Re: RARA-AVIS: Chinatown/Falcon define noir & hardboiled

Bill Hagen (billha@ionet.net)
Fri, 16 Apr 1999 20:54:48 -0500 (CDT) BD writes,
>Sam Spade turns Brigid O'Shaughnessy over to the authorities and when
>confronted with the fact that he may be in love with her says "What of it?
>Maybe next month I won't." This ending defines hardboiled.

>my updated definitions:
>noir- a world or situation in which there is no hope.
>hardboiled- the attitude with which one deals with it.

Affirmative here, except in one respect.

I've always assumed that hardboiled was more than a stoic attitude, but
included a professional (or moral) code, an idea "to bow down to," as
Conrad's Marlow would put it. Spade inserts the code into his goodbye
speech, saying it's more important than something as "maybe" as love.

Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>

#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.