Here's another late answer about the Krutnik book.  I used it for a
class on film noir a couple of years ago and it worked wonderfully
well.  It offers an interesting periodization of noir and uses a
psychoanalytic framework to offer a broad argument about the concerns
and contradictions genre, at least insofar as they relate to
the representation of masculinity.  Students were able to manage the
book's treatment of theory without too much difficulty.  I used some
of the essays in Women and Film Noir too (Gledhill's pieces on Klute
are really remarkable), but it was nice this time around to have a
broad attempt at synthesis in the Krutnik book to form a sort of
backdrop for these shorter and often more specialized investigations.
I wish there were equally good books for my other genre classes.
Good luck with your course--Richard deCordova