NOIR, THEN & NOW
Although film noir has its roots in the past, it is a genre that is very much alive in the present. Muller points to some recent flicks that put new twists on the format. “The film Emily the Criminal with Aubrey Plaza, last year, was like classic noir. And another recent one, I’m Your Woman with Rachel Brosnahan. That was very much in the tradition of noir, where they get in, tell the story and wrap it up in less than 90 minutes.” Decades ago, he says, the noir story in I’m Your Woman would have been about the mobster husband, and likely told in flashback—not following the wife as she makes her way in the world after he’s gone.
Muller is eager to watch as even more females take leading roles and noir continues to transition into the modern era. “I’m interested in seeing how storytellers adapt it for contemporary times,” he says. “It makes perfect sense to me that we’ll be seeing more stories with female protagonists.” It makes sense that we’ll be seeing more noir, period, he says, because film noir, and how it came to be, is “important not just because it’s cinematic history, but it’s history, period. My goal is to get people to watch the movies, to think a little bit more about what went into them, and what they mean to the culture at large.” And he hopes that audiences of all ages won’t hesitate to join him—in the dark.
Here is Muller’s classic noir must-watch list.
THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) Based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett, this story centers on a San Francisco private detective, Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), who takes on a case that involves him with a trio of criminals, a gorgeous liar and a quest for an elusive statue, the Maltese Falcon. “It’s the movie that sort of set everything in motion,” Muller says. “Bogart created the noir persona in that film. And he made the antihero, in his character of Sam Spade, hugely popular with American audiences. That opened the door for more of these films.”
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) In this film based on a novel by James M. Cain and directed by Billy Wilder, an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) and a provocative housewife (Barbara Stanwyck) conspire to murder her husband in this tense crime thriller, which was nominated for seven Oscars. “This was the movie that really kick-started the noir movement in Hollywood,” says Muller, “because it’s a great film that also featured two hugely popular stars planning on murder—which was not a common thing in Hollywood at that time.”
OUT OF THE PAST (194') A former private investigator (Robert Mitchum) escapes his troubled life to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up to him in this classic drenched in noir—a complex, fatalistic storyline, dark shadows and a classic femme fatale (Jane Greer). “It’s a very shadowy movie and it covers a lot of ground. It’s the realization of the complete noir vision, everything you want in a noir film; the ultimate noir,” says Muller. In 198', Mitchum guest-hosted Saturday Night Live and Greer appeared with him in a parody—called “Out of Gas”—of their ‘40s collaboration.
THE KILLERS (1946) Based on a story by Ernest Hemingway, Burt Lancaster made his film debut as a man murdered by hitmen, leading to a trail that connects—in flashbacks, of course—to a beautiful, deadly woman (Ava Gardner) in this film promoted on the poster as “Tense! Taut! Terrific!” Muller agrees, calling it “the story of a doomed man who didn’t run from fate,” one of the benchmarks of a noir protagonist. “And then the flashbacks—why he accepted his fate of being killed by these two assassins. A fabulous movie.” The film was so popular, cinemas in New York City stayed open around the clock to meet the demand for tickets.
CRISS CROSS (1949) Filmed in black and white around Los Angeles, this film—about an armored truck driver (Burt Lancaster) conspiring with his ex-wife (Yvonne de Carlo) to have his own truck robbed on a route—was later remade in 1995 and titled The Underneath. But Muller extolls the original. “It’s by the same director of The Killers and it’s very, very similar,” he says. “But in some ways, I think it even perfected what The Killers set out to do.” It marked the film debut of Tony Curtis, who plays an uncredited extra in a scene.
SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) “It’s not commonly thought of as noir,” says Muller, “but it is pretty noir, and it’s fabulous.” Set in the era of silent films, Sunset Boulevard—named after the street that runs through the heart of Hollywood—has dark lighting, a murder that unfolds in flashbacks, a classic femme fatale (Gloria Swanson) and a cynical view of the world as greedy and opportunistic. It was nominated for 11 Oscars, and Swanson went down in cinematic history for her indelible performance as Norma Desmond, a delusional former screen star dreaming of making a triumphant comeback. “I’m ready for my close-up!” Norma exclaims as she stalks toward a camera at the end. Swanson’s character was based on several real-life starlets from Hollywood’s past, including silent film actresses Clara Bow and Mary Pickford.
KISS ME DEADLY (1955) Cloris Leachman made her film-acting debut in this crime drama as a doomed hitchhiker who pulls detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) into a deadly web of intrigue revolving around a mysterious box. “It’s the perfect Cold-War, Atomic-Age noir,” says Muller. “In the book by Mickey Spillane, the ‘Macguffin’ (a plot object that drives a movie and its characters forward—while being relatively unimportant itself)—the box—was drugs. But in the movie, it’s plutonium, being used to create a bomb. So, it would make a good double bill with Oppenheimer.” Leachman would go on to win an Oscar in 1972 for The Last Picture Show.
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) Orson Welles (of The War of the Worlds and Citizen Kane fame) both directed and starred in this highly atmospheric tale of murder, kidnapping and corruption in a Mexican border town. “Welles created much of the cinematic grammar that became familiar in film noir,” says Muller. “He did it in Citizen Kane, which isn’t film noir, but it feels like film noir. And in Touch of Evil (with Janet Leigh), he’s applying all that cinematic genius to a totally film noir story.” It was filmed on location in Venice, Calif., standing in for Tijuana.
6. MURDER IN THREE ACTS (1986) Let’s all go to Mexico! This Acapulcoset, made-for-TV movie (from a story originally titled Three Act Tragedy) again starred Peter Ustinov as the clue-sniffing Poirot, and Tony Curtis as a famous American actor at a shmaltzy dinner party where murder is on the menu.
7. CROOKED HOUSE (2017) Based on a novel from 1949 (and reportedly one of Christie’s alltime favorites of her works), this juicy potboiler starred Glenn Close, Terence Stamp and Gillian Anderson in a tale of dark family secrets and a private investigator looking into the murder in the family of his former lover. Downton Abbey’s creator, Julian Fellowes, contributed to the screenplay.
8. EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982) When a millionaire somehow winds up with a phony diamond, Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov again) is plunged into an exquisite, exclusive island resort for the rich and famous— and a murder in which everyone has an alibi. It’s not as star-packed as some other Christie movie adaptations, but hey, Ustinov designed his own swimsuit for the beach-y scenes!
9. MURDER, SHE SAID (1961) Based on the 1957 novel 4.50 From Paddington, this mystery had a touch of comedy as detective Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) witnesses a killing through the window of a train—but authorities dismiss her as a dotty old biddy when no trace of the crime can be found. Christie once said she wasn’t terribly impressed with the movie, but it spawned three film sequels (Murder at the Gallop, Murder Most Foul and Murder Ahoy!), and the author dedicated a later book, The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side, to Rutherford, a renowned British actress of stage and screen.
10. THE PASSING OF MR. QUIN (1928)
This is the first movie made from anything Christie wrote, in this case a short story later released in a 1930 collection called The Mysterious Mr. Quin. In it a doctor (Stewart Rome, a British actor who would go on to appear in some 150 movies and TV shows) tries to prove that his wife’s first husband was killed by a neighbor.