BECOMING FILM NOIR Film Noir Adaptations of Hard-Boiled Fiction
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BECOMING FILM NOIR Film noir adaptations of hard-boiled fiction, 1944-46 Matthew Jones, BA (Hons) Supervised by: Dr William Marx, Dr Susan Drake Submitted in fulfilment for the award of the degree of PhD University of Wales Trinity Saint David 2017 i ii Abstract This thesis interrogates a number of issues that surround what critics have designated ‘film noir’ and its relationship to that branch of modern American literature identified as ‘hard- boiled fiction’. Thus, the main subject matter for the thesis consists of selected films noirs from 1944—46, and the novels of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler. The thesis argues that the adaptation process is of central significance to the ‘film noir’ debate and to film noir itself. While it argues for a dialogic exchange between ‘noir’ and ‘hard-boiled fiction’, it proposes as well that there was also a fundamental incompatibility between the two modes. The thesis discusses the difficulties encountered by Hollywood studios in adapting Cain’s work due to the candid representation of ‘adult’ themes, and how this conflicted with Hollywood censorship, carried out by the Production Code Administration (PCA). In order for Cain’s fiction to be adapted, it is argued, Hollywood conventions regarding the representation of sex and violence and the PCA guidelines by which they were governed had to undergo radical change. The critical and scholarly contexts for this argument include debates concerning influence, censorship, and the involvement of the PCA with the adaptation process, and the notion, as maintained by elements within the revisionist debate, that ‘film noir’ has no conceptual or theoretical basis. The thesis challenges revisionist arguments that ‘noir’ was ‘invented’ by French critics in 1946, and argues that although the genre was named retrospectively, generic practice was established by Hollywood producers in acts of ‘applied criticism’ prior to production, from around 1944 onwards. The thesis contextualises the generic practice of ‘noir’ within the history of film, while arguing simultaneously for historic changes in Hollywood film-making of the mid-1940s in terms of the representation of ‘adult’ themes, and the relaxation of the Production Code. The thesis discusses how criticism has tended to privilege other media, such as the plastic arts and literature, over film, and argues that notions of artistic style and influence must give consideration to the immanence of the film production context. The notion that ‘noir’ was influenced by the artistic movement known as ‘German Expressionism’ has been questioned by the revisionist debate. The thesis examines and discusses key German films of the Weimar period, when the artistic movement ‘Expressionism’ flourished, arguing that iii the Weimar influence is discernible in the generic practice of ‘noir’. However, the thesis makes a case that this is, primarily, the legacy of Weimar cinema, and that the influence of ‘Expressionism’ should be discussed within this medium-specific context. The thesis examines the connections between the work of a number of influential directors and the signifying practice of ‘noir’, including Murnau, Lang, Hitchcock and Hawks. It is proposed that certain ‘noir’ conventions can be traced back to the work of these influential directors. The thesis proposes a way of understanding ‘film noir’ as a genre, and argues that the adaptation process needs to be seen as a nexus for various discourses, including directorial style, screenwriting, cinematography, the studio system, and censorship, in addition to the relationship between the film and the novelistic text. iv DECLARATION SHEET This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed ...................................................................... (student) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 1 This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated. Where correction services have been used the extent and nature of the correction is clearly marked in a footnote(s). Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A bibliography is appended. Signed ..................................................................... (student) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 2 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to outside organisations. Signed ..................................................................... (student) Date ........................................................................ STATEMENT 3 I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for deposit in the University’s digital repository. Signed ..................................................................... (student) Date ........................................................................ v vi Contents Introduction 1 Becoming film noir 2 The ‘hard-boiled’ mode 30 1 Weimar cinema, German Expressionism, and film noir 45 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920) 51 The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924) 70 Sunrise: a Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927) 73 2 ‘Dead man walking’: adapting Double Indemnity 80 Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) 85 Scarface (Hawks, 1932) 113 3 ‘The price of fornication’: adapting The Postman Always Rings Twice 126 The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946) 132 Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) 154 4 The advent of noir style: ‘Portraits and Doubles’ and the ‘femme fatale’ 166 The Woman in the Window (Lang, 1944) 171 Scarlet Street (Lang, 1945) 176 Alfred Hitchcock: The Lodger (1927); Rebecca (1940) 183 Gilda (Vidor, 1946) 192 Robert Siodmak: The Spiral Staircase (1946); The Killers (1946) 196 Phantom Lady (Siodmak, 1944) 202 The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946) 214 Conclusion 232 Bibliography 249 vii viii Introduction 1 Becoming film noir The primary focus of this study is the relationship between film noir and the ‘hard-boiled’ mode of crime fiction, in particular, the work of Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler. A number of acclaimed films noirs are adapted from hard-boiled texts, including several of the films analysed in detail here, namely Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett, 1946), both based on novels by Cain, and The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946), based on the novel by Chandler. The thesis argues that, in the main, the relationship between films and books is seen to involve a form of dialogic exchange. As Frank Krutnik notes ‘Hollywood genres are not self-contained, for they are influenced by, and themselves influence, other modes of popular culture’.1 This exchange accounts for certain shared elements, such as character types and narrative conventions. The thesis examines various aspects of this dialogic relationship. For example, Chapter Two analyses and discusses Double Indemnity, Paramount’s groundbreaking 1944 adaptation of Cain’s 1936 novel. The studios had aspired to adapt the novel’s ‘adult’ themes of sex and violence since the mid-1930s but the Motion Picture Production Code (or ‘the Code’) prevented them from so doing, that is, until Paramount produced a screenplay which satisfied the censors, the Production Code Administration (PCA). However, the screenplay was co-written by director Billy Wilder and Cain’s fellow novelist, Raymond Chandler. Chandler is seen to make a significant contribution to the adaptation, both in terms of the use of innuendo which enabled Paramount to circumvent and effectively manipulate ‘the Code’, and by helping to create a ‘moral centre’ for the film, lacking in the novel, in the character of Barton Keyes. If the studios had wanted to adapt Cain’s work for over a decade then it was another hard-boiled novelist, Chandler, who helped them to do it. Chapter Three, on the other hand, examines The Postman Always Rings Twice, MGM’s 1946 adaptation of Cain’s 1934 novel, to determine the way in which the film applies and consolidates generic practice established in earlier noirs such as Double Indemnity. The Chapter also includes an analysis of the intertextual relationship between novel and film in order to identify, and provide reasons for, the modifications made to the source text by the MGM production team, thereby focusing upon the specifics of the adaptation process. 1 F. Krutnik, In a Lonely Street: Film Noir, Genre, Masculinity (London: Routledge, 1996), p.33. 2 A problem arises, however, from the basic premise of the thesis. Before one can discuss the relationship between noir and its hard-boiled literary sources, one must first recognise that defining film noir as a Hollywood genre has long been a problematic undertaking. Étienne Borde and Raymond Chaumeton, the authors of Panorama du film noir Américain (1955), the first, book-length study on the subject, commented ‘The existence over the last few years of a “série noir” in Hollywood is obvious. Defining its essential traits is another matter’.2 James Naremore begins his comprehensive study of the genre, More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts (1998), by proposing that ‘[i]t has always been easier to recognize a film noir than to define the term’.3 In attempting to provide a synopsis, both of the films themselves and the critical response to them, Naremore also observes that ‘no writer has been able to find the category’s necessary