While this is coming from  a different direction than the initial
          two commentaries on  film noir, I would strongly suggest that  in
          addition to foreign influences, the American tradition of noir be
          acknolwedged, developing as a result of the industry structure as
          it developed in the decades before the 1940s. William Everson has
          been working on  a book called Pre-noir Noir for some time, which
          will doubtless phrase such  an argument far  more fully.  If  you
          look beyond the canon, especially in  the  1930s,  not  only  the
          style but  the narrative patterns of noir are becoming clear. Not
          to toot my favorites, but one  of  the strongest examples is  THE
          FLORENTINE DAGGER (WB,  1935)  by  Robert Florey; although he  is
          later involved in noir in the 1940s (VERDOUX, CROOKED WAY, JOHNNY
          ONE-EYE, VICIOUS YEARS),  like  many directors had  then  already
          moved largely beyond noir. The pattern is evident in many other B
          careers of  the 1930s that went on  to other type of work in  the
          1940s, of which noir was only one facet. The domain of the B film
          at  the majors (I'm not including poverty row  at  the moment) in
          the   1930s  provided  an  avenue  where   a  certain  degree  of
          experimentation  was  tolerated,  at  times  even  encouraged  in
          pursuit of novelty, and crime was  one  of  the primary formulas.
          From my own interviews, filmmakers were aware of European styles,
          and  the  avant-garde, particularly  from  the  1920s,  but  were
          primarily concerned with adapting them  to  their own  work,  and
          well on their way in this direction before 1930s France and 1940s
          Italy would have been seen. Indeed, the 1940s saw  the  time when
          the merging  of  the  B  as  a mainstream form facilitated noir's
          flowering as a principal type, no longer relegated to the margins
          of lower budgets. Hence this is more  a matter of  the industry's
          evolution, and  the movement of various artists and  styles  into
          secure positions, together with an infusion of new
          immigrants--along with changing society,  WWII influence, and  so
          forth. I  hope you will see this as  a variation on  the argument
          you cite as typical, not merely a rephrasing, but my  own viewing
          and research on  the 1940s and earlier decades indicates that  to
          understand  noir's  origins  requires  going  back   to  previous
          American  eras,   not  simply  simultaneous  or   1930s  overseas
          production.
           Brian Taves
           Motion Picture Division, Library of Congress
                                 Tavesmail.loc.gov
           Disclaimer:   The   views  expressed  are   entirely   my   own.