Just Finished Reading: Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them – Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir by John T Irwin

As some of you will already know I’m a big fan of Noir both in movies and in literature, so it was nice to find a book that examined both. In this largely well written and often fascinating book the author (who is a professor of Humanities at Johns Hopkins University) compares a handful of early written works and then discusses them in relation to each other and to the movies they spawned.

As you might be able to tell one of the books/movies discussed (illustrated and quoted on the front page) is the brilliant Maltese Falcon penned by Dashell Hammett. This, along with Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, James Cain’s Double Indemnity, W R Burnett’s High Sierra and Cornell Woolrich’s Night Has a Thousand Eyes makes for a rich and detailed investigation of the history, cultural placement and raw power of Noir fiction as it burst onto the scene in the 1930’s 40’s and 50’s. I do think that some of the analysis would have gone over my head if I hadn’t read Hammett, Chandler or Cain or hadn’t seen any of the movies. So maybe some prep-work is needed to get the full use out of this text. But I suppose if you’re going to be reading this you’d be a fan already and have at least seen some of the movies listed!

Probably the thing I found most interesting in this book was the discussion of how the movie version of The Big Sleep varied from the book. This revolved around Humphey Bogart who was, at that time, getting a divorce from his then wife whilst having an affair with his co-star Lauren Bacall. To play this down and to make the film more marketable by playing up the romance between the two leads some heavy editing of the script took place – to such an extent that parts of the film clearly make little or no sense.

The main thrust of the author’s thesis regarding the Noir genre was the idea of the detective/protagonist as an independent contractor who saw everything other than his independence to be of secondary importance – which leads to the rejection of both bribes and brides. A case in point is the Sam Spade rejection of his ‘girlfriends’ idea that they cover up his partners murder because they’re in love. Spade, played by Bogart on top form, gives her up to the police – not only for his business partners murder but also because if he gave into her suggestion she would have something to hold over him for the rest of his life.

Just about the only thing I didn’t like about this book – and through which I more than happily skimmed – was a Freudian analysis of Cornell Woolrich. I mean FREUD? Please don’t make me laugh! If this had been at the beginning of the book or if the author has persisted in his ‘interpretations of the Noir author’s motives using this outdated and frankly ridiculous methodology I would have quite happily have consigned it to the unreadable pile. Fortunately he only used it in this one instance (why I wondered).

Anyway, apart from that particular wobble, this was a very interesting and often insightful study of some of the classic Noir stories that I, for one, know and love. If you’re a Noir fan (and I know that some of my regulars are) I think you’ll enjoy this – even with the Freud bit (shakes head).