Since his name came up, I say again, one of the most noir novels ever out there, for me, is Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not." It even has a modern theme: "those that has gets and those that don't gets screwed," along with what the hell do you do in tough economic times.
First, Forget the movie--read the novel.
They are totally different. A man struggles to do right and gets screwed. He gives a little twist of illegality, looses his arm, and eventually loses his life--all while struggling for his family.
Shakespeare? Sure he's noir, but he's noir in another language. Why have them "fight" the language rather than flow with it? If you want kids to grab onto something, give them the best of what it really his. Hammett and Chandler ... yeah. But aren't they hard boiled rather than noir for the most part?
"The Postman Always Rings Twice," of course or "Double Indemnity" but not both--same author.
"The Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
Sorry I'm late plugging this in, but I thought Papa Hemingway needed defending and I want to save kids from a diet of Shakespeare under the banner of noir.
Most of us here would love it now; but what about when we were seventeen or eighteen?
Jack Bludis
The "Dead Starlets" trilogy of retro pulp by Jack Burns is up at
Amazon Kindle--It is some of Jack's earliest work in the PI genre.
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