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Post-War America, the Hollywood Left and the Problem with Film Noir

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Post-War America, the Hollywood Left and the Problem with Film Noir Re-examining the Maladjusted Text: Post-war America, the Hollywood Left and the Problem with Film Noir Robert John Manning PhD Thesis University of East Anglia School of Film, Television and Media Studies October 2015 “This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution.” Re-examining the Maladjusted Text: Post-war America, the Hollywood Left and the Problem with Film Noir Film noir is a term created after fact and applied back to films from a previous period and studies have often conflated very different films and privileged some facets over others in an endeavour to structure a definition. Some scholars have identified that a relatively small group of films came to be seen by the Hollywood Left as highly significant; and that their discussions of these films were the products of deeper anxieties faced by this group in the immediate post-war period. Subsequent conclusions were made that the Hollywood Left was opposed to this generalised categorisation similar to contemporary understandings of film noir. The thesis examines those films now considered as film noir in their original contexts. Studying the reception of films generally considered to be representative of contemporary understandings of film noir, such as Boomerang (Elia Kazan, 1947) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) and Crossfire (Edward Dmytryk, 1947) shows how they were parts of very different cycles at the time and not seen critically as a homogeneous group. The thesis also examines the work of key filmmakers who were making films with pertinent social messages, before concluding with an examination of an incredibly divisive political film, The Iron Curtain (William A. Wellman, 1948). This study investigates the debates of the post-war period relating to the films currently seen as film noir to highlight the distinctions between the films and how their positionings were understood. Analysing key writings from journals, the trade press and newspapers, this research shows how and why specific films caused concern for certain leftist personnel and how particular genres of films are seen now as similar to one another, yet were once understood as starkly opposed. R.J. Manning Contents 1. Acknowledgements 2 2. Introduction 3 Part One 3. Chapter One Murder From Without: The Semi-Documentaries 1945-48 56 4. Chapter Two Muscular Stupidity: The Tough Guys 1946-47 81 5. Chapter Three Blackness is Everywhere: The Prestige Male Melodramas 1946-7 113 Part Two 6. Chapter Four Neither Fish Nor Fowl: Abraham Polonsky and Robert Rossen 1946-48 149 7. Chapter Five Sinister Mirrors: Henry Hathaway’s Thrillers 1946-48 173 8. Chapter Six Poisonous Propaganda: The Iron Curtain 1948 196 9. Conclusion 217 10. Bibliography 235 11. Filmography 252 R.J. Manning Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge that I would have been unable to produce this piece of work in this format without the support of several individuals. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisory team of Prof. Mark Jancovich and Dr. Eylem Atakav; both have been a huge support in terms of providing suggestions and morale. Mark has been an invaluable source of information and both his and Eylem’s feedback has been a substantial help. I am particularly grateful to the following people who I would like to express my sincerest thanks: Alireza Shafiee, for being more than a friend and ensuring that isolation was kept at bay; Despoina Mantziari, for her feedback and support; and my brother and sister-in-law, Mark Manning and Christine Manning, for their unwavering support and encouragement. The list of people who have been supportive throughout my studies is endless, but there are a few people who deserve a special mention and thanks: Ahmed Al-Kinani, Daniel Dicker, Michael Fenton, Sarah Harvey, Simon Robertson, Sally Turner and Mike Tyrrell. This thesis is dedicated to my mother, Dawn Manning (1949-2002), who instigated my love of film. R. J. Manning 2 Introduction “For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth”1 Arthur O’Shaunessy Film Noir: Definitions and Problems A cursory glance through a recent edition of the British film magazine Sight and Sound shows how film noir has impacted the film glossary: James Bell writes that Ju Dou (Zhang Yimou, 1990) “owes more to the guilt-laden, noir-ish fatalism of James M. Cain.”2; in her review of Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges, 1941), Kate Stables writes of certain parts of the film that “are the distinctly noir-ish work of cinematographer John F. Seitz”3; Michael Atkinson writes in his review of Cry Danger (Robert Parrish, 1951) that it is “A mean-tempered yet emotionally suppressed number from the seemingly inexhaustible noir storehouse”4; Kim Newman, in his review of The Incident (Larry Peerce, 1967), states that the film “opens with noir-ish black-and-white intensity”5; and Nick Pinkerton writes in his review of the book Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, of Ulmer’s “film noir trilogy of Detour [1945], Ruthless [1948] and Murder Is My Beat [1955]”6. Taking their overused term noir-ish to mean that something is like film noir, it is difficult to instantly see the connection between a 1990 Chinese drama film, a 1941 American comedy adventure film, a 1 ‘Music and Moonlight’, 1874, Arthur O’Shaunessy (1844-1881) 2 Bell, James, in Berry, Michael ‘Deep Focus: The Fifth Generation’, Sight and Sound, Vol.24, Issue 8, August 2014, p.50. 3 Stables, Kate, ‘Home Cinema: Travelling Light’, Sight and Sound, Vol.24, Issue 8, August 2014, p.95. 4 Atkinson, Michael, ‘New Release: Cry Danger’, Sight and Sound, Vol.24, Issue 8, August 2014, p.96. 5 Newman, Kim, ‘Rediscovery: Hell On The El’, Sight and Sound, Vol.24, Issue 8, August 2014, p, 98. 6 Pinkerton, Nick ‘A Life In The Shadows’, Sight and Sound, Vol.24, Issue 8, August 2014, p.104. Pinkerton reviews: Isenberg, Noah, Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins, University of California Press, Ltd.: London, 2014. R.J.Manning 3 1967 American crime film and the four other films they mention. However, it does show that the term film noir has entered the vocabulary, conjuring a meaning without needing further explanation. For such an overly used term it is interesting that so many film academics have attempted a definition, which always results in being subjective and unstable. However, the problematic nature of a definition has not hindered copious studies about the general topic of film noir, such as Andrew Spicer’s Historical Dictionary of Film Noir7 which also extensively covers the modern neo-noir; William Park’s What is Film Noir?8 In which Park asserts that film noir is a genre; Foster Hirsch’s The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir9 which particularly concentrates on the styles and themes of film noir; and Michael F. Keaney’s Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-195910 in which Keaney seeks to exhaustively list all of the films that can be considered film noir. Alongside such books, there are also plenty of studies specialising in particular aspects of film noir and widening the scope of the topic, for example, studies of women in film noir, particularly the femme fatale has been covered by Helen Hanson in Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film11 and Women in Film Noir by E. Ann Kaplan.12 Also covered are topics such as The Philosophy of Film Noir13 by Mark T. Conrad; Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity14 by Edward Dimendberg; and European Film Noir15 by Andrew Spicer. In short, film noir studies has been extensively covered, with scholars adding valuable understandings to the films they perceive as noir. 7 Spicer, Andrew, Historical Dictionary of Film Noir, Scarecrow Press Inc.: Plymouth, 2010. 8 Park, William, What is Film Noir?, Bucknell University Press: Plymouth, 2011. See Chapter 2: pp.19- 30 where Park justifies his stance of film noir being a genre. 9 Hirsch, Foster, The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, Da Capo Press: Philadelphia, 1981 10 Keaney, Michael F., Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959, McFarland & Company, Inc.: North Carolina, 2003. 11 Hanson, Helen, Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film, I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd: London, 2007. 12 Kaplan, E. Ann, Women in Film Noir, BFI Publishing: London, 1998. 13 Conrad, Mark T., The Philosophy of Film Noir, The University Press of Kentucky: Kentucky, 2006. 14 Dimendberg, Edward, Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity, Harvard University Press: USA, 2004. 15 Spicer, Andrew, European Film Noir, Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2007. R.J.Manning 4 Whilst the definition may be a subjective one applied to any type of film nowadays, the films this descriptor is mainly retrospectively applied to were mostly cited as melodramas or thrillers at the time of production; but that is not to say that darker themes had not gone entirely unnoticed at the time. American films had been banned during the war in France and during the post-war period numerous American films were shown in quick succession. Seeing the output in a short space of time, French critic Nino Frank noticed that the tone and lighting of certain films was darker than pre-war films and that the characters were becoming more fatalistic. Frank labelled these films “noir”16.
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