Mike Frank wonders:


>    a single guy, perhaps wearing a trenchcoat, in a
>    crummy hotel room alone at night;   the hotel's neon
>    sign is just outside his window blinking on and off, the
>    light shining on him through the venetian blinds in the
>    window;  outside it is of course raining;    on the
>    soundtrack either a wailing saxophone and/or a voice
>    over narration talking, saying something bitter and
>    cynical on the order of  "everything seemed to be
>    swell,  until . . ."
>
>
> is it possible that  there are no such moments? . . . that in
> fact this is just a parodic pastiche of elements that never
> in the original films came together in quite this way? . . . i really
> hope not  . . . . . .  so i'm asking for references to sequences
> in films, preferably [but not necessarily] films of  the forties
> and fifties, that embody all [or at least most] of these elements . . .

No saxophones, as I recall, but the opening of the extended flashback
in MURDER MY SWEET is very close.  The flashing light reflecting in the
window of Marlowe's darkened office reveals Mike Masurki standing
eerily behind the detective.  Powell's hardboiled narration is also
prototypical (of the stereotype, anyway) throughout the film.

Not as dark, but the scene in Laura when Dana Andrews dozes off just
before the supposedly dead title character reappears also plays off
these themes.

The opening scene of DOUBLE INDEMNITY--Fred MacMurray crashing his car
on a rainy street and then, bleeding, confessing into Edward G.
Robinson's tape recorder also comes close in mood, if not details.
Later films, like TAXI DRIVER, freely appropriate such tropes.

A number of critics have cited scenes that have many (if not all,
again) of these elements:

James Greenberg, article, New York Times, Feb. 6, 1994, H9+ (This one
has a handy sidebar of noir cliches.)

J.A. Place and L.S. Peterson, "Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir," FILM
COMMENT, Jan. 1974.

Finally, for an audio (!) parody of all this, find The Fireside
Theater's album HOW CAN YOU BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE WHEN YOU'RE NOT
ANYWHERE AT ALL? (aka ALL HAIL MARX AND LENNON), with the side the
includes "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger, Third Eye."  ("I was
staring at my name on the window: 'Regnad Kcin'" u.s.w.)

Don Larsson







----------------------
Donald Larsson
Minnesota State U, Mankato
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