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American noir begins with the hard-boiled crime fiction of writers like Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, Raymond Chandler, and Cornell Woolrich. These stories and novels were part of what could be called a literary underworld, and first appeared in pulp magazines and inexpensive paperback books. They were called hard-boiled because of their tough and sordid realism and the concise and forthright narrative style that matched the manner of the characters. The outsiders and loners in these stories were the disinherited working-class white men of the 1930s, whose protective (hard-boiled) shell was a defense against a callous world.
Hammett’s best known novel, The Maltese Falcon, was published in 1930, Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared in 1934, McCoy’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? was released in 1935, and Chandler’s The Big Sleep appeared in 1939. These four novels and other less known titles (including several by Woolrich) mark the beginning of this classic period of noir novels in the United States. The books by Hammett, Cain, Chandler, and Woolrich were made into films early in the noir cycle. During the 1950s, new writers appeared, like David Goodis and Jim Thompson, and the final years of the film noir series involved a greater diversity of characterization.
Porfirio was more correct about the connection between hard-boiled fiction and existentialism than he realized or cared to express. It was highly unlikely that existential themes in film noir were imported from France, but the French existentialists certainly felt the influence of American hard-boiled fiction. In 1946 Horace McCoy was reportedly “hailed in Paris” as the first American existentialist (Madden, Cain 171). Not only is the hard-boiled brand of existentialism not indebted to the French, the French actually borrowed ideas from the Americans. Camus was inspired to write The Stranger after reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Camus’ first major novel is written in a style similar to Cain’s (Cruickshank 16). While much attention is given to the influence of French existentialists on Americans, French observers acknowledged the value of American writers whose work preceded their own.