Film Noir is . . .
2. A movie which at no time misleads you into thinking
there is going to be a happy ending.
3. Locations that reek of the night, of shadows, of
alleys, of the back doors of fancy places, of apartment buildings with a high
turnover rate, of taxi drivers and bartenders who have seen it all.
4. Cigarettes. Everybody in film noir is always smoking,
as if to say, "On top of everything else, I've been assigned to get
through three packs today."
5. Women who would just as soon kill you as love you, and
vice versa.
6. For women: low necklines, floppy hats, mascara,
lipstick, dressing rooms, boudoirs, calling the doorman by his first name, high
heels, red dresses, elbow length gloves, mixing drinks, having gangsters as
boyfriends, having soft spots for alcoholic private eyes, wanting a lot of
someone else's women, sprawling dead on the floor with every limb meticulously
arranged and every hair in place.
7. For men: fedoras, suits and ties, shabby residential
hotels with a neon sign blinking through the window, buying yourself a drink
out of the office bottle, cars with running boards, all-night diners,
protecting kids who shouldn't be playing with the big guys, being on first-name
terms with homicide cops, knowing a lot of people whose descriptions end in
"ies," such as bookies, newsies, junkies, alkys, jockeys and cabbies.
8. Movies either shot in black and white, or feeling like
they were.
9. Relationships in which love is only the final flop
card in the poker game of death.
10. The most American film genre, because no society
could have created a world so filled with doom, fate, fear and betrayal, unless
it were essentially naive and optimistic.
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