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