In the 1950s, the gangster movie and film noir crisscrossed to create gangster noir. Robert Miklitsch takes readers into this fascinating subgenre of films focused on crime syndicates, crooked cops, and capers.
With the Senate's organized crime hearings and the brighter-than-bright myth of the American Dream as a backdrop, Miklitsch examines the style and history, and the production and cultural politics, of classic pictures from The Big Heat and The Asphalt Jungle to lesser-known gems like 711 Ocean Drive and post-Fifties movies like Ocean's Eleven. Miklitsch pays particular attention to trademark leitmotifs including the individual versus the collective, the family as a locus of dissension and rapport, the real-world roots of the heist picture, and the syndicate as an octopus with its tentacles deep into law enforcement, corporate America, and government. If the memes of gangster noir remain prototypically dark, the look of the films becomes lighter and flatter, reflecting the influence of television and the realization that, under the cover of respectability, crime had moved from the underworld into the mainstream of contemporary everyday life.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"This is a readable, engaging book. . . . Recommended." --Choice
"Miklitsch's book is gripping. . . . So the many facets of the individual versus the system or the one system against another one (in that case a mob/gangster syndicate) get a lot of attention." --PopCultureShelf
"Alert to the aesthetic, political, industrial, and historical provocations and subversions of 'gangster noir,' I Died a Million Times provides an excellent overview and analysis of this subgenre and reminds us of film noir's rich hybridity. Full of truly superb readings of well-known and less familiar classic noir films, Robert Miklitsch's book, written with striking verve, will engage, delight, and inform scholars and movie fans."--Julie Grossman, coauthor of Ida Lupino, Director: Her Art and Resilience in Times of Transition
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Editions-Typ
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Illustrationen
40 black & white photographs
Maße
Höhe: 231 mm
Breite: 155 mm
Dicke: 23 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-252-08554-3 (9780252085543)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
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 and the author of The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s.
Acknowledgments
Direct Address: To the Reader
Preface: Gangster/Noir
Introduction: From the Syndicate to the Classic Heist Picture
Organized Crime as "Big Combo": The Octopus
The Syndicate Picture: Bright City Confidential
The Syndicate/Rogue Cop Film: The Racket
The Rogue Cop Film: Dragnet v. "Bloody Christmas"
"Gangster with a Badge": On Dangerous Ground
The Heist Picture: Neo-Gangster Noir
The Proto-Heist Film: High Sierra and Beyond
Part One
1 The Syndicate Film
711 Ocean Drive: California Dreaming
The Captive City: Underworld, USA
The Big Combo: Between Men
2 The Brothers Rico: Sunshine Noir and the '50s Syndicate Picture
3 The Phenix City Story: History and Fiction (Film), Civil Rights, and the Last Days of Pompeii
Part Two
4 Where the Sidewalk Ends: Theft, Adaptation, Prototypicality
0 5 The Rogue Cop Film
The Prowler: Car Culture/Cadillac
The Big Heat: Something/Nothing
Shield for Murder: Dirt/Castle Heights
6 Touch of Evil: Good Cop/Bad Cop
Part Three
7 The Asphalt Jungle: The City under the City
8 The Heist Film
Armored Car Robbery: Striptease
The Killing: Jigsaw Puzzle
Plunder Road: Near Mint
9 Odds against Tomorrow: Race, Space, and Sputnik Noir
Conclusion: Post-'50s Syndicate, Rogue Cop, and "Big Caper" Films
Neo-Gangster Noir Syndicate Picture: Underworld U.S.A.
The Post-'50s Rogue Cop Film: Cape Fear
Post-Classic Heist Movie: Ocean's 11
Notes
Index
