Mark,
Re your question below:
> That was not my question, as you can see above.
You
> rewrote my question
> to make it fit your definition. I did not ask
when
> noir ended. I did
> not ask when B & W crime films stopped being
made.
> I simply asked if
> there was a single year in which dark and
sinister
> crime films were
> absent.
>
> That said, I do recognize a difference
between
> classic noir and later
> noir, just as there is a difference between
the
> Golden Age Batman, the
> Silver Age Batman and whatever later period
Batmans
> are called. That's
> why I like the idea of period. I'm
perfectly
> willing to agree with you
> that that type of noir film ended around 1964
(even
> if I still argue the
> parameters that define it), but I'm not willing
to
> say noir films ended
> then. As you have noted, though, this is more
a
> matter of application
> than definition. In his book on Noir Film,
Paul
> Duncan broke them down
> into noir, post-noir and neo-noir. That works
for
> me.
Of course there have been crime films made post-1964 that had
a "dark, sinister" atmosphere. In that strict definitional
sense, there have been "noir" films.
My point was that what is commonly recognized as the
"noir cycle" ended in the early '60's, and that the
"post-noir," "neo-noir," call it what you will, moives have
never seemed like genuine "noir" to me, but have always
seemed self-consciously imitative.
Perhaps we were saying the same thing in different
words.
> However, I'd say much the same applies to
written
> noir and hardboiled.
> And I'd say that it went through the same
> hibernation you claim for noir
> films. Although the old authors continued to
write
> new books, very few
> new authors started tilling the land in the '60s
and
> early '70s, as spy
> books flooded the genre market. For
instance,
> Michael Collins's Dan
> Fortune was one of very few new PIs introduced
in
> the '60s. Robert B
> Parker did much to revive the genre when he
came
> along. And he was very
> self-conscious in his debt to Chandler. However,
he
> made some very
> influential changes, too, and became a leading
light
> of the new period
> of private eye fiction. The culture had changed,
so
> its hardboiled
> fiction did, too. And that's why I like the idea
of
> period in fiction,
> too.
Even assuming that you're right about the paucity of new PI
fiction in the mid-60's (and you're certainly not altogether
wrong), you seem to imply that only PI stories are
hard-boiled, and that spy stories are specifically not
hard-boiled.
Spy stories, while certainly hitting the zenith of their
popularity in the '60's, were generally regarded as part of
the hard-boiled movement and go back to the beginnings of
that movement. Max Brand's Anthony Hamilton of US
Counter-Intelligence, for example, was a regular feature in
one of BLACK MASK's competitors, DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY,
and he wasn't the only tough espionage hero to ply his trade
in the pulps. In hard-covers, Van Wyck Mason's Hugh North of
US Army Intelligence fought started fighting Democracy's
enemies at about the same time, and was also identified as
being in the hard-boiled tradition (to the degree that it
could be called a tradition as early as the '30's).
James Bond and Sam Durell came along in the '50's, the height
of the PI story's popularity, as did William Rawles Weeks's
Edgar-winning one-off, KNOCK AND WAIT AWHILE. Matt Helm
didn't appear until 1960, but he, nonetheless, predates the
big "spy boom" which was still several years off. All of
these characters
(Bond mistakenly in my view, but I grant that it's a close
call) were identified as being in the hard-boiled vein.
And while there certainly weren't nearly as many new PI
series begun in the '60's as in the '50's, neither was the
form entirely moribund. Aside from Collins's Dan Fortune,
characters such as Bill Pronzini's
"Nameless Detective," Joe Gores's Dan Kearney and company,
Ron Goulart's John Easy, and Tucker (Donald Westlake) Coe's
Mitch Tobin all got started in the
'60's. On TV there were series like MANNIX, THE OUTSIDER, MAN
IN A SUITCASE, THE INVESTIGATORS, CHECKMATE, etc.
And that's just in the PI sub-genre. Even if you exclude spy
stories from consideration as examples of hard-boiled crime
fiction, the '60's produced tough cops like Dorothy Uhnak's
Christie Opara, E. Richard Johnson's Tony Lonto, and John
Wainwright's Charles Ripley; professional criminals like
Richard (Donald Westlake) Stark's Parker and Frank
MacAuliffe's Augustus Mandrell; and "tough-guys without
portfolio" like John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee.
I don't say there's no value in looking at the era in which a
given piece first appeared, but I do say, emphatically, that
hard-boiled did NOT go through the same period of hibernation
that film noir did.
JIM DOHERTY
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