Character Prototypes and Typical Storylines of Film Noir Movies

Film noir, better known simply as the "hard-boiled detective" films, was a style of Hollywood films immensely popular during the 1940s. Although the phase died out after a decade or so, the themes and characters have persisted into many more modern films, becoming a lasting component of Hollywood movies.

Film Noir: The Stories

The movies that comprised the film noir genre of American movies in the 1940's were almost entirely based on novels. These pocket paperbacks by authors such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and James M. Cain were easily adapted to the screen, making for dramatic crime stories that greatly appealed to the American population at that time.

Film Noir Characters: The Hard-Boiled Detective Anti-Hero

One main characteristic of film noir is that its main character is often not much of a hero, but rather an anti-hero. This detective is often trapped into doing some pretty bad stuff, and he is left to get himself out of trouble and find a life for himself again. He is depressed, spends a lot of time walking through dark cities at night in a fedora, and always seems to lose.

The story often was told from the perspective of the hard-boiled detective, and it was not at all uncommon to begin the film with a scene from the end of the plot, and then flash back to the beginning of the whole story for him to tell it as the narrator.

Film Noir Characters: The Femme Fatale

The other main character who was present in most every film noir was the femme fatale, a typically blonde woman whose name spelled trouble. These women with guns were empowering, deceptive, and just plain mean. They always seemed to manage to trap the hard-boiled detective into falling in love with them, just to come in at the last second and turn his world upside-down.

Film Noir: Notable Films

Probably the most notable films in the genre are The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the earliest films noir, and The Big Sleep (1946). Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made quite the names for themselves as co-stars in these films, and eventually husband and wife. They starred together in a number of films as the hard-boiled detective and his female sidekick or the femme fatale, and their drama as a couple spilled over into real life as well.

Film Noir: Neo-Noir Films

Traces of film noir have persisted into modern filmmaking, with the occasional direct reference to an element of film noir, but more frequently, the general feeling and style creeping into modern movies. Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil (1955) was the first major film after the end of the era to truly and fully reflect the film noir style. A couple decades later, Jack Nicholson starred in Chinatown (1974), another neo-noir film that mimicked the style and content of classic film noir.