The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s

by Robert Miklitsch

Overview

Critical wisdom has it that we said a long goodbye to film noir in the 1950s. Robert Miklitsch begs to differ. Pursuing leads down the back streets and alleyways of cultural history, The Red and the Black proposes that the received rise-and-fall narrative about the genre radically undervalues the formal and thematic complexity of '50s noir and the dynamic segue it effected between the spectacular expressionism of '40s noir and early, modernist neo-noir.

Mixing scholarship with a fan's devotion to the crooked roads of critique, Miklitsch autopsies marquee films like D.O.A., Niagara, and Kiss Me Deadly plus a number of lesser-known classics. Throughout, he addresses the social and technological factors that dealt deuce after deuce to the genre—its celebrated style threatened by new media and technologies such as TV and 3-D, color and widescreen, its born losers replaced like zombies by All-American heroes, the nation rocked by the red menace and nightmares of nuclear annihilation. But against all odds, the author argues, inventive filmmakers continued to make formally daring and socially compelling pictures that remain surprisingly, startlingly alive.

Cutting-edge and entertaining, The Red and the Black reconsiders a lost period in the history of American movies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252082191
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	12/07/2016
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Robert Miklitsch is a professor in the department of English language and literature at Ohio University. He is the editor of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands: On Classic Film Noir.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Prise de Position: For '50s Noir, or Confessions of a Film Noir Addict xi

Preface: Generalities, or The Rise and Fall of Classic American Film Noir xv

Introduction: Coming Attractions, or The Particulars 1

Part 1 '50s Noir and Anticommunism

1 The Woman on Pier 13: I Married a Communist! 19

2 The Red and the Black: "Black Film" and the Red Menace 40

The Whip Hand: The Red Plague 42

I Was a Communist for the F.B.I: Fear of a Red Planet 48

Walk East on Beacon! "A Red behind Every Tree" 62

Big Jim McLain: Red Hawaii 72

3 Pickup on South Street: Out of the Red and Into the Black 79

Part 2 50's Noir in the Atomic Age

4 D.O.A.: Fatality, Sexuality, Radioactivity 95

5 "Black Film" and the Bomb: Spies and "Cowboys" Red Professors and Thieves 109

The Thief: Alien Nation 110

The Atomic City: Atomic Cowboys and Un-American Indians 120

Shack Out on 101: Bikinis, Bombshells, and the (Red) Planet of the Apes 131

City of Fear: Cobalt-60 137

6 Kiss Me Deadly: The X Factor, or The "Great Whatsit" 144

Part 3 New Media and Technologies

7 Noir en couleur. Color and Widescreen 163

Black Widow: Red Herring 166

House of Bamboo: "Kimono Girl" (Red), Gaijin Gangster-Detective (Black) 173

Slightly Scarlet: Color Me Bad 179

A Kiss before Dying: Pink Is the New Black 187

8 Niagara: Colored Marilyns 196

9 The Glass Web: 3-D, TV, and the Beginning of the End of Classic Noir 212

Conclusion: The Crimson Kimono: Odds for Tomorrow 229

Notes 241

Index 273

Editorial Reviews

"Possesses the potential to alter the entire field. An unimpeachable reference book to be dipped into at need and taken in toto as a substantial, sustained, and original interpretation of its subject. Miklitsch is profoundly (and charmingly) collegial, but his scrupulous tone should not obscure the challenge to received wisdom his book poses."—Ann Douglas, author of Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s


"Miklitsch's extended mediation on 1950s noir will entertain and intrigue both film scholars and movie fans." —Journal of American Culture


"An interesting piece of work that highlights a commonly neglected period of American film noir."—Pop Culture Shelf
 

“In this recommended read, [Miklitsch] finds something fresh to say about a familiar film topic.”—Library Journal

"Highly Recommended."—Choice

"Robert Miklitsch shows once again why he is one of the most interesting and knowledgeable critics of film noir. These readings of key '50s releases sparkle with insight, wit, and the enthusiasm of the committed cinephile."—R. Barton Palmer, author of Hollywood's Dark Cinema: The American Film Noir?

From the Publisher

11/01/2016
Born out of the bleak, often violent new realities of the World War II era, what later became known as film noir was marked by hard-boiled detectives, murder, betrayal, double-crossing femmes fatales, and a hard-won knowledge that the forces for good don't always triumph. In what proved to be noir's final decade, the 1950s, the genre switched its attention to espionage, the "red menace," communism's threat to the homeland, and "nuclear angst." Analyzing some 20 films (perhaps in too much detail), Miklitsch (English, Ohio Univ.) outlines common themes, the influence of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and the House Un-American Activities Commission, and how changing tastes and new technologies such as color, wide-screen, even 3-D all brought about the end of film noir. The author demonstrates that these films featured overheated dialog, over-the-top situations, and an atmosphere of dread and paranoia, which shaped attitudes toward African Americans and led to tangled treatments on women, marriage, and sexual politics. He further covers memorable characters such as director Sam Fuller, whose sensibilities combined noir with the raw, seamier aspects of 1950s exploitation pictures, plus actors like Robert Ryan, who reflected the conflicted attitudes of the atomic age. VERDICT In this recommended read, the author finds something fresh to say about a familiar film topic.—Stephen Rees, formerly with Levittown Lib., PA

Library Journal