Page "Film noir" Paragraph 14

The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction, led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett ( whose first novel, Red Harvest, was published in 1929 ) and James M. Cain ( whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later ), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask.

The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key ( 1942 ) were based on novels by Hammett ; Cain's novels provided the basis for Double Indemnity ( 1944 ), Mildred Pierce ( 1945 ), The Postman Always Rings Twice ( 1946 ), and Slightly Scarlet ( 1956 ; adapted from Love's Lovely Counterfeit ).

A decade before the classic era, a story of Hammett's was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets ( 1931 ), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes, who worked regularly with Sternberg.

Wedding a style and story both with many noir characteristics, released the month before Lang's M, City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir.