PodcastDirectory.com's listings of the Out of the Past: Investigating Film Noir Podcasts

Episode 1: Out of the Past

In this premier episode, Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards discuss Jacques Tourneur's noir masterpiece "Out of the Past." They explain why it is the first film they choose for their continuing series of podcasts delving into the history of film noir. In the course of a lively discussion of this film, Clute and Edwards argue that while "Out of the Past" is not an early noir, it is nonetheless a prototype that helps the viewer define just what is film noir. As of July 15t ...

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In this podcast, Clute and Edwards investigate Billy Wilder's 1944 noir classic "Double Indemnity." They place the film in its historic context and query its unusual success; it was nominated for seven Academy Awards in a year when feel-good films like "Going My Way" were the rule. They conclude that while Wilder's direction is a masterpiece of subtlety, the film owes its enduring legacy to two factors: the strong acting of Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson and Fred Ma ...

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Episode three of this podcast series investigates Christopher Nolan's blockbuster "Batman Begins" in relation to the visual and narrative conventions of film noir. Richard and Shannon ask what it means to dub a modern film "noir," as many reviews of "Batman Begins" have done. They discuss the complexity of Christian Bale's Batman, and how it seems to draw on sources as diverse as hard-boiled fiction and Frank Miller's graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns." Likewise, th ...

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As they discuss "The Third Man," starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten, Shannon and Richard debate whether film noir is a "style" or a "genre." As a style many of its visual features can be adapted to other genres (war films, westerns). If it is a genre such adaptations are problematic, for "noir" has recognizable themes. Richard and Shannon have a lively debate over these definitions, and the question, "is 'The Third Man' a film noir?" Their different answers lead to ...

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This episode examines the classic "The Maltese Falcon." Based on a book by Dashiell Hammett, starring Humphrey Bogart, directed by John Huston, it is generally considered the first "film noir." As Richard and Shannon examine this landmark film, they discuss film noir's debt to hard-boiled fiction, Huston's inventive camerawork as the beginning of a visual style, and Bogart's portrayal as the prototype for noir tough guys. This podcast is brought to you by Clute and Edwar ...

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Out of the past and straight into the future, Ridley Scott blends film noir and science fiction in "Blade Runner." Richard and Shannon query this unusual mix, and ask how a style that is often as outlandishly unrealistic as noir could be used to make science fiction feel more grounded and approachable. They consider why, aside from strong performances by Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Daryl Hannah, this film achieved such renown, and came to be considered the epitome of n ...

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One of the only female directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, no one could coax more from actors or tell a story with greater economy than Ida Lupino. Her 1953 gem the Hitch-Hiker hooks you with the opening still and leaves you breathless and running scared for seventy perfectly polished minutes. Lupino rubs the sheen off violence to create a quasi-documentary vision of criminality striking at random the most remote corners of society. A profoundly unsettling film, it works a ...

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Shannon and Richard argue that John Huston's directorial evolution from "The Maltese Falcon" to the prototype heist film "The Asphalt Jungle" provides a blueprint of the evolution of film noir from the early 40's to the early 50's. With "The Asphalt Jungle" noir enters an even darker phase in it's history: an ensemble of tragic criminals (all brilliantly cast) displaces the strong leading man; the certainty of contained criminality cedes to the anxiety of widespread malfeas ...

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Otto Preminger's 1944 "Laura" marks an important transition in film history. Visually it harks back to Hollywood's Golden Era, flooding with light elaborate sets and the glamorous stars they hold--but at crucial moments a noir vision bubbles up to artfully blemish this smooth facade. It is a classic love story--except that it hinges on forbidden fantasy and murder. It at once gives a coy nod to the parlor psychology of the "Thin Man" variety of mystery, and looks forward to ...

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While Robert Siodmak's noir triumph "Ernest Hemingway's 'The Killers'" flaunts its literary bloodlines, Hemingway's 1927 short story is little more than a pretext. The film actually investigates the fundamental post-WWII question: in a world where every man bears scars from the fight, how and why does he keep fighting? Siodmak's answer seems to be the very one given by Albert Camus in his famous essay "The Myth of Sisyphus." At the moment a man accepts the burden of his existence, bends to ...

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When "The Big Lebowski" was released in 1998, Ethan and Joel Coen claimed its "episodic" narrative structure found its source in the work of Raymond Chandler. In this super-sized double-feature podcast, Richard and Shannon examine "The Big Lebowski" against Howard Hawks's 1946 noir "The Big Sleep," and both films against Chandler's 1939 novel "The Big Sleep." Beyond their similar narrative structures, these works all present consummate dialogue, a panoply of memorable characters, and crim ...

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Hollywood began tearing itself apart with accusations of Communism in 1947, and in 1949 American director Jules Dassin was blacklisted. In order to pursue his craft he fled to France, where he cobbled together a small budget and a motley crew of B stars. Together they created the heist masterpiece Rififi, the tale of a ragtag international band of thieves who use inferior tools and superior know-how to pull off the job of a lifetime. They are in the clear until somebody rats and then one ...

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With "It's A Wonderful Life" Capra launched his independent studio, Liberty Films. He thought he had a guaranteed box office winner, with stars Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, and the power-to-the-people message that had made his pre-war films such successes. He was wrong. Capra never seemed to realize what a dark film he had made, nor understand that his populist message no longer resonated. This film would not acheive great success until decades later, when the divorce generation would ...

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The question of whether Hitchcock is a noir director remains open. What is certain is that by 1946 noir aesthetics began to inflect every genre from the Holiday picture ("It's a Wonderful Life") to the espionage/thriller film. Like "The Third Man," "Notorious" is best described as the latter, for its political and geographical scope exceed what is typical of noir, and justice is defined and done in unambiguous terms. Nevertheless, at crucial moments a noir camera vision is manifest. More im ...

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Every Orson Welles film demonstrates the great director's ability to work with and against filmic tradition. "The Lady from Shanghai" is a compendium of noir conventions: it tells a tale of post-war greed, of Americans willing to tear each other asunder for a dollar; it is the story of an irresistible dame and the smart guy who becomes a chump the second he lays eyes on her; it uses A-stars against type so as to bring out their blemishes and inner demons (even daring to cut and dye Hayworth ...

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This is perhaps the most noir of all neo-noirs. Never has 1990 Los Angeles looked and sounded so much like 1950 Los Angeles. While Stephen Frears sets Jim Thompson's source novel at the time the film is made, he carefully trims away modern LA. The film moves between the Bryson Apartments, the racetrack, and scenes on a train. Gone are the glitter and glitz of modern downtown and its skyscrapers. In their place are the greed and grift that have always been the motor driving the City of Angel ...

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What good is it to be a sharpshooter when there's no war on? If you want to understand the sense of impotence and angst that defined the postwar generation, "Gun Crazy" is a case study. With a deft and almost whimsical touch, Joseph Lewis sketches a country in transition--uncertain whether to gratify its thirst for heroism or its hunger for things, big things, lots of things. The film also signals a dramatic transition in filmmaking. In a giant stride, it seems to have one foot in the s ...

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As crisp and fluid as a boxer's footwork, Robert Wise's editing turns a lightweight script into the heavy-hitting drama "The Set Up." Art Cohn's screenplay is a very Hollywood adaptation of a 1928 poem by Joseph Moncure March. The poem is a shot to the gut--a powerful meditation on race that shows a black American is never in for a fair fight. The 1949 screenplay is the flyweight story of a down and out white fighter who thinks he's one punch away from glory. But Robert Wise and Robert ...

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Stanley Kubrick and Quentin Tarantino both launched their careers by updating the noir tradition. In the first episode of a two-part comparative analysis, Clute and Edwards demonstrate how Kubrick's "The Killing" (1956) and Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (1992) come more clearly into focus when each is viewed through the lens of the other. "The Killing" might be considered a masterwork on its own merits. Kubrick's careful composition of every shot demonstrates his deep sympathy for noir tr ...

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Kubrick's "The Killing" weaves the narrative threads of each character's story into the complex yarn of a heist. Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" ties references to numerous films into a dense knot. The pleasure of watching, and difficulty of discussing, Tarantino's work arises from having to pick at, and follow, seemingly infinite threads to their points of origin. Text is henceforth hypertext. As Clute and Edwards follow the many links from Tarantino back to Kubrick, they investigate what ...

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