BECOMING FILM NOIR Film noir adaptations of hard-boiled fiction, 1944-46

262 Pages·2017·3.42 MB·English

BECOMING FILM NOIR
Film noir adaptations of hard-boiled fiction, 1944-46

Matthew Jones, BA (Hons)

Supervised by: Dr William Marx, Dr Susan Drake

Submitted in fulfilment for the award of the degree of PhD

University of Wales Trinity Saint David

2017
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Abstract
This thesis interrogates a number of issues that surround what critics have designated ‘film
noir’ and its relationship to that branch of modern American literature identified as ‘hard-
boiled fiction’. Thus, the main subject matter for the thesis consists of selected films noirs
from 1944—46, and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond
Chandler. The thesis argues that the adaptation process is of central significance to the ‘film
noir’ debate and to film noir itself. While it argues for a dialogic exchange between ‘noir’
and ‘hard-boiled fiction’, it proposes as well that there was also a fundamental
incompatibility between the two modes. The thesis discusses the difficulties encountered by
Hollywood studios in adapting Cain’s work due to the candid representation of ‘adult’
themes, and how this conflicted with Hollywood censorship, carried out by the Production
Code Administration (PCA). In order for Cain’s fiction to be adapted, it is argued, Hollywood
conventions regarding the representation of sex and violence and the PCA guidelines by
which they were governed had to undergo radical change.
The critical and scholarly contexts for this argument include debates concerning influence,
censorship, and the involvement of the PCA with the adaptation process, and the notion, as
maintained by elements within the revisionist debate, that ‘film noir’ has no conceptual or
theoretical basis. The thesis challenges revisionist arguments that ‘noir’ was ‘invented’ by
French critics in 1946, and argues that although the genre was named retrospectively,
generic practice was established by Hollywood producers in acts of ‘applied criticism’ prior
to production, from around 1944 onwards. The thesis contextualises the generic practice of
‘noir’ within the history of film, while arguing simultaneously for historic changes in
Hollywood film-making of the mid-1940s in terms of the representation of ‘adult’ themes,
and the relaxation of the Production Code.
The thesis discusses how criticism has tended to privilege other media, such as the plastic
arts and literature, over film, and argues that notions of artistic style and influence must
give consideration to the immanence of the film production context. The notion that ‘noir’
was influenced by the artistic movement known as ‘German Expressionism’ has been
questioned by the revisionist debate. The thesis examines and discusses key German films
of the Weimar period, when the artistic movement ‘Expressionism’ flourished, arguing that
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the Weimar influence is discernible in the generic practice of ‘noir’. However, the thesis
makes a case that this is, primarily, the legacy of Weimar cinema, and that the influence of
‘Expressionism’ should be discussed within this medium-specific context.
The thesis examines the connections between the work of a number of influential directors
and the signifying practice of ‘noir’, including Murnau, Lang, Hitchcock and Hawks. It is
proposed that certain ‘noir’ conventions can be traced back to the work of these influential
directors. The thesis proposes a way of understanding ‘film noir’ as a genre, and argues that
the adaptation process needs to be seen as a nexus for various discourses, including
directorial style, screenwriting, cinematography, the studio system, and censorship, in
addition to the relationship between the film and the novelistic text.

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DECLARATION SHEET

This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not
being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree.

Signed ...................................................................... (student)

Date ........................................................................

STATEMENT 1

This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated.
Where correction services have been used the extent and nature of the correction is
clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving
explicit references. A bibliography is appended.

Signed ..................................................................... (student)

Date ........................................................................

STATEMENT 2

I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and
for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside
organisations.

Signed ..................................................................... (student)

Date ........................................................................

STATEMENT 3

I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for deposit in the
University’s digital repository.

Signed ..................................................................... (student)

Date ........................................................................

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Contents
Introduction 1
Becoming film noir 2
The ‘hard-boiled’ mode 30

1 Weimar cinema, German Expressionism, and film noir 45
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920) 51
The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924) 70
Sunrise: a Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927) 73

2 ‘Dead man walking’: adapting Double Indemnity 80
Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) 85
Scarface (Hawks, 1932) 113

3 ‘The price of fornication’: adapting The Postman Always Rings Twice 126
The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946) 132
Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) 154

4 The advent of noir style: ‘Portraits and Doubles’ and the ‘femme fatale’ 166
The Woman in the Window (Lang, 1944) 171
Scarlet Street (Lang, 1945) 176
Alfred Hitchcock: The Lodger (1927); Rebecca (1940) 183
Gilda (Vidor, 1946) 192
Robert Siodmak: The Spiral Staircase (1946); The Killers (1946) 196
Phantom Lady (Siodmak, 1944) 202
The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) 214
Conclusion 232
Bibliography 249

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Introduction

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Becoming film noir
The primary focus of this study is the relationship between film noir and the ‘hard-boiled’
mode of crime fiction, in particular, the work of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and
Raymond Chandler. A number of acclaimed films noirs are adapted from hard-boiled texts,
including several of the films analysed in detail here, namely Double Indemnity (Wilder,
1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946), both based on novels by Cain,
and The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946), based on the novel by Chandler. The thesis argues that, in
the main, the relationship between films and books is seen to involve a form of dialogic
exchange. As Frank Krutnik notes ‘Hollywood genres are not self-contained, for they are
influenced by, and themselves influence, other modes of popular culture’.1 This exchange
accounts for certain shared elements, such as character types and narrative conventions.
The thesis examines various aspects of this dialogic relationship. For example, Chapter Two
analyses and discusses Double Indemnity, Paramount’s groundbreaking 1944 adaptation of
Cain’s 1936 novel. The studios had aspired to adapt the novel’s ‘adult’ themes of sex and
violence since the mid-1930s but the Motion Picture Production Code (or ‘the Code’)
prevented them from so doing, that is, until Paramount produced a screenplay which
satisfied the censors, the Production Code Administration (PCA). However, the screenplay
was co-written by director Billy Wilder and Cain’s fellow novelist, Raymond Chandler.
Chandler is seen to make a significant contribution to the adaptation, both in terms of the
use of innuendo which enabled Paramount to circumvent and effectively manipulate ‘the
Code’, and by helping to create a ‘moral centre’ for the film, lacking in the novel, in the
character of Barton Keyes. If the studios had wanted to adapt Cain’s work for over a decade
then it was another hard-boiled novelist, Chandler, who helped them to do it. Chapter
Three, on the other hand, examines The Postman Always Rings Twice, MGM’s 1946
adaptation of Cain’s 1934 novel, to determine the way in which the film applies and
consolidates generic practice established in earlier noirs such as Double Indemnity. The
Chapter also includes an analysis of the intertextual relationship between novel and film in
order to identify, and provide reasons for, the modifications made to the source text by the
MGM production team, thereby focusing upon the specifics of the adaptation process.

1 F. Krutnik, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1996), p.33.

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