Film Noir Made Me Conservative

I grew up in the years after World War II. One of my earliest memories is going to the movies, a weekly ritual for my family. I was weaned on Disney films like Snow White, Dumbo, and Pinocchio (the scene where the boys turned into jackasses haunted me for years and probably did more to keep me on the straight and narrow than all the exhortations of the good Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at my school). 

By age 12–13, I was something of a movie snob. I read movie reviews in my local paper, the Evening Bulletin. “Almost Everyone in Philadelphia Reads the Bulletin” — and I certainly did. I began to recognize that certain directors almost always guaranteed a good picture: Alfred Hitchcock meant a scene or two that would scare me; John Ford made good Westerns; Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949) I thought was the greatest film ever made. I cheered watching Victor Mature as the blind Samson bringing down the temple on the evil Philistines. 

I knew not only the names of movie stars but also those of the character actors who helped make the films of those years interesting: Elisha Cook Jr., who played the sniveling weakling perfectly; Ward Bond, the bluff second gun in so many John Ford films; and Dan Duryea, the epitome of a sniveling coward who seemed to slap women around in every film he made.

I liked all kinds of films: comedies, especially anything with Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers, or Red Skelton; and war films, which, however, were disappearing in the years after the war — the public wanted to be distracted, not reminded of death and destruction. But one type of film captivated me from the beginning: film noir. I cannot explain exactly why these grim tales of betrayal fascinated me, but they have kept a special place in my life. They helped shape what intellectuals call my zeitgeist and, I believe, constitute one of the reasons I grew up a conservative. From them I learned that life was not fair, that good men could behave badly, and that you must be careful of beautiful brunettes who would lure you to your death.

I don’t have a list of the greatest film noirs, but I do know the ones I have never been able to forget and will watch whenever they show up on TV. I saw The Killers (1946) on a rerun at my local theater as part of what was advertised as a “Request Performance” by the audience. (I found out later that the movie house would run older films on Tuesday nights, the slowest of the week. No one ever requested anything. Another lesson in life as I grew up.)

The Killers is classic noir. Based loosely on Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name, with John Huston doing some uncredited writing, the film traces what happens to the protagonist, “the Swede,” played by Burt Lancaster in his first movie role, who has double-crossed a gang of thieves, driven by his love for the boss’s mistress, played by a sensuous Ava Gardner in one of her first major roles. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks as insurance agent Jim Reardon, played by Edmond O’Brien in one of his many film noir roles, discovers why the Swede was killed. 

The film made a powerful impact on me because Gardner’s character not only betrayed the Swede but also tried to lure her dying lover, played by a menacing Albert Dekker, into lying that she was innocent. One of the lessons taken away from the film was that sultry brunettes could be dangerous.

Around the same year — 1949 — when I saw The Killers, my local movie house ran Criss Cross, which to me is the personification of the film noir concept. Directed by Robert Siodmak, who also did The Killers, Criss Cross raised the concept of betrayal to new levels. Once again Burt Lancaster is the helpless victim, Steve Thompson, trapped by love for his ex-wife, Anna, played by Yvonne De Carlo — perhaps the most beautiful of film noir’s femme fatale (at least to me — she was my first crush). 

Anna’s husband, Slim Dundee, is played by Dan Duryea at his villainous, snarling best. To hide his renewed affair with Anna, Thompson agrees to rob the armored-car company at which he works. The robbery goes awry, and Dundee believes Anna and Thompson have betrayed him. He kills them in their hideaway just as police sirens wail in the background. In a way, Criss Cross is a triple cross, as all three of the protagonists wind up dead.

The Killers and Criss Cross opened my eyes for the first time to the issue of sex. At 13, my friends and I were growing up in the predominantly Catholic world of the late 1940s, and sex was not really understood. We were sexual innocents, but Criss Cross changed that for me. I understood at some level that what drove Thompson back to Anna was sexual desire. Movies suddenly took on a new meaning for me.

The last noirs that resonated with me were, in many ways, caper films, stories of robberies gone wrong and the experiences of the victims. Asphalt Jungle (1950), directed and co-written by John Huston, told of a jewel robbery disrupted when the robbers are betrayed by a shady lawyer, Alonzo Emmerich, played by Louis Calhern. There is no femme fatale, but two women play key roles in the ultimate fate of the protagonists. Marilyn Monroe, in one of her first important roles, has only a short scene as Emmerich’s mistress; the young sex kitten ultimately betrays Emmerich and — to say the least — makes the most of it. Jean Hagen has a sympathetic role as “Doll,” the dance hall girlfriend of Sterling Hayden’s Dix Handley, the “hooligan” who provides muscle for the robbery in order to raise money to buy back his family’s horse farm. Handley is wounded in the aftermath of the robbery, and Doll remains with him to the end. Her loyalty created sympathy, and I found myself hoping that somehow Handley would fulfill his dream. Once again, I recognized that life is often tragic.

The final caper film that fascinated me also starred Sterling Hayden: Stanley Kramer’s first big hit, The Killing (1956). The Killing came toward the end of the film noir era. It was filmed in black and white at a time when Hollywood, facing a critical threat from television, was making color spectaculars. The story describes yet another robbery gone wrong — only this time, a racetrack is held up.

The femme fatale in The Killing was one of the queens of B films, Marie Windsor. She made a career of playing cheap “dames” who betrayed their men and usually wound up dead. In The Killing, her character, Sherry, worms the secret of the racetrack plot out of her pathetic, besotted husband, George, played by Elisha Cook Jr. She then gives the secret to her lover, Val Cannon, played by Vince Edwards, who robs the robbers — but, in a shootout, everyone is killed but Sterling Hayden’s Johnny Clay. He tries to flee with the money, but the suitcase filled with cash breaks open in the airport, and he is arrested. At the end, everyone is dead but Hayden, who is on his way to jail.

Film noir died out in the late 1950s. The country was prosperous, Eisenhower was in the White House, and no more wars worried the nation. Film noir was able to teach me some valuable lessons: Even good people can be flawed; never be too sure of your plans because something can always go wrong; and beware of sensuous brunettes. 

John Rossi is Professor Emeritus of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

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