A NOIR VALENTINE

In the dual portraits of film noir couples, the tension is not just sexual but existential. Fate was in command, and the film titles said it all: Detour; Kiss of Death; Cornered; Criss-Cross; D.O.A; Fallen Angel: Out of the Past; Possessed. In film noir, the games were played for keeps. These photos of film noir lovers convey that brooding quality, that moment of tenderness or passion, that brief moment before fate comes calling. Valentine can come in other colors than red - it even comes in black. (This post was revived and revised from last year's Silver Screen Modiste entry to the Film Noir blogathon).

Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde in "Leave Her to Heaven" a film noir in vivid Technicolor

Film noir twisted the normal expectations of movie plots. A happy ending was not in the cards, and everyone had an angle. The couples danced around each other's schemes, or lost themselves to an obsession with the other.

Burt Lancaster in his first film, "The Killers" with Ava Gardner, 1946. The film made stars of them both.

                                                

The foundation of the film noir point of view was forged by the Great Depression, and tempered by the horrors of World War II. Women had learned to be independent and tough. They had learned to keep their families together by going to work, and during the war they had to make it on their own. Men had lived their lives  in the Depression knowing that they could lose their jobs, and often did, and at any random moment in the war a bullet or missile could snuff them out. Free choice had lost to cruel fate - such is the world view that pervades film noir, a reflection of a darker realism shaken loose by the war.

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Susan Hayward and Bill Williams in "Deadline at Dawn," 1946.

Whereas cars and trains used to represent escape and freedom, in film noir they became metaphors for confined spaces and one-way tracks to destiny. As the character Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) says to Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) in Double Indemnity, "They're stuck with each other and they've got to ride all the way to the end of the line."

  

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Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd in "The Blue Dahlia," 1946.

The black and white film and still photography, perfected in the 1930s, was ideal for film noir atmospherics. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane with its deep focus and claustrophic shots gave film noir inspiration. Deep shadows and strong contrasts of light and dark became a signature film noir technique. These settings were perfectly represented by light streaming through venetian blinds, the patterns of prison bars and staircases, and criss-crossed railroad tracks. The settings were mostly urban nightscapes. During and after WWII, soldiers, marines, and sailors from all over the country passed through big cities like New York and Los Angeles. After the war ended, tens of thousands returned and were cast adrift there, looking for an illusive normalcy.

Ann Blyth and Burt Lancaster in "Brute Force," 1947

Noir films often start at the end, their story played out in flashbacks. There is no mistake that destiny rules over the protagonists. The only question is, what road will get them there. And whatever the road, they're always looking back nervously in the rear-view mirror. In Out of the Past, even returning to normal life in a small town provides no escape from the clutches of his big city past for Robert Mitchum. And a similar fate traps Burt Lancaster in its spider-web in The Killers.

 

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Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum in "Out of the Past," 1947

For film noir couples, an intensity radiates from their portraits. Whatever force consumes them burns like white heat. Though their past chases them and their destiny beckons, they live in the moment. They lose themselves in the other.

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Gene Tierney and Richard Widmark in "Night and the City," 1950

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Coleen Gray and Victor Mature in "Kiss of Death," 1947

Film noir combined great acting talent with great stories and screenplays. Outstanding film directors were also responsible for the classics of film noir. It seemed that the European directors working in the U.S. appear to have best captured the film noir aesthetic. They seemed to have understood the malaise of the post-war years. And often as refugees, they had lived through its nightmares. They included Robert Siodmak, Jules Dassin, Jacques Tourneur, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Otto Preminger. But film noir lives on, not only in these classics, but in stylish hits such as Body Heat and L.A. Confidential. We could hope for some more - but bad endings are never popular. This much is certain - there was no bad ending for Film Noir itself - it lives on in its masterly films and its influence on film making through today.