Aesthetically Noir

The content of the article tells me what noir is. It's moody, gloomy, and often mysterious. It is crime-infested and cloaked in shadows. It discusses elements of what makes films noir and how the films have changed over the years. Classic films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Killer Inside Me are two films that are used as an example of film noir. There are lawmen, criminals, and the women who love them. Men who  live to uphold the law and those who are willing to break it. Men who wear suits, concealing a weapon waiting to be discharged. Women who tease and flaunt their beauty in glamorous gowns.  Men and women always looking for the easy way out. A fast buck and a quick tongue that gets them out of plenty of jams with the know-how that enables them to keep coming back for more. The wise-cracking crook and the cocky gumshoe who are forever trying to outwit each other whenever there is the opportunity. The black and white background lends an air of suspense as the music crescendos that has its audience spellbound. Noir leads us into that smoke-filled room where just around the corner are unseen perils and pitfalls; a place where deals are made and broken. It often pulls us into a world so different from what we know that there lies the attraction. It can take us back to a time when deals were made in back rooms where the liquor was weak and the men weren't. When the money came as easy as the women. Noir gives us that piece of mystery that lives within us all and rarely gets a chance to shine.

Dick Tracy You Ain't

Keyes seems to have taken the roll of detective. He senses something isn't right with the way Mr. Nirdlinger died. Norton doesn't want to do anything that may rock the boat of the company, so he just wants to let it play out. Though the case looks like suicide, Keyes is suspicious about the details (57). He describes the various ways for someone to commit suicide, and jumping from a slow moving train isn't one of them (59-60). He has no evidence as to who did it, but he knows this doesn't smell right. Does Keyes have the spider senses that detectives seem to have that has his cockles up? He suspects murder. He also suspects that the wife is the one who did it (60). He also doesn't believe she did it by herself. Norton doesn't want to do anything that may defame the company by bringing false accusations against Phyllis (61-62), but Keyes knows something is going on. He wants to put the heat on her, so that when she cracks he will be there to take her down. He has the uncanny ability to be able to describe the possibilities of the crime. The details of the case just don't add up for Keyes. He isn't comfortable with coincidences. He describes the mechanisms of what appear to be the perfect crime to Walter that has him sweating (66-67). How does Keyes know the exact way the crime went down? Do we suppose that he also has used this scenario in his mind for creating the perfect murder? He'll let this one play out for the meantime while the ducks set themselves up for the big blow-up.

One Toke Over the Line

In the handout "Notes on film noir", Borde and Chaumeton, mentions that; “It is the presence of crime which gives film noir its most constant characteristic.  “The dynamism of violent death” is how Nino Frank evoked it, and the point is well taken.  Blackmail, accusation, theft, or drug trafficking set the stage for a narrative where life and death are at stake.  Few cycles in the entire history of film have put together in seven or eight years such a mix of foul play and murder.  Sordidly or bizarrely, death always comes at the end of a tortured journey.  In every sense of the word, a noir film is a film of death.”  In Double Indemnity, Walter agrees to help our female Phyllis kill her husband (18). You see Walter has worked for the insurance company for so long and he feels that he has the knowledge to go about committing the perfect murder. He describes the best way to go about it in order to have the least amount of questions and for the quickest payoff (20)  Walter tells her that the easiest and most efficient way to do so is a railroad accident (22, 22). This way they get paid double indemnity because the insurance companies figure the least amount of accidents occur on the railroad tracks (clever way to introduce the title of the book). They go on to talk about what they are going to need to pull it off successfully. Walter goes on to dupe Mr. Nirdlinger into buying the kind of insurance that he doesn't need, but Walter and Phyllis do to get the money. Mr. Nirdlinger is none the wiser about the double-cross that is just starting to turn.