Existentialism, Film Noir, and Hard-Boiled Fiction By Stephen Fa ...

The Maltese Falcon is considered the first film noir and is one of the great existential novels. Hammett’s 1930 book had already been filmed twice by Warner Brothers, under its own title in 1931, and as Satan Met a Lady in 1936. The latter was a relatively comic vehicle for Betty Davis. John Huston received permission to direct his first film and chose The Maltese Falcon, realizing it had been filmed twice before, because he believed the earlier versions were not faithful to the spirit of the novel. Huston felt that Hammett’s story was written in a screenplay-friendly manner, and he left the dialogue virtually intact. Huston’s selection of sets and visual style explored the darker side of Hammett’s vision without resorting to German expressionistic techniques. So the acknowledged first film noir is clearly not the product of European influence, but it is the creation of an American director determined to remain faithful to the spirit of the work of an American writer.

The film noir cycle substantially begins in 1944, with Double Indemnity.⁵ Billy Wilder directed the film that was based on the novel by the American writer, James M. Cain. Billy Wilder emigrated from Central Europe and lived in Berlin, and Double Indemnity contains several notable scenes associated with the noir visual style. Nevertheless, Wilder took issue with Robert Porfirio when, during an interview, the latter asked about the influence of his personal history and German Expressionism in the director’s work. When asked whether his noir films, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole, and The Lost Weekend were influenced by his personal history, Wilder replied, “No, I honestly cannot point my finger at any small incident, even in those pictures, which would reflect my background, and where I came from” (Wilder 104). In the specific case of Double Indemnity, “I just tried to dramatize, Raymond Chandler and I, working on that screenplay, to emphasize what Mr. Cain had in mind,” Wilder expressed (Wilder 104).

Study of film noir has quite understandably been the territory of film studies, and their scholars have tended to emphasize cinematic qualities and pay less attention to narrative sources. The failure to give sufficient credit to hard-boiled fiction leaves them with a problem.