In the 1950s, the gangster movie and film noir crisscrossed to create gangster noir. Robert Miklitsch takes readers into this fascinating subgenre of films focused on crime syndicates, crooked cops, and capers.
With the Senate's organized crime hearings and the brighter-than-bright myth of the American Dream as a backdrop, Miklitsch examines the style and history, and the production and cultural politics, of classic pictures from The Big Heat and The Asphalt Jungle to lesser-known gems like 711 Ocean Drive and post-Fifties movies like Ocean’s Eleven. Miklitsch pays particular attention to trademark leitmotifs including the individual versus the collective, the family as a locus of dissension and rapport, the real-world roots of the heist picture, and the syndicate as an octopus with its tentacles deep into law enforcement, corporate America, and government. If the memes of gangster noir remain prototypically dark, the look of the films becomes lighter and flatter, reflecting the influence of television and the realization that, under the cover of respectability, crime had moved from the underworld into the mainstream of contemporary everyday life.
Acknowledgments Direct Address: To the Reader Preface: Gangster/Noir Introduction: From the Syndicate to the Classic Heist Picture Organized Crime as Big Comboa: The Octopus The Syndicate Picture: Bright City Confidential The Syndicate/Rogue Cop Film: The Racket The Rogue Cop Film: Dragnet v. Bloody Christmasa Gangster with a Badgea: On Dangerous Ground The Heist Picture: Neo-Gangster Noir The Proto-Heist Film: High Sierra and Beyond Part One 1 The Syndicate Film 711 Ocean Drive: California Dreaming The Captive City: Underworld, USA The Big Combo: Between Men 2 The Brothers Rico: Sunshine Noir and the '50s Syndicate Picture 3 The Phenix City Story: History and Fiction (Film), Civil Rights, and the Last Days of Pompeii Part Two 4 Where the Sidewalk Ends: Theft, Adaptation, Prototypicality 0 5 The Rogue Cop Film The Prowler: Car Culture/Cadillac The Big Heat: Something/Nothing Shield for Murder: Dirt/Castle Heights 6 Touch of Evil: Good Cop/Bad Cop Part Three 7 The Asphalt Jungle: The City under the City 8 The Heist Film Armored Car Robbery: Striptease The Killing: Jigsaw Puzzle Plunder Road: Near Mint 9 Odds against Tomorrow: Race, Space, and Sputnik Noir Conclusion: Post-'50s Syndicate, Rogue Cop, and Big Capera Films Neo-Gangster Noir Syndicate Picture: Underworld U.S.A. The Post-'50s Rogue Cop Film: Cape Fear Post-Classic Heist Movie: Ocean's 11 Notes Index
