Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Women in Film Noir

80 b&w photos Women in Film Noir is one of the classic course texts of film studies, a groundbreaking attempt to chart the ways in which meanings and fantasies are produced in film noir through representations of the femme fatal and other female roles. First published in 1978, Women in Film Noir assembled a group of scholars and critics committed to understanding the cinema in terms of gender, sexuality,... (more)

Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959

Film Noir Guide: 745 Films of the Classic Era, 1940-1959

by Michael F. Keaney

The term "film noir" was first applied by French critics to a number of American films that made their way to France over a period of six weeks at the end of World War II. These films, such as "The Maltese Falcon", "Murder, My Sweet", "This Gun for Hire" and "The Big Sleep", fascinated French moviegoers with their new breed of criminals - love-starved husbands and wives, local business owners, writers, gamblers,... (more)

Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust and Murder Hollywood Style

Early Film Noir: Greed, Lust and Murder Hollywood Style

by William Hare

The name is French and it has connections to German expressionist cinema, but film noir was inspired by the American Raymond Chandler, whose prose was marked by the gripping realism of seedy hotels, dimly lit bars, main streets, country clubs, mansions, cul-de-sac apartments, corporate boardrooms, and flop houses of America. Chandler and the other writers and directors, including James M. Cain, Dashiell... (more)

GREAT CINEMA DETECTIVES: Best Movies of Mystery, Suspense & Film Noir

GREAT CINEMA DETECTIVES: Best Movies of Mystery, Suspense & Film Noir

by John, Howard Reid

Film Noir: Films of Trust and Betrayal (The Pocket Essential)

Film Noir: Films of Trust and Betrayal (The Pocket Essential)

by Paul Duncan

The laconic private eye . . . the corrupt cop . . . the heist that goes wrong . . . the femme fatale with the rich husband and dim lover—all are trademark characters of the movement known as film noir, that elusive mixture of stark lighting and even starker emotions. "Noir" explores the dark side of post-war society—gangsters, hoodlums, prostitutes, and killers—and shows how it corrupted the good and the... (more)

Film NoirElizabeth M. Ward

Film Noir

by Alain Silver

Film Noir

by Alain Silver

A reference guide for late-night film enthusiasts, this book provides details of over 300 American films of the genre. Each entry includes the credits of cast and crew, storylines and a critical discussion of the film in the context of cinema history. The fully illustrated text includes a chronology and lists of famous directors, producers and actors such as Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Joan Crawford and Bette... (more)

The Noir Style

by Alain Silver

The first illustrated book to capture the inimitable look and style of film noir In The Noir Style , Alain Silver and James Ursini return to the subject for which they are famous, analyzing the look of film noir from the classic period ( The Maltese Falcon in 1941 through Touch of Evil in 1958) through to the present day. Replete with sinister and scintillating black and white photos--both interior design... (more)

Blacksad, tome 1 : Quelque part entre les ombres

Blacksad, tome 1 : Quelque part entre les ombres

by Juan Diaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido

The Dark Knight Strikes Again

by Frank Miller, Todd Klein

The Dark Knight Strikes Again is Frank Miller's follow-up to his hugely successful Batman: the Dark Knight Returns, one of the few comics that is widely recognized as not only reinventing the genre but also bringing it to a wider audience.Set three years after the events of The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again follows a similar structure: once again, Batman hauls himself out of his self-imposed... (more)

The Rip-Off

by Jim Thompson

Thompson throws readers a curve in these two titles. Written in his signature tough-guy style, The Kill-Off (1957) is about a murder before it actually happens as protagonist Luane Devore is waiting to be knocked off by any number of likely assassins from among her friends and relatives. Published posthumously in 1985, The Rip-Off has a comedic tilt as Britt Rainstar's life is turned upside down after meeting the... (more)

Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir

Street with No Name: A History of the Classic American Film Noir

by Andrew Dickos

Flourishing in the United States during the 1940s and 50s, the bleak, violent genre of filmmaking known as film noir reflected the attitudes of writers and auteur directors influenced by the events of the turbulent mid-twentieth century. Films such as Force of Evil, Night and the City, Double Indemnity, Laura, The Big Heat, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly and, more recently, Chinatown and The Grifters are indelibly... (more)

Film Noir Reader 3: Interviews with Filmmakers of the Classic Noir Period (Film Noir Reader)

Film Noir Reader 3: Interviews with Filmmakers of the Classic Noir Period (Film Noir Reader)

by Alain Silver, James Ursini, Robert Porfirio

Departing from the approach of its Film Noir Reader predecessors, this third volume in the series assembles a collection of interviews with film noir directors and a cinematographer, few of whom are alive today. Interviewees include Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard), Otto Preminger (Laura), Joseph Lewis (Gun Crazy and The Big Combo), Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed and A Stolen Life), Edward Dmytryk... (more)

A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953)

A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953)

by Raymond Borde

When it appeared in France in 1955, A Panorama of American Film Noir was the first book ever on the genre. Now this classic is at last available in English translation. This clairvoyant study of Hollywood film noir is "a ‘benchmark’ for all later work on the topic" (James Naremore). A Panorama of American Film Noir addresses the essential amorality of its subject from a decidedly Surrealist angle, focusing on... (more)

The Philosophy of Film Noir

by Mark T. Conard

From The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958), the classic film noir is easily recognizable for its unusual lighting, sinister plots, and feeling of paranoia. For critics and fans alike, these films defined an era. The Philosophy of Film Noir explores philosophical themes and ideas inherent in classic noir and neo-noir films, establishing connections to diverse thinkers ranging from Camus to the... (more)

Two For The Money

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

The Art of Arrow Cutting : A Novel of Magic-Noir Suspense

The Art of Arrow Cutting : A Novel of Magic-Noir Suspense

by Stephen Dedman

If he'd known all the trouble following her, itinerant photographer Michelangelo "Mage" Magistrale would have thought twice about helping the beautiful, distressed woman at the bus station. In return for a ticket she gives Mage what she says is the key to her apartment, but he quickly discovers that it's much more: it's a key to any door, to any place, to incredible power--and there are people who will stop at... (more)

Laura (Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp)

Laura (Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp)

by Vera Caspary

Laura Hunt was the ideal modern woman: beautiful, elegant, highly ambitious, and utterly mysterious. No man could resist her charms-not even the hardboiled NYPD detective sent to find out who turned her into a faceless corpse. As this tough cop probes the mystery of Laura's death, he becomes obsessed with her strange power. Soon he realizes he's been seduced by a dead woman-or has he? Laura won lasting renown... (more)

The Book of Film Noir

Parker: Book 18

Backflash

by Richard Stark

A large part of the pleasure of having Richard Stark back writing about the master criminal Parker is the obvious delight that Stark (a pen name forDonald Westlake) takes in doing the research for his capers. This one must have been a blast. Certainly, he must have spent time on board a cruise ship to get all the inside details for Parker's planned robbery of a fictional floating casino called the Spirit of the... (more)

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Browse Subjects: noir

Top Books

by Michael F. Keaney

by William Hare

by John, Howard Reid

by Paul Duncan

by Alain Silver

by Alain Silver

by Alain Silver

by Juan Diaz Canales, Juanjo Guarnido

by Frank Miller, Todd Klein

by Jim Thompson

by Andrew Dickos

by Alain Silver, James Ursini, Robert Porfirio

by Raymond Borde

by Mark T. Conard

Hard Case Crimes

by Max Allan Collins

by Stephen Dedman

by Vera Caspary

by Richard Stark