Film Studies PPTFilms of the 1940s and the genre of film noir

• Films during this time were often dramatic, melodramatic, or considered a film noir. Other genres like the musical and comedies were around still too.

• WWII influenced what was made in Hollywood since it was a dark time in the US and films reflected it.

• Stars like Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, Abbott and Costello, Katherine Hepburn, Judy Garland, and many others.

• And films like: Bambi, Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Citizen Kane and many others.

Films of the 1940sGenres and stars

• Crime dramas or others with a dark/cynical mood

• 1940s to 1950s• Influenced by German

expressionist cinematography by using low-key black and white visual style (very dark hence noir)

• The term, by the way, was not accepted until the 1970s

• Usually melodramatic in acting but also can have melodramatic elements like music, recognition, and in other story elements.

• Often features stereotypical characters like the femme fatale (a mysterious and seductive woman), or the private eye (or investigator)

• Often, but not always, takes place in a city

Film NoirCharacteristics

The Big Sleep (1946) with Humphrey Bogarthttp://cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=LF_chuSy9G4

The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogarthttp://cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=Yiq5Fkr3yX8

Classic Film Noirs

Casablanca (1942) Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogarthttp://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=pa-dGYjSq5k

Double Indemnity (1944) Barbara Stanwyckhttp://cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=ZKdcYnlkhx8

Film Noirs cont’d

The Third Man (1949) with Orson Welleshttp://cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=UADNSWq5kOY

Sunset Boulevard (1950) with William Holdenhttp://cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=jMTT0LW0M_Y

Film noirs cont’d

Mildred Pierce (1945)• Directed by Michael Curtiz•  Film Noir about a long-

suffering mother and her ungrateful daughter

• Joan Crawford (the main character who plays the mother) won an academy award for best actress.

• Tells the story in the third-person in chronological order with voice-over narration from the main character’s perspective.

• This is also a crime drama.