How did film noir — a term for🌳 crime melodramas coined by a French critic in 1945 that wasn’t widely known in the US until the 1970s — become a major marketing tool for an ever-gr꧂owing list of films from the 1940s and 1950s?
I asked legendary writer and “Czar of Noir’’ Eddie Muller, who beginning this week will host films for Turner Classic Movies’ a series of more than 100 classics and lesser-known t𓄧itles airing for 24 hours every Friday in June and July. Muller, who is also a novelist, will also appear to introduce “Gun Crazy’’ and sign copies of his new book “Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema.’’
“There are real sticklers who say the definition of film noir has bee♌n diluted beyond recognition because it’s been applied to every lousy crime movie and even some films that used to be called women’s pictures,’’ Muller says, with a laugh, from his home north of San Francisco, w♎here he founded the Noir City Film Festival 13 years ago. “But the way I look at it, anything that gets people to engage with old movies, even if they’re debating what they should be labeled, is great. Noir is just a brilliant hook for selling movies.’’
Muller’s selections for “Summer of Darkness’’ run the gamut from what he calls the “the two exemplars’’ the genre — “Double Indemnity’’ (1944) with Barbara Stanwyck as the qu🤡intessential femme fatale and “Out of the Past’’ (1947) starring genre icon Robert Mitchum as a private eye running from his past — to the little-known “Woman on the Run’’ (1950) with Ann Sheridan as a woman looking for her missing husband, making its TCM debut at 10:15 p.m. on opening night Friday.
“It’s a pretty fantastic movie,’’ Muller says. “It’s unique in the way it tells how their marriage went 💫bad.’’
Muller unearthed “Woman on the Run’’ from the vaults for a public showing for his first Noir City festival, but the only known 35mm print was destroyed in a 2008 fire at Universal Studios. After years of searching, Muller found a dupli💃cate negative🔯 at the British Institute and persuaded the UCLA Film and Television Archive to undertake a restoration.
“You have this explosion of films after World War II about heroes who are being led to their doom by a woman, or a pair of people who are doing the wrong thing — and know they’re doing the wrong thing, from the beginning,’’ Muller says. “For something that wasn’t even considered a genre at the time these films were made, noir has had the biggest influence on contemporary filmmaker𝔉s.’’
Muller says he’s “thrilled’’ that the TCM series will include a handful of neo-noirs, such as “L.A. Confidential’’ (199꧟7). The network has also to offer a free online multimedia cou🅷rse (including a talk by Muller) called “Into the Darkness: Investigating Film Noir.’’
Concurrent with the series, TCM is even selling an like period-style fedoras and kettle phones, Persol sunglasses, sterling silver cocktail sets and a mint con♐dition 1941 Lincoln Continental like the one used in “Detour’’ (1945) that goes for a whopping $50,000 (“ships within 2-3 business days,’’ the TCM Shop claims).
“Launching a noir-themed e-commerce store offers fans another opportunity to engage and interact with our Summer of Darkness programming event both on- an🏅d off-screen,” says Jennifer Dorian, the network’s general manager.
But even TCM draws the line someplace for noir fans wanting to live out their fantasies — it’s not selling꧑ guns, not even replicas.