Red and the Black
American Film Noir in the 1950s
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A tour-de-force look at noir's forgotten decade
Critical wisdom has it that we said a long goodbye to film noir in the 1950s. Robert Miklitsch begs to differ. Pursuing leads down the back streets and alleyways of cultural history, The Red and the Black proposes that the received rise-and-fall narrative about the genre radically undervalues the formal and thematic complexity of '50s noir and the dynamic segue it effected between the spectacular expressionism of '40s noir and early, modernist neo-noir.
Mixing scholarship with a fan's devotion to the crooked roads of critique, Miklitsch autopsies marquee films like D.O.A., Niagara, and Kiss Me Deadly plus a number of lesser-known classics. Throughout, he addresses the social and technological factors that dealt deuce after deuce to the genre--its celebrated style threatened by new media and technologies such as TV and 3-D, color and widescreen, its born losers replaced like zombies by All-American heroes, the nation rocked by the red menace and nightmares of nuclear annihilation. But against all odds, the author argues, inventive filmmakers continued to make formally daring and socially compelling pictures that remain surprisingly, startlingly alive.
Cutting-edge and entertaining, The Red and the Black reconsiders a lost period in the history of American movies.
About the Author:
Robert Miklitsch is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Ohio University. He is the editor of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands: On Classic Film Noir.
Press Reviews:
“In this recommended read, [Miklitsch] finds something fresh to say about a familiar film topic.”--Library Journal
"Highly Recommended."--Choice
"Miklitsch's extended mediation on 1950s noir will entertain and intrigue both film scholars and movie fans." --Journal of American Culture
> From the same author:
I Died a Million Times (2021)
Gangster Noir in Midcentury America
Siren City (2011)
Sound and Source Music in Classic American Noir
> On a related topic:
Houses of Noir (2013)
Dark Visions from Thirteen Film Studios
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