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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: film noir - a definition (of sorts)
Message-ID: <5527@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 18-May-85 20:29:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.5527
Posted: Sat May 18 20:29:22 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 22-May-85 01:37:52 EDT
References: <510@umd5.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
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Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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In article <510@umd5.UUCP> jay@umd5.UUCP writes:
>Briefly, the
>post-World War II French, who had not been able to see American films during
>the war, invented this term for a type of Hollywood film that had not
>been in existence prior to the war.  

It should be noted that the French recognized this genre well.  Films very
much of the film noir mold were extremely popular in France in the 1930s.
"Scarlet Street", for instance, is a remake of Renoir's "Le Chienne".
"Port of Shadows" and "Pepe Le Moko" are just a couple of examples of 
French film noir of this period.  In fact, Jean Gabin was probably the first
great male film noir star, paving the way for Robert Mitchum and John Garfield.

As far as semantic roots go, I'm not sure when the term was coined, but it
was derived from "roman noir", or "black novel", which term was used to
describe British Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th century.

-- 
        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
				soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDA
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher