Post by joekiddlouischama on Jun 27, 2017 5:27:36 GMT
THE MALTESE FALCON
BTW, I've heard it tell that TMF was the first American Film noir.
Is that true?
Is Mildred Pierce a noir?
It may be; I am just curious as to what the argument might be for that classification as opposed to, say, a "women's melodrama."
The Maltese Falcon is the consensus choice for the first noir (American or otherwise, I believe; after all, the French coined the genre label as a means of describing this new breed of American film that they observed following the end of World War II). But some people disagree, especially since The Maltese Falcon emerged in 1941, before the US actually entered the war.
I have seen The Maltese Falcon about five times, the most recent being in the theater in February 2016. On that occasion, I was blown away by how relentlessly dark the film happens to be. One can see the influence of claustrophobic German horror films from the silent era such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920), updated by the crackling dialogue of then-modern detective fiction and transplanted to the seedy urban underworld of America. The film's universe is a cesspool, full of distortion and virtually demented characters—even Bogart's Sam Spade to some extent. It really is quite wild and riveting.