular
documentary of the war titled
The Battle of Midway (1942),
 The most understated of all
wartime propaganda films was the
romantic story by Michael Curtiz
“Casablanca” (1942).
 It ‘s about a disillusioned nightclub
owner (Humphrey Bogart) and a
former lover (Ingrid Bergman)
separated by WWII in Paris.
 There was a limited release in late
1942 (and wider release in 1943),
the resonant film was a timeless,
beloved black and white work
originally based on an unproduced
play entitled Everybody Comes to
Rick's.
 Famous for it’s piano-player
Dooley Wilson's singing of As
Time Goes By, and memorable
lines of dialogue such as: "Round
up the usual suspects" and
Bogart's "Here's looking at you,
kid”
http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=padGYjSq5k
 The 40s also offered escapist
entertainment, reassurance, and
patriotic themes, such as
William Wyler's war-time film
“Mrs. Miniver” (1942), starring
Walter Pidgeon and Oscarwinning courageous heroine
Greer Garson as husband and
wife.
 It was a moving tribute and
account of courageous warbesieged Britishers reliving the
trauma of Dunkirk and coping
with the war's dangers in a
village.
 Alfred Hitchcock, who had
recently migrated to the US,
directed “Foreign
Correspondent” (1940), ending it
with a plea to the US to
recognize the Nazi menace in
Europe and end its isolationist
stance.
http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=Ck2
qelxsLmg
 A variety of war-time films,
with a wide range of subjects
and tones, presented both the
flag-waving heroics and action
of the war as well as the
realistic, every-day boredom
and brutal misery of the
experience:
 Warner Bros.' Sergeant York
(1941), directed by Howard
Hawks, A story of a pacifist
backwoods farm boy (Gary
Cooper) who became the
greatest US hero of World War
I by single-handedly killing 25
and capturing 132 of the enemy.
 Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
(1944) (featuring a US bomber
named Ruptured Duck) starred
Spencer Tracy as Lieut. Col.
James Doolittle who carried out
the first US bombing raid on
Japan.
http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=70o
03FbZCsM
 Charlie Chaplin directed and starred in
his first talking picture, “The Great
Dictator” (1940) It was a war-time, antifascist, lampooning of the Third Reich
and its dictatorial leader (rare among
American films)
 German star Marlene Dietrich, after
becoming a US citizen in 1938, made a
number of morale-boosting films, and
other German and/or Austrian
refugees risked personal popularity by
playing roles as despicable Nazis in
well-known films like Casablanca
(1942), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and
Hitchcock's allegorical war-time
survival tale “Lifeboat” (1944
 German-born Ernst Lubitsch directed
the anti-Nazi farce of a theatre couple
outwitting the Nazis in “To Be Or Not
To Be” (1942). It starred Jack Benny as
Polish actor Joseph Tura, and was
noted for the line: "So they call me
Concentration Camp Erhardt."
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
IJOuoyoMhj8
 Some of the most popular
box-office stars of the entire
decade were: James Cagney,
Clark Gable,, Bette Davis,
Mickey Rooney, Bing Crosby,
Gene Autry, Gary Cooper,
Greer Garson, Humphrey
Bogart, Ingrid Bergman.
 In 1946, five of the year's top
ten box-office films starred
Bing Crosby and Ingrid
Bergman - two wholesome
and likeable stars.
 The Bell’s of St. Marys (1945)
 Staring both Bergman and
Crosby
 SYNOPSIS: At a big city
Catholic school, Father
O'Malley and Sister Benedict
indulge in friendly rivalry,
and succeed in extending the
school through the gift of a
building.
 http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=7MctafuXLho
 Twelve-year-old child actress
Elizabeth Taylor (born in the
UK in 1932 to American
parents) became a star after
making Lassie Come Home
(1943) and National Velvet
(1944)
 The latter film featured a longshot horse named Pie and
Mickey Rooney as a
homeless, stubborn ex-jockey.
In her first major film role,
Jennifer Jones became a star
and won an Oscar for her
portrayal of a religious St.
Bernadette Soubirous who
experienced a vision of the
Virgin Mary at Lourdes in The
“Song of Bernadette” (1943).
http://www.youtub
e.com/watch?v=Fw
LzSpS-JVY
 By World War II's end, the
genre most characteristic of the
era and most associated with
1940s Hollywood was film noir.
 The film noir 'genre' reflected
the way Hollywood felt as it
faced its greatest challenges
during the war and post-war
periods - darker and more
cynical
 The best hard-boiled detective
pictures ever made - director
John Huston's remarkable
debut film The Maltese Falcon
(1941).
 The film about a treasure search
for a black bird, adapted from
Dashiell Hammett's novel,
marked a turning point for
actor Humphrey Bogart - it
made him a star as private eye
Sam Spade.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
phUxnXGhEiI
 Frank Tuttle's This Gun For
Hire (1942), a dark revenge
film that made Alan Ladd a
star and spotlighted his
Veronica Lake.
 Billy Wilder's classic
thriller/film noir Double
Indemnity (1944), from crime
novelist Raymond Chandler's
adaptation of James M. Cain's
novella about insurance
fraud, corruption and
adulterous murder, with
Barbara Stanwyck as a
deadly blonde, Fred
MacMurray as the agent, and
Edward G. Robinson as a
dogged insurance
investigator.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
GSx-CiuC-QA
 The gangster movie was
revitalized with one of
Warner Bros. finest examples
of the genre - director Raoul
Walsh's High Sierra (1941),
starring Humphrey Bogart (in
his first starring role) as an
aging gangster with a heart
of gold.
 Later in the decade, the
gangster was not
romanticized, but portrayed
as a bullying in John Huston's
Key Largo (1948), and James
Cagney in White Heat (1949)
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
b9JIpYFh21Y
 The famous Paramount
Studios' "Road" films (a total
of seven films stretching out
until 1962), starred a wisecracking Bob Hope and his
comedy partner Bing Crosby
as two hapless musicians, and
their colorful heroine Dorothy
Lamour.
 •The Road to Singapore (1940)
 •The Road to Zanzibar (1941)
 •The Road to Morocco (1942) -
the best of the series




•The Road to Utopia (1946)
•The Road to Rio (1947)
•The Road to Bali (1952)
•The Road to Hong Kong
(1962)
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
pV4d0aLVFKc
 Bob Hope also starred in
some of his best comedies
during the decade, including
My Favorite Blonde (1942) with
Madeleine Carroll.
 In 1941, comedians Abbott and
Costello made their film debut
in Buck Privates (1941), a
comedy about their enlistment
into World War II, and the
pair would go on to make
many more hit films for
Universal Studios, following
the decline of Deanna
Durbin's popularity.
 Abbott and Costello's most
famous classic routine "Who's
On First?" was performed in
their film The Naughty
Nineties (1945)
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
airT-m9LcoY
 The famed comedy team, the
Marx Brothers were to retire
from the movies as a screen
team in 1941 with their last
film, MGM's The Big Store
(1941). However, they later
signed with United Artists to
make the independent feature
A Night in Casablanca (1946),
and they also appeared in a
'comeback' film, their final film
as a team - Love Happy (1949)
with a little-known Marilyn
Monroe.
 Technical achievements were many.
Disney released more animated
feature films in the 40s, including
some of its most timeless classics.
 The golden decade of Disney
animation was heralded by
Pinocchio (1940) and the wildlyexperimental film Fantasia (1940) It
was the first film with stereophonic
sound ("Fantasound").
 Other Disney feature-length
animations included Dumbo (1941)
Bambi (1942)
 Disney's charming live-action
feature film (with animated
sequences) Song of the South (1946),
was based on the Uncle Remus' talltale stories of Brer Rabbit by Joel
Chandler Harris.
 Although it was a commercial
success, the film was criticized by
the NAACP in 1946 for "the
impression it gives of an idyllic
master-slave relationship – Still
nominated for best “Score” in a
musical.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
mHTnJNGvQcA
 Post-war films reflected the desire
of audiences to put the war behind
them. In 1945, the year of the
war's end, six of the top ten boxoffice champs were musicals - in
order:
 • Thrill of a Romance (1945)
•Anchors Aweigh (1945)
 •The Harvey Girls (1945)
 •State Fair (1945)
 •The Dolly Sisters (1945)
 • Up in Arms (1945)
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
UjRQFSYFuaI
 John Ford's The Grapes of
Wrath (1940), based on John
Steinbeck's novel, was
beautifully filmed by
cinematographer Gregg
Toland; it told of the struggle
of a displaced, povertystricken American migrant
family (including ex-con Tom
Joad played by Henry Fonda)
who left Oklahoma's
dustbowl for California.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
5ayi81QMuak
 British director Alfred
Hitchcock ventured to
Hollywood in 1939, and many
of his films were premiered in
the US.
 Hitchcock also made some
superb psychological thrillers:
the favorite of all of his films
was Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
about a psychopathic 'Merry
Widow' killer named Charlie
(Joseph Cotten) in a small
California town.
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
d9p3xKsckgY
 British film distributor J.
Arthur Rank, in cooperation
with Universal Studios and
International Pictures, assured
the production and
importation of more British
films into the U.S. including
 • Great Expectations (1946)
 •Oliver Twist (1947)
 Lean's melodramatic tearjerker Brief Encounter (1946),
heightened by Rachmaninoff's
piano concerto, told a story of
unfulfilled romance between
a married middle-class
woman (Celia Johnson) and a
doctor (Trevor Howard) - at a
railway station tearoom.
 http://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=d5fE0HXkmyo
 British director Carol Reed
filmed The Third Man (1949) set in
a divided Vienna and starring
American actors Joseph Cotten
and Orson Welles. Reed's
earlier crime drama and tense
character study Odd Man Out
(1947), set in Belfast, starred
James Mason as an IRA
gunman wounded in a robbery
gone awry.
 French director Jean Cocteau
directed the classic live-action,
love drama La Belle et La Bete
(Beauty and the Beast) (1946)
Also filmed, Marcel Carne's
post-war romantic drama
masterpiece Les Enfants Du
Paradis (1945), a bittersweet tale
set in 19th century Parisian
theatre and secretly filmed
during the Nazi occupation, was
acclaimed for its lyrical beauty
and doomed passion.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=asbB8Ikd-GQ
 Paranoid witch-hunt
investigations conducted by the
House of Representatives' UnAmerican Activities Committee
(HUAC), beginning in 1947, were
ostensibly aimed at rooting out
suspected Communists and
political traitors within the
Hollywood community and film
industry.
 •Lester Cole - screenwriter
 •Dalton Trumbo - screenwriter
 •Edward Dmytryk - director
 •Herbert Biberman director/producer
 •Alvah Bessie - screenwriter
 •Ring Lardner Jr. - screenwriter
 •John Howard Lawson screenwriter
 •Albert Maltz - screenwriter
 •Samuel Ornitz - screenwriter
 •Robert Adrian Scott producer/writer
 For their refusal to cooperate,
the Ten were considered
criminals and jailed for up to
one year, and fined $1,000 for
contempt of Congress. They
were also unofficially
'blacklisted' by the US film
industry.
 Louis B. Mayer, Walt Disney,
Elia Kazan, Bud Schulberg,
Gary Cooper and Ronald
Reagan (President of the
Screen Actors Guild since 1947),
testified on communism in the
industry. Actors, writers, and
directors that were
'blacklisted' by unfriendly
testimonies were banned
from working in the film
studios
http://www.youtu
be.com/watch?v=
nJzV6-wJ3SQ
 Over 300 movie industry
figures and blacklisted stars
had their careers ruined
between 1947 and 1952, when
the HUAC investigation ended
in the mid-1950s.
 Suspect movie figures were  •falsely accused of having
Bolshevik connections or
being Communist
sympathizers
 • investigated as suspected
"communists"
 •alleged to be part of a
Hollywood "Communist Fifth
Column" for refusing to
answer questions
 Film director Joseph Losey,
whose first US feature film
was The Boy With Green Hair
(1948), was labeled a member
of the Communist party by
HUAC (after failing to comply),
moved to Europe in the early
1950s, and there directed such
great films as The Servant
(1963) and The Go-Between
(1971).
 At the end of this decade,
reeling from depression, war,
problems of the return to
peacetime, and the ominous
arrival of the atomic bomb,
the world was a more cynical,
chaotic, economically-unsure
and film-noirish place.
 Studios were also forced to
re-evaluate their roles and
approaches, with lawsuits
that stripped the studios of
their lucrative practices.
 By the late 1940s, the motion
picture industry surely faced
its period of greatest crisis
and challenge, with the
depressing bleakness of the
Cold War on the horizon.
 Hollywood suddenly found
itself with many threatening
forces at the close of the 40s and
the start of the next decade:
 •the coming of television
forcing potential moviegoers to
remain at home
 •blacklisting and McCarthyism
(the practice of making accusations of
disloyalty, subversion, or treason
without proper regard for evidence)
 •a 1945 studio labor union strike
that raised salaries 25% for
studio employees
 • a short-lived 75% import duty,
from 1947-1948, that restricted the
import of all US films into the
UK
 •the gradual decline of theatreattending audiences
 •inflation that raised film
production costs
 •anti-trust rulings by the US
government against the studios