To be or not to be?

The two stories I chose were “The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones” and “Kinship”. The first one seemed more noir than the second in the way that Cherie called Tate to come over to help her with something. She tried to get him to do something he wasn’t comfortable with thereby causing him to have to choose between right and wrong. It starts on page 295, when Cherie starts telling Tate that he will help her dispose of the man’s body. He even goes so far as to shoot at him for not wanting to help her. In this way I feel that this story has more if the noir feel. The second story, and did anyone notice that there were no quotation marks at all in the entire story? What is that all about?  I felt this story didn’t live up to noir because there wasn’t the femme fatale/protagonist play going on. This story felt like it was one brother helping another. I didn’t at all have the choosing right or wrong element to it. But was more about the family loyalty thing. No one asked Tomas for help, he took it upon himself to avenge his cousins’ son. On page 308, Tomas gets the man that beat up Manny in his truck and then takes him to where Manny is so that he could pay him back. At the end when Manny couldn’t do it Tomas does it for him

Down and Out in LA

In the Kidnapper Bell, Jim wanted sex from his girlfriend (although he was married) so he spiked her beer. He gets dragged into something he had no part of and then played detective to find the sister. In City of Commerce, the guy is a gambler. He has a streak of good luck then bad luck. There doesn't seem to be anything the same about the two stories. But looking at the two men as the protagonists of the stories it would seem that both of them weren't that successful in their endeavors. They both start out thinking they were going to have a good time then something happens that turns that around. They both end up not looking so good. Although in the first story Jim did have choices to make and he made the wrong ones, in the second there weren't any choices to be made. They seemed to be made for him. The similarities I see are that both men are just two unlucky guys.

There's a difference in the meaning

The contrasts between the novel and the film are evident in that the film is able to show the qualities that make noir what it is. The novel hinders those effects because it’s hard to show shadows lets say through words. Those who are unfamiliar to noir wouldn’t be able to understand the elements that are in noir by just reading the book. They would have to see the movie in order to get it. In the book the ending is some far fetched to me. To murder and then to have Keyes send them off on a cruise isn’t the way these things happen. The film has a more believable ending. A price must be paid when a life is taken, not a reward given. Justice was served in a more appropriate way in the film. The significance of the man on crutches is an illustration of the main idea of the film. Mr. Dietrichson is on crutches when his murder takes place with Walter presenting himself on crutches in order to show that Dietrichson was on the train when in fact he wasn’t. It’s the one clue that was used to take the switch of who is who. With the name of the film being Double Indemnity and the insurance connection, it all symbolizes the meaning of the movie.

The Best of The Two

Out of the two stories I liked The Method the best. I thought it was much more expressive with its details and it had more suspense. The character of Richard is secretive because I never truly knew who he was. There was more speculation about how he knew McKay and what their relationship was about. Was he McKay’s lover or was he the elusive Anthony. As for Holly, I see her as the out of work actress but in reality I found her to be the “take what I can get” villain. At first sight she seems to be a nice Midwest kid, but as the story unfolds she turns into someone who is out for herself. She was smart not to trust Richard with the powder by giving it to the rats. But she poisons him before his true identity is revealed. She became cold and calculating after she figures it is poison and not some sedative she was going to give to McKay. I would have liked it better had I known who Richard was. Morroco Junction 90210 was too dry for me. There was no excitement to it. I found it boring

change of blog name

hey guys, I'm really noirdarkness. There's where you'll find my blogs. Noirdarkness1957 was an old one

It's Where You Live

Both stories illustrated the difference in the locations that these stories took place. Dangerous Days took place in Leimert Park. I have no idea where that is or what type of place it is but there was definitely a different feel of the way the story was portrayed. Here we have a place that seems to be mostly lower economic based families who live on the shady side of life. The gangs and their illegal trappings and the back stabbing friends that are in it for what they can get. In Silicon Alley, it is in a more prominent area where people of wealth live. We see a man of means who isn’t all that honest, but provides nicely for his wife and children. We also see that the wife has nicely planned to do away with her husband, grab the chips and go away to be with another man. Both stories involve someone getting killed, but the demographics show the wide variety of ways in which it happens. One part is down and dirty, the other is clean and controlled. I liked Dangerous days.

Things Aren't Always Black and White

I found in the article that neo-noir has the look, style and mood of classic noir, but that it was borrowed from film noir. It emulates the new Hollywood not being able to create true noir because true noir was from a time period.. It would be difficult if not possible to reproduce classic noir. Although many neo-noirs imitate classic noir, it is mainly based on what is currently happening. It is not based around the 1940's but of something that is going on now. Classic noir was an "innocent, unconscious cinematic reaction to the popular culture of its time," but neo-noir are "self-conscious and more than cognizant of their heritage". In true noir the criminal is punished in some way as is the femme fatale, but in neo-noir both often go unpunished. Like in so many other attempts to recreate a classic, neo-noir falls dramatically short of reaching it's potential. Considering that we do not live in the era of WWII it's hard to know how those times felt and how people were. The innocence of the 1940's is gone. The elements that made noir noir don't exist in this time. Noir was based on a particular cultural moment, which included postwar disillusionment, Cold War hysteria, anxiety over womens changing role in society, and the influence of artistic movements which transformed representational systems (article).

It's the noir life

I chose the review in dvdtown by William David Lee. The reason I chose this article was that I liked the way he described the story of Double Indemnity. His quote, “If any movie could so perfectly define a genre, it would be Double Indemnity. The everyman falling under the spell of a scheming siren and plunged into a world of sex, shadows, and crime. He tells that the story stirred up controversy due to the dark and racy content,which made it difficult to adapt to due to Hays Code of censorship,which changed when Billy Wilder came along. He outlines the story by mentioning the events that seem to set up a seemingly perfect crime. For someone who hasn't read the book or seen the movie, his review would tell the story in a clear and concise way. He discusses the actors who were chosen to play the parts of Neff and Dietrichson, as the perennial nice guy, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, whom Wilder posed this challenge to,” Are you an actress or a mouse?, when she was a bit reluctant to take on the part. He mentions Edward G. Robinson as a 'pseudo-father figure' to Neff. If I had anything negative to say about the article it would be that Lee ends his review abruptly leaving the reader wondering what the rest of the story was about.