Which Film Got You Hooked On Noir?

[Movie Memories]

Attending an overcrowded high school with split sessions, I did not have to be in class until 12:30 p.m., so for me it was also late night television. The choices back in the 60's, on the many channels that showed late night movies, was a luxury missing from today's television. I share the concern regarding the availability of these films today.

Both American and British noir was available back then, even though I was too young to realize just what it was that I was watching... I was hooked.

I hate when people say B&W = boring

This opinion is still a major roadblock when trying to get people, primarily young people, to go back and visit these films.

B&W films as content filler usually after 10PM, WNEW5,WOR9,WPIX11

Little did we know back then, but these channels were a treasure chest of b-movie treats.

As for the mention of Zackerley, probably the most ghoulish host ever, and the others, I would like to add Elvira - Mistress of the Dark to that list (although, a little later).

Too many titles to pick just one that really caught my eye. Bogart generated the strongest interest, but the collective appeal of the films won me over.

[Adam Lounsbery]

Keith: I have to say that there are more than one person that got hooked on noir by watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit and/or Dead Men Don't Wear Plad. I remember being fascinated by the movie clips in Plad without knowing most of the films... and Rabbit.

I totally forgot about Dead Man Don't Wear Plaid. I saw it when I was maybe 12 or 13. I didn't even know who Burt Lancaster was, so the first clip of him at the gas station from The Killers didn't even register as a clip from another film. As the movie went on, though, I got what was going on (Humphrey Bogart might have been my first clue) and I was fascinated by the world the movie was satirizing.

[David Boxwell]

GILDA, late night, Scranton-Wilkes Barre channel, 1972. George Macready the scariest thing this 16 year-old had ever seen. I wanted more.

[cigar joe]

I hate when people say B&W = boring
This opinion is still a major roadblock when trying to get people, primarily young people, to go back and visit these films.

That's why I thought the Graphic Novel mostly B&W Based film Sin City is a good way to get young people accustomed to B&W Noirs.

[Adam Lounsbery]

That's why I thought the Graphic Novel mostly B&W Based film Sin City is a good way to get young people accustomed to B&W Noirs.

Have you ever put that theory into practice?

[Davidmk]

It's on Netflix streaming! Watching tonight. Unfortunately, we never had a "host" for the Creature Double Features on Boston TV (CH 56), but I remember those movies fondly.

There is a group that get's together in norwood ma. once a year i guess & celebrates ch. 56 Creature feature , they rent out a Hotel function hall , play movies etc.




I too used to love these , I ould watch them at my sisters Godfathers house every weekend .....

Film that got me hooked on Noir was DARK PASSAGE , saw it maybe 1991 ?? on PBS out of boston , was just blown away by it , I loved the fact you did not see the Main character for the 1st 20+ minutes , it Relied on the acting/Script & not a bunch of special effects .....it was everything that modern movies were not , i had no idea it was a "style" of film til maybe 10 years later , but i was hooked , they replayed it & i taped it on a vhs , may still even have it ....


Nauga - Great story on the Pirate movie stuff going on next to your Grandmas , very cool !

[Harry Fabian]

It took quite a long time for me to get around to noir. As a young kid I watched a few monster movies such as Godzilla-types or b&w creature features such as Son of Svengoolie in Chicago. But then I kinda lost movies. I enjoyed movies, just didn't watch many. In the early 90's I started to get more interested in movies and watched a lot of modern indies and foreign films. However, the only b&w I would deign to watch was a few classic horror-Dracula, Nosferatu, Frankenstein and Night of the Living Dead. For me, Star Wars was kinda the dividing line-usually watching nothing before that. For a couple years, I didn't watch too many movies at all, but then my interested re-ignited in the late 90's. Again, mostly modern stuff.

However, I lived with my uncle for a year and he was big on classic films. He often had TCM on, but he generally could not get me interested. Then one day, while home sick (and with no cable in my bedroom), I decided to raid his VHS collection. I watched Bogart in "Maltese Falcon", "To Have and Have Not" and "Sirocco". It made a big impression on me and I started to watch some movies on TCM. It was easier to see movies starring actors with whom I was already familiar. Still, I didn't really know what noir was-he never really discussed it as a genre. At some point around this time the AFI came out with its first "Top 100" films of all time list and I thought that was a nice guide rather than taking whatever came on TCM. Even still, I was just watching the movies-not reading about them at all, so I really didn't know about noir-even though I had clearly seen some by this time.

In the early 2000's I started a Netflix subscription and at some point I see the term "noir" thrown about a bit in reviews, but still just a vague term to me-like I had heard of it, but couldn't come up with a definition. Anyhow, at some point in the mid-2000's (about 6-7 years ago) I was getting bored with Netflix and looking for new films to see. I started looking through the genre lists at IMDB and saw the top 50 film noir list. Recognizing some of the films (and knowing they were good), I decided to rent some off the top 50 I hadn't seen. "Double Indemnity" was first and it knocked me into next week-the sex appeal of Barbara Stanwyck, the lust, greed, arrogance, conspiracy. I loved it! I decided to rent the entire top 50 after that. I started to read a little more about the genre and looked for more films to see. I got myself a couple big lists to work off of and have been doing that ever since. Read Eddie's book, found this awesome forum, went to the Noir City fest in Chicago, etc.

The discovery of noir as a genre also led me to discover other genres as well-neo-noir, screwball comedies, silent comedies, dystopian films and more that I had not really noticed or paid much attention to before. It allowed me to focus my viewing rather than randomly looking for good movies to watch and really broadened my horizons as a film viewer.

So, I suppose technically "Double Indemnity" was my biggest and most direct spur to hook me, but that may never have happened had I not stayed home sick one day and watched those Bogie movies.

[cigar joe]

Have you ever put that theory into practice?

No, but there was a teacher asking about that very subject in another thread.

[Adam Lounsbery]

No, but there was a teacher asking about that very subject in another thread.

I ask mostly because everyone I know who enjoyed Sin City was a philistine for whom that film would never act as an entry into classic black & white cinema.

If you look at people's responses in this thread, there's a recurrent theme of film noir "speaking" to people. They saw one movie or another and fell in love with it. I don't think there's a way to force that on someone, or to soften someone up into liking film noir. (Or anything else one is passionate about, for that matter.)

Remember the big fracas over colorization in the '90s? The stated intent was to make black & white films more "interesting" for young people who didn't like black & white, but did that really work? Is there anyone who truly loves classic films but only watches colorized versions? Also, at the time, half of the videos on MTV were partially or totally in black & white, but that didn't stop young people from enjoying them.

Usually when people say "I hate black & white," they're saying more than that ... they're saying "I hate anything made before I was born" or "I hate anything more than 10 years old."

Using Sin City as an entry point to film noir seems like pandering to me. And ultimately ineffective, since it bears very little resemblance to classic film noir beyond its black & white cinematography.

A better film to introduce young people to classic film noir might be The Man Who Wasn't There, but even that seems like pandering. The original films speak for themselves.

[dax]

Living in Canada it was our public broadcaster the CBC that ran a series of classic old black and white films in the summer months of the early 70's I believe, that got me interested in noir. It had a host who gave a little history of the film and gave the impression that these films were important and you should be watching them. As I remember them some of these films were the classic Bogart movies as well as Robinson and Cagney early gangster pictures.

[Nauga]

Usually when people say "I hate black & white," they're saying more than that ... they're saying "I hate anything made before I was born" or "I hate anything more than 10 years old."

"I hate the old clothes, the way people spoke back then, the slow, giant cars, the incessant talking, the lack of explosions, the lack of nudity, the dearth of gunplay, and the fact that I have to figure out the plot myself instead of being spoon-fed vast quantities of exposition via clunky dialogue."

I think that about covers it.

[noirton mcgraw]

very good nauga, thats todays mentality(for the most part, not all i'm sure).. but thats just the way it is, like many who have responded on this who are past 50, we were watching b&w noir and other movies during the 60,70,80's while others our age would never, could not appreciate it, and i'm sure it's that way today also.

[Movie Memories]

"I hate the old clothes, the way people spoke back then, the slow, giant cars, the incessant talking, the lack of explosions, the lack of nudity, the dearth of gunplay, and the fact that I have to figure out the plot myself instead of being spoon-fed vast quantities of exposition via clunky dialogue."

I think that about covers it.

If I may add one more - "I hate that many of the characters are so old. (over 30?)"

[Johnny O'Clock]

Oddly - it was Blade Runner for me!

[cigar joe]

I ask mostly because everyone I know who enjoyed Sin City was a philistine for whom that film would never act as an entry into classic black & white cinema.

If you look at people's responses in this thread, there's a recurrent theme of film noir "speaking" to people. They saw one movie or another and fell in love with it. I don't think there's a way to force that on someone, or to soften someone up into liking film noir. (Or anything else one is passionate about, for that matter.)

Remember the big fracas over colorization in the '90s? The stated intent was to make black & white films more "interesting" for young people who didn't like black & white, but did that really work? Is there anyone who truly loves classic films but only watches colorized versions? Also, at the time, half of the videos on MTV were partially or totally in black & white, but that didn't stop young people from enjoying them.

Usually when people say "I hate black & white," they're saying more than that ... they're saying "I hate anything made before I was born" or "I hate anything more than 10 years old."

Using Sin City as an entry point to film noir seems like pandering to me. And ultimately ineffective, since it bears very little resemblance to classic film noir beyond its black & white cinematography.

A better film to introduce young people to classic film noir might be The Man Who Wasn't There, but even that seems like pandering. The original films speak for themselves.

You sound overly contentious about Sin City for some reason, I like Classic Film Noir and I like Sin City, I think its Graphic Novel style can be an effective way to introduce say a series of films based on PI Mike Hammer in a recreation of the 50's (IMO other than "Kiss Me Deadly" none of the Mickey Spillane based films got both the character and the time period right, and Kiss Me Deadly moved the action to Southern California, not quite Hammer's natural milieu ), And I think Sin City does have a bit more than just B&W cinematography, in my opinion, its got that "hard boiled pulp fiction" zietgiest. Its just enough irreverent, outrageous and iconoclastic to appeal to a new generation.

BTY just today I answered an inquiry on Sin City's IMDb page for films like Sin City with a list of Classic Noirs

[Nighthawk]

Let's not rip on the youngsters too much. I'm in my 20's, and I've liked film noir for a while. I know I'm not the rule (more of an exception, really), but I have friends my age who like noir as well. I think it's not so much that younger people (in this case, folks in their twenties) don't like noir, it's just that no one has ever exposed them to it. Media conglomerates aren't exactly banging down the doors of today's younger generation with the marketing of noir titles--they'd rather sell them the latest thing, so unless someone recommends the films to them on a personal level (in a relationship setting or a classroom seem to be the most likely two scenarios), or they stumble into them by chance, they're not even going to know they exist.

[waltermcwilliams]

It wasn't so much A Film for me as it was an actor - Bogey of course. I can remember watching with my grandmother on WICU out of Erie, PA and KDKA out of Pittsburgh, PA. I would stay up late for any Bogart flick especially Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. I also have to through credit to all the great looking dames in Noir film, especially Veronica Lake. Our high school library had a book on great film starletts and all the ones I like the most seemed to be in Noir films.

[Adam Lounsbery]

You sound overly contentious about Sin City for some reason

I honestly like most movies. Even with bad movies, I generally find something to like (or laugh at). There are a small handful of movies, however, that inspired such a passionate hatred in me for a confluence of reasons that I hate them with a fiery passion. (Sin City is one, the remake of 3:10 to Yuma is another.)

I'll shut up about it now, and we can just agree to disagree.

[Steve-O]

There is a group that get's together in norwood ma. once a year i guess & celebrates ch. 56 Creature feature , they rent out a Hotel function hall , play movies etc.

I grew up in Norwood, btw. I love that first video from Creature Double Feature. I have that burned into my memory. The show wasn't all Godzilla and Japanese monsters. There were a fair share of cheapy 50s B&W horror too. Thanks for posting it.

[Nauga]

Let's not rip on the youngsters too much. I'm in my 20's, and I've liked film noir for a while. I know I'm not the rule (more of an exception, really), but I have friends my age who like noir as well. I think it's not so much that younger people (in this case, folks in their twenties) don't like noir, it's just that no one has ever exposed them to it. Media conglomerates aren't exactly banging down the doors of today's younger generation with the marketing of noir titles--they'd rather sell them the latest thing, so unless someone recommends the films to them on a personal level (in a relationship setting or a classroom seem to be the most likely two scenarios), or they stumble into them by chance, they're not even going to know they exist.

Nah, didn't mean to bang on the kids. I'm young...ish. Actually, I think I was making fun more of mass consumption film than anything. I was always the exception to the rule... still am.