The Big Clock is a 1946 novel by Kenneth Fearing . Published by Harcourt Brace, the thriller was Fearing's fourth novel, following three for Random House ( The Hospital , Dagger of the Mind , Clark Gifford's Body ) and five collections of poetry. The story, which first appeared in abridged form in The American Magazine (October 1946) as "The Judas Picture", was adapted for three films: The Big Clock (1948) starring Ray Milland , Police Python 357 (1976) starring Yves Montand , and No Way Out (1987) starring Kevin Costner .
185-439: The novel's innovative structure is presented from the point-of-view of seven different characters. Each of the 19 chapters adopts the perspective of a single character. The first five chapters are told by George Stroud, who works for a New York magazine publisher not unlike Time-Life . Stroud is a borderline alcoholic and serial adulterer. His latest affair is with Pauline, who is also the girlfriend of his boss, Earl Janoth. After
370-517: A Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album also in 2011, Joan Osborne's Bring it on Home which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Blues Album in 2013, and The Beatles' "First Recordings: 50th Anniversary Edition" which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Album Notes in the same year. Saguaro Roads Records though, was excluded from the deal when RDA had to sell Time Life to Mosaic Media Investment Partners in 2013, but has remained dormant ever since. The following list shows many of
555-642: A Grammy Award for Best Traditional Gospel Album complemented with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for their Live in New Orleans video registration, Patti LuPone 's Gypsy : The 2008 Broadway Cast Recording which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album that year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best Recordings which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Historical Album in 2011, Patty Loveless's Mountain Soul II which won
740-473: A "pathway" in his screenwriters taxonomy; explaining that a pathway has two parts: 1) the way the audience connects with the protagonist and 2) the trajectory the audience expects the story to follow. Other critics treat film noir as a "mood," a "series", or simply a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir "canon." There is no consensus on the matter. The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by German Expressionism , an artistic movement of
925-540: A 2001 US$ 20 million net operating profit into a net operating loss of US$ 50 million in 2003. Direct Holdings sold music and video products under the Time Life brand, and was also the holding company of the StarVista LIVE L.L.C. experience entertainment property, thereby becoming responsible for Time Life's entry into that industry in the 2003-13 time period. In March 2007, Ripplewood led a group that acquired and privatized
1110-568: A B-movie soul. Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German-born Robert Siodmak , who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood. Working mostly on A features, he made eight films now regarded as classic-era noir (a figure matched only by Lang and Mann). In addition to The Killers , Burt Lancaster 's debut and a Hellinger/Universal co-production, Siodmak's other important contributions to
1295-405: A Dark Shadow (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert . Terence Fisher directed several low-budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions , including The Last Page (a.k.a. Man Bait ; 1952), Stolen Face (1952), and Murder by Proxy (a.k.a. Blackout ; 1954). Before leaving for France, Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English-language film of
1480-679: A Lonely Place (1950) was Nicholas Ray 's breakthrough; his other noirs include his debut, They Live by Night (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1952), noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream. Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well-budgeted: The Lady from Shanghai (1947) received top-level, "prestige" backing, while The Stranger (1946), his most conventional film, and Touch of Evil (1958), an unmistakably personal work, were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases. Like The Stranger , Fritz Lang's The Woman in
1665-432: A chase film as might have been imagined by Jean-Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood. Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner, having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah 's The Getaway (1972), adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson , as well as for two tough private eye films: an original screenplay for Hickey & Boggs (1972) and an adaptation of
1850-425: A corner near her Manhattan apartment. He watches her approach the entrance and sees Earl emerge from a limousine and enter the building with her. Earl sees George observing him, but, crucially, he cannot make him out in the shadows. In Pauline's apartment, she and Earl have a violent argument in which he accuses her of being a cheat and a lesbian. In reply, she suggests that he and his close associate, Steve Hagen, are
2035-528: A definitive end. While the vast majority of published book series were conceived, initiated and produced by Time Life itself, which included the Australian branch initiated Australian at War series, the company also (re)issued on occasion series in similar vein they were either especially commissioned for by outside parties, or as licensee of series that were originally conceived, produced and/or released by third-party publishers elsewhere, typically for release on
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#17330937643932220-501: A film noir, it has largely disappeared from considerations of the field. Director Jules Dassin of The Naked City (1948) pointed to the neorealists as inspiring his use of location photography with non-professional extras. This semidocumentary approach characterized a substantial number of noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with neorealism, the style had an American precedent cited by Dassin, in director Henry Hathaway 's The House on 92nd Street (1945), which demonstrated
2405-423: A further display of narrative skill, the story is presented by six persons in nineteen varied episodes, leading to a sufficiently grim smash ending, yet without palpable interruption of the relentless "clock". And when all is over the reader-participant in this drama of the big city and the big outfit will reflect with surprise that the tour de force which so gripped him was a mystery without a mystery. The Big Clock
2590-429: A gay couple. This enrages Earl and he bludgeons her to death with a crystal decanter. In a panic, he goes to Steve's apartment for assistance. Steve immediately begins planning a coverup and tells Earl he must be prepared to have the man who witnessed him enter the building killed. Earl reluctantly agrees. Earl and Steve employ all of the resources of the publishing firm to find the mysterious witness—not realizing that he
2775-466: A greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir. Examples of British noir (sometimes described as "Brit noir") from the classic period include Brighton Rock (1947), directed by John Boulting ; They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti ; The Small Back Room (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger ; The October Man (1950), directed by Roy Ward Baker ; and Cast
2960-600: A humid, erotically charged Florida setting. Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo-noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse. The mainstreaming of neo-noir is evident in such films as Black Widow (1987), Shattered (1991), and Final Analysis (1992). Few neo-noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas . The film also demonstrates how neo-noir's polychrome palette can reproduce many of
3145-432: A hyphen as Time-Life, Inc. , even by the company itself) was an American multi-media conglomerate company formerly known as a prolific production/publishing company and direct marketeer seller of books, music, video/DVD, and other multimedia products. After all home market book publication activities had been shuttered in 2003, the focus of the group shifted towards music, video, and entertainment experiences – such as
3330-610: A local branch and not by the American mother company; the 1986–89 book series Australians at War was initiated by the local Australasian subsidiary, "Time-Life Books (Australia) Pty Ltd." – located at 15 Blue Street, North Sydney, N.S.W. 2060, Australia at the time, according to the volume colophons of the series – and therefore relatively rare on American/European soil. Prior to Time-Life, Inc.'s decision to relocate its headquarters from Chicago to Fairfax, Virginia in late 1986, it had long before that already decided to split off
3515-475: A man caught in the machinery were not enough, Fearing has multiplied the horrors by adding the secret burden of guilt, the fear of death by execution, and the strain of trying to find a way out of damning circumstances", they wrote in the preface: The result is a story which just misses being a nightmare too rational to be endured. What gives the reader a chance to breathe and even smile is the admixture of some warm human touches and some excellent unforced humor. By
3700-458: A mass-market mail order book club/retailer of which there were several in the era, most conspicuously that of contemporary competitor Reader's Digest . On the first volume in the 1966–70 Library of Art series (the eighth one Time-Life took in production at the time) for example, American artist Rockwell Kent commented, "It would be hard for me to overstate my delight in "The World of Michelangelo" – not merely for its superb reproductions of
3885-410: A monstrous scale. The work of other directors in this tier of the industry, such as Felix E. Feist ( The Devil Thumbs a Ride [1947], Tomorrow Is Another Day [1951]), has become obscure. Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status; for the most part, on unmistakable Bs. In 1945, while at PRC, he directed
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#17330937643934070-516: A nigh next-door neighbor eventually of its mother company after 1986, and where it stayed until it was vacated in 2004. Contemporary reporters though, had a tough time keeping both premises apart, as they kept confusing one for the other. Time-Life Books' DTC business model started to slump around 1991. Then-Deputy Editor Harris Andrews recalled how distraught he got when his 1991 Echoes of Glory mini-series project did not do well in DTC sales. However, once
4255-578: A noir cult classic, Detour . Ulmer's other noirs include Strange Illusion (1945), also for PRC; Ruthless (1948), for Eagle-Lion, which had acquired PRC the previous year and Murder Is My Beat (1955), for Allied Artists. A number of low- and modestly-budgeted noirs were made by independent, often actor-owned, companies contracting with larger studios for distribution. Serving as producer, writer, director and top-billed performer, Hugo Haas made films like Pickup (1951), The Other Woman (1954) and Jacques Tourneur, The Fearmakers (1958) . It
4440-521: A noir mode than Preminger; his other noirs include Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (all for Fox) and Angel Face (1952). A half-decade after Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend , Billy Wilder made Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951), noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively. In
4625-612: A novel by Ross Macdonald , the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler, for The Drowning Pool (1975). Some of the strongest 1970s noirs, in fact, were unwinking remakes of the classics, "neo" mostly by default: the heartbreaking Thieves Like Us (1974), directed by Altman from the same source as Ray's They Live by Night , and Farewell, My Lovely (1975), the Chandler tale made classically as Murder, My Sweet , remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role. Detective series, prevalent on American television during
4810-426: A particular year (in this case, 1955 through 1964—the early, pre-Beatles years of rock music), a stylistic trend or particular artist influential in rock music. Each volume had 22 tracks, and was said to contain the original hit recording by the original artist (although this wasn't always true on early pressings of the early albums in the series). The songs themselves represented the most important and popular songs from
4995-507: A plot thread to Fearing, and he began writing The Big Clock during August 1944, continuing to work on the manuscript for over a year. He married artist Nan Lurie in 1945, and much of the novel was written in her loft on East 10th Street in New York City. The manuscript was completed by October 1945, and it was published by Harcourt Brace a year later. In his introduction to Kenneth Fearing: Complete Poems (1994), Robert M. Ryley described
5180-456: A quirky bar, where they discuss the dispensation of her works. As George leaves to meet his wife for dinner, he see a newspaper with the headline, "EARL JANOTH, OUSTED PUBLISHER, PLUNGES TO DEATH." Fearing based the novel on the October 1943 murder of New York brewery heiress Patricia Burton Bernheimer Lonergan and Sam Fuller 's 1944 thriller, The Dark Page . A combination of these two suggested
5365-496: A range of plots; common archetypical protagonists include a private investigator ( The Big Sleep ), a plainclothes police officer ( The Big Heat ), an aging boxer ( The Set-Up ), a hapless grifter ( Night and the City ), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime ( Gun Crazy ), a femme fatale ( Gilda ) or simply a victim of circumstance ( D.O.A. ). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions,
5550-521: A screenplay by Graham Greene . Set in Vienna immediately after World War II, it also stars two American actors, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles , who had appeared together in Citizen Kane . Elsewhere, Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice as Ossessione (1943), regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism. (This
5735-426: A scrolling list of other titles), a commercial spokesman (usually a performer or legendary disc jockey relevant to a given series, such as Rick Dees for a 1970s-intensive collection and Ralph Emery for a country music series) and testimonials from customers attesting to the quality and value of the albums, to pitch a given series. Key selling points of these collections are that each track was digitally transferred to
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5920-399: A specialist in what James Naremore called "hypnotic moments of light-in-darkness". He Walked by Night (1948), shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker, directed in large part by Mann, demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of " police procedural " crime dramas. It was released, like other Mann-Alton noirs, by the small Eagle-Lion company; it
6105-550: A step up the ladder, known as "intermediates" by the industry, might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances. Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production. Robert Wise ( Born to Kill [1947], The Set-Up [1949]) and Anthony Mann ( T-Men [1947] and Raw Deal [1948]) each made a series of impressive intermediates, many of them noirs, before graduating to steady work on big-budget productions. Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton ,
6290-484: A sturdy box set. After Walter Wanger 's death in 1968, its Time Life Films subsidiary also acquired his production company Walter Wanger Productions and many of its films. When record labels were no longer producing vinyl albums in 1990, Time Life transitioned to CD. In the mid-1990s, Time Life acquired Heartland Music, with the Heartland Music label then appearing as a brand. This company was subsequently sold off and
6475-1164: A toll-free number for assistance and the Time-Life infomercial channel has been pulled from all cable services, before it went permanently dark altogether. In 2008, Reader's Digest Association (RDA) launched Saguaro Roads Records, Inc. as an in-house music recording label, and resorted it under Time Life due to its 2007 subordination under RDA by their then-owner Ripplewood. Under the combined "Time Life/Saguaro Roads Records" label, albums have been released with Adam Hood , Blind Boys of Alabama , Bo Bice , Brandy and Ray J , Collin Raye , Dion , Edwin McCain , Hank Williams (estate), Jim Brickman , Joan Osborne , Lonestar , Marc Cohn , Mark Chesnutt , Patty Loveless , Rebecca Lynn Howard , Tanya Tucker , The Grascals , Angie Stone , Waylon Jennings and Don McLean . Since its launch Saguaro Roads Records has had garnered seven Grammy nominations for its releases. These included two 2009 releases from The Blind Boys of Alabama whose Down in New Orleans album won
6660-484: A trend, let alone a new genre, for many decades. Whoever went to the movies with any regularity during 1946 was caught in the midst of Hollywood's profound postwar affection for morbid drama. From January through December deep shadows, clutching hands, exploding revolvers, sadistic villains and heroines tormented with deeply rooted diseases of the mind flashed across the screen in a panting display of psychoneurosis, unsublimated sex and murder most foul. Most film noirs of
6845-507: A variety of reasons. The Dutch language versions of History of the World (as "Time Life Wereld Geschiedenis"), The Epic of Flight (as "De Geschiedenis van de Luchtvaart"), The Enchanted World (as "Het Rijk der Fabelen"), and Mysteries of the Unknown (no Dutch series title) series, for example, were shy of four, seven, eight, and a whopping twenty-five volumes in translation respectively. Likewise,
7030-572: A vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952, which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States. During the classic period, there were many films produced in Europe, particularly in France, that share elements of style, theme, and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre's canon. In certain cases, the interrelationship with Hollywood noir
7215-458: A weekend together in upstate New York, George and Pauline spend a leisurely evening in Manhattan—eating dinner, bar-hopping, and browsing antique stores. George is a collector of the artist Louise Patterson and finds one of her works in shabby condition in an antique store. He outbids another customer for it. (The other customer turns out to be Patterson herself.) Later, George leaves Pauline at
7400-550: A wholly American film style." However, although the term "film noir" was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies, it was an international phenomenon. Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period, there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir, for example, the French productions Pépé le Moko (1937), directed by Julien Duvivier , and Le Jour se lève (1939), directed by Marcel Carné . In addition, Mexico experienced
7585-489: Is Kiss Me Deadly (1955); based on a novel by Mickey Spillane , the best-selling of all the hardboiled authors, here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer . As described by Paul Schrader , " Robert Aldrich 's teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit' [which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb." Orson Welles's baroquely styled Touch of Evil (1958)
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7770-580: Is The Invisible Man (1933), directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson . Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon (1941), widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era. Josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood during the same period. Films of his such as Shanghai Express (1932) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style anticipated central elements of classic noir. The commercial and critical success of Sternberg's silent Underworld (1927)
7955-519: Is "arbitrary". Expressionism-orientated filmmakers had free stylistic rein in Universal horror pictures such as Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932)—the former photographed and the latter directed by the Berlin-trained Karl Freund —and The Black Cat (1934), directed by Austrian émigré Edgar G. Ulmer . The Universal horror film that comes closest to noir, in story and sensibility,
8140-521: Is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylized Hollywood crime dramas , particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir . Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key , black-and-white visual style that has roots in German expressionist cinematography . Many of the prototypical stories and attitudes expressed in classic noir derive from
8325-461: Is among the first crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). Directors such as Lang, Jacques Tourneur , Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz brought a dramatically shadowed lighting style and a psychologically expressive approach to visual composition ( mise-en-scène ) with them to Hollywood, where they made some of
8510-452: Is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period. Some scholars believe film noir never really ended, but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside
8695-480: Is its previsioning of the manifold mythological dimensions of a "Consumer's Republic" that would typify the era. John Farrow directed The Big Clock (1948), screenwriter Jonathan Latimer 's adaptation of the novel. The film stars Ray Milland , Charles Laughton , Rita Johnson , George Macready and Maureen O'Sullivan . Alain Corneau 's Police Python 357 (1976) is a French adaptation of The Big Clock in which
8880-502: Is mirrored in the Warner Bros. drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), a forerunner of noir. Among films not considered noir, perhaps none had a greater effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles . Its visual intricacy and complex, voiceover narrative structure are echoed in dozens of classic films noir. Italian neorealism of
9065-428: Is no longer associated with Time Life. On December 31, 2003, Time Life was sold by Time Warner to a group of private investors including Ripplewood Holdings L.L.C. and ZelnickMedia for an undisclosed price, who subordinated their acquisition under their jointly-owned, Direct Holdings Global L.L.C. holding company, founded in 1998. With that transaction, Direct Holdings US Corp became the legal name of Time-Life which
9250-466: Is not a determinant, as with the Western . Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are stock character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of films in the genre feature neither. Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as the monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film , the speculative leaps of the science fiction film , or the song-and-dance routines of
9435-631: Is obvious: American-born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist , and made one of the most famous French film noirs, Rififi (1955). Other well-known French films often classified as noir include Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Les Diaboliques (1955), both directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot . Casque d'Or (1952), Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), and Le Trou (1960) directed by Jacques Becker ; and Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), directed by Louis Malle . French director Jean-Pierre Melville
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#17330937643939620-597: Is one of the novels chosen by author Kevin Johnson to represent the literary origins of film noir in his 2007 book, The Dark Page: Books That Inspired American Film Noir, 1940–1949 . Alan M. Wald , a historian of the American Left , summarizes the "frightening and fragmented hollowness" that Fearing saw in post-war US society and depicted in The Big Clock : The menacing ambience of dislocation that permeates The Big Clock
9805-419: Is right under their noses. They put George in charge of the investigation, as he is their sharpest editor. George sets the investigation in motion, but craftily subverts its chance for success. Despite the roadblocks George puts in the way of the investigation identifying him as the witness, he comes closer and closer to being found. Eventually, witnesses are brought to the publishing house's building, because it
9990-428: Is said that the sought-after individual (name still unknown) is inside. The building is being searched floor-by-floor and it appears inevitable that Stroud will be caught, but Earl snaps under the pressure and surrenders his company to a unfavorable merger. His leaving the company suddenly makes the manhunt moot and it is quickly terminated, without the witnesses seeing George. The story ends with George meeting Louise in
10175-547: Is set in 1930s Los Angeles, an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler. Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with Taxi Driver (1976), a crackling, bloody-minded gloss on bicentennial America. In 1978, Walter Hill wrote and directed The Driver ,
10360-429: Is structurally and symbolically rendered as industrial capitalism, a socioeconomic order in which the avenues of communication, especially publishing and the airwaves, are evolving into a science of planned manipulation designed to ensure profitability. Well-paid deceivers, together with the naively deceived, are imprisoned as cogs in the apparatus of private enterprise's modern institutions. ... The genius of The Big Clock
10545-470: Is the pursuer rather than the pursued. A woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture, when he is most vulnerable. [Her] eventual betrayal of him (or herself) is as ambiguous as her feelings about him. While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing. Foster Hirsch defines a genre as determined by "conventions of narrative structure, characterization, theme, and visual design." Hirsch, as one who has taken
10730-530: Is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir— Bob le flambeur (1955), from the classic period, was followed by Le Doulos (1962), Le deuxième souffle 1966), Le Samouraï (1967), and Le Cercle rouge (1970). In the 1960s, Greek films noir " The Secret of the Red Mantle " and " The Fear " allowed audience for an anti-ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability. . Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences
10915-534: The Nouvelle vague' s deeper waters), and Alan J. Pakula (1971's Klute ) directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir, inviting audiences in on the game. A manifest affiliation with noir traditions—which, by its nature, allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred—can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions. In 1973, director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with The Long Goodbye . Based on
11100-488: The American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all time—it tells the story of a boxer's moral self-destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as Body and Soul (1947) and Champion (1949). From 1981, Body Heat , written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan , invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in
11285-910: The Reader's Digest Association (RDA) in the process agreeing to make Direct Holdings, and thus Time-Life, a subsidiary of RDA. In addition to the company's film and music core activities, it was also the holding company of television and radio combo stations. Stations the company owned were KLZ-TV - AM - FM in Denver , WFBM-TV - AM - FM in Indianapolis , WOOD-TV - AM in Grand Rapids, Michigan , KERO-TV in Bakersfield, California , and KOGO-TV - AM - FM in San Diego , many of which were sold to McGraw-Hill in 1972; however, Time Life kept WOOD-TV, which became WOTV after
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#173309376439311470-526: The Time Frame aka History of the World and Lost Civilizations series), the addition of more book series for children, while at the same time substantially stepping up their editorial focus on easier – and thus cheaper – to produce DIY-themed book series, they had already introduced in 1968 with their long-running 1968-77 Foods of the World cookbook series. The books though, regardless of their perceived quality, are easy to find at low prices on
11655-399: The gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture —any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time. It is night, always. The hero enters a labyrinth on a quest. He is alone and off balance. He may be desperate, in flight, or coldly calculating, imagining he
11840-485: The hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression , known as noir fiction . The term film noir , French for "black film" (literal) or "dark film" (closer meaning), was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era. Frank is believed to have been inspired by
12025-526: The major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits, from the relatively well-off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) . Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs (a few now highly regarded, most forgotten) before directing the A-level Out of the Past , described by scholar Robert Ottoson as "the ne plus ultra of forties film noir". Movies with budgets
12210-430: The musical . An analogous case is that of the screwball comedy , widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre": screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some—but rarely and perhaps never all—of which are found in each of the genre's films. Because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in
12395-563: The 1910s and 1920s that involved theater, music, photography, painting, sculpture and architecture, as well as cinema. The opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and then the threat of Nazism led to the emigration of many film artists working in Germany who had been involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners. M (1931), shot only a few years before director Fritz Lang 's departure from Germany,
12580-420: The 1940s, with its emphasis on quasi-documentary authenticity, was an acknowledged influence on trends that emerged in American noir. The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder , another Vienna-born, Berlin-trained American auteur , tells the story of an alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism. It also exemplifies the problem of classification: one of the first American films to be described as
12765-400: The 1960s and 1970s, the collections released by Time–Life Records catered to an adult audience, with genres including classical , jazz , swing and orchestral music; and the music of operas and Broadway theatre . On occasion, Time Life offered popular music (generally pre-1955 music, as opposed to pop and rock music airing on contemporary hit radio stations in the United States at
12950-556: The Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed " noir fiction ". For much of the 1940s, one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was Cornell Woolrich (sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish). No writer's published work provided the basis for more noir films of the classic period than Woolrich's: thirteen in all, including Black Angel (1946), Deadline at Dawn (1946), and Fear in
13135-615: The Civil War followup project. This however, did not apply to latter-day non-proprietary book series Time-Life was licensed to market, such as the 1999-2000 The Civil War: A Narrative – 40th Anniversary Edition commemorative series edition, or the European series licensed from Andromeda Oxford, Ltd. (see below ) Time-Life ceased to publish books when it made its Time-Life Books, Inc. division defunct in January 2001, with any remaining vestiges of
13320-564: The Civil War" ( OCLC 1044896 ) book titles as spin-offs of their two flagship magazines. It was Time, Inc. itself however, that did initiate the publication of DTC book series in 1960 with their long running 1960-67 LIFE World Library series, before it was two years later placed into the care of its newly established subsidiary. After having tested the waters with the tentative 1960–61 trade paperback Time Capsule budget-priced book series publishing trial run (which actually evolved into their 1962-1966 Time Reading Program series,
13505-461: The Cold War. This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era. This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films. The violence was also more potent. While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as Blast of Silence (1961) and Cape Fear (1962) and the noirs of
13690-564: The Fairfax premises open as the non-print Time-Life seat until the altogether shuttering of the company in 2023. The from 2004 onward unrelated Time [& Life], Inc./Time Warner however, continued until the late-2010s to publish similar print material for the home market through New York City-based Time Home Entertainment, Inc. (founded in the early 1990s), but as publisher of retail single-title books only instead of (direct marketed) book series, which they themselves had already scrubbed entirely in
13875-449: The French literary publishing imprint Série noire , founded in 1945. Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noir were referred to as " melodramas ". Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it should be considered a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing and heavy debate among film scholars. Film noir encompasses
14060-648: The German-language version of The Old West (as "Der Wilde Westen," and, even though American specific, translated nonetheless due to the continued and unabated popularity of the Western genre in Germany), disseminated through the Amsterdam branch as Time-Life Bücher, was shy of seven volumes just like the French-language Le Far West edition was. Of at least one series is known that it had been initiated by
14245-446: The Lake (1947)—he was an important screenwriter in the genre as well, producing the scripts for Double Indemnity , The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951). Where Chandler, like Hammett, centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye, Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving;
14430-451: The Night (1947). Another crucial literary source for film noir was W. R. Burnett , whose first novel to be published was Little Caesar , in 1929. It was turned into a hit for Warner Bros. in 1931; the following year, Burnett was hired to write dialogue for Scarface , while The Beast of the City (1932) was adapted from one of his stories. At least one important reference work identifies
14615-721: The StarVista cruises – exclusively. Its products have once been sold worldwide throughout the Americas, Europe, Australasia, and Asia via television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales. Activities were largely restricted to the North American home market afterwards, and operations were until recently focused on the US and Canada alone with very limited retail distribution overseas, ceasing all together in 2023. Time-Life, Inc.
14800-464: The Third Floor still lost its studio, RKO , US$ 56,000 (equivalent to $ 1,217,900 in 2023), almost a third of its total cost. Variety magazine found Ingster's work: "...too studied and when original, lacks the flare [ sic ] to hold attention. It's a film too arty for average audiences, and too humdrum for others." Stranger on the Third Floor was not recognized as the beginning of
14985-506: The US home market, usually, but not always, under its own imprint. English-language versions of British Commonwealth-pedigree series were published by a variety of publishers for the various English-speaking territories in the world, with the regional Time-Life Books B.V. Amsterdam subsidiary commonly designated for Europe and the British Isles, as mentioned in the colophons of the individual volumes. The Amsterdam subsidiary also took care of
15170-526: The Window (1944) was a production of the independent International Pictures. Lang's follow-up, Scarlet Street (1945), was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored: filled with erotic innuendo, it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and New York State. Scarlet Street was a semi-independent, cosponsored by Universal and Lang's Diana Productions, of which the film's co-star, Joan Bennett ,
15355-557: The World series, the UK variant of the home market Time Frame series where it had been a common volume. Nor was this phenomenon restricted to the English-language volume releases alone; of the "Gemstones" volume of the Planet Earth series, which had been a common one for the source release, is known that its "Edelgesteenten" Dutch-language counterpart ( ISBN 906182494X ) had been
15540-417: The basis for Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Slightly Scarlet (1956; adapted from Love's Lovely Counterfeit ). A decade before the classic era, a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets (1931), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes , who worked regularly with Sternberg. Released
15725-453: The book business, it had the already near-empty Alexandria office premises vacated in 2004 after its acquisition of Time Life, laying off what was left of the former Time-Life Books, Inc. staff, outsourcing remaining operations like customer service, order processing and distribution to third-party companies in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Kentucky instead. It did keep the Fairfax premises open however, as
15910-508: The book colophons. Time Life added music in 1967, selling box sets and collections through Time–Life Records as a division subordinated under Time-Life Books, Inc. The division changed its name to Time Life Music after music cassette tapes were added to its array of releases, with its European iterations, including the German Time Life Musik label, subordinated under the Amsterdam "Time-Life Books BV" subsidiary branch. During
16095-487: The book division immediately terminated for good upon the 31 December 2003 acquisition by Ripplewood/Direct Holdings L.L.C. The European "Time Life Books B.V." Amsterdam subsidiary branch and its three satellite offices elsewhere in Europe though, held out for a few years longer before they too were all closed down simultaneously in late August 2009, after which all remaining book publishing activities were suspended indefinitely. Despite Ripplewood's stated intent to return to
16280-415: The book division onto its own entity in 1964, as above stated, in order to better differentiate between their book and the non-print media activities. Time-Life Books, Inc. had in the meantime moved out its New York City premises (where it was left behind by its mother company when they moved to Chicago in 1969) a decade earlier in early 1977 to the nearby 2000 Duke St. Alexandria, VA 22314 premises, to become
16465-399: The brand logo of their former book subsidiary on their own single-title book publications again after 2013, it (the brand, not the subsidiary) had quietly bought back from Mosaic Media Investment Partners in January 2014. Having been renamed "Time Inc. Books" in 2015, the publisher shared its mother company's fate when it went ultimately defunct in 2018, bringing the era of Time-Life Books to
16650-408: The classic era to be something other than genuine film noir. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion . These later films are often called neo-noir . While
16835-793: The classic noir B movie spirit than those of director-writer Quentin Tarantino . Neo-noirs of his such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) display a relentlessly self-reflexive, sometimes tongue-in-cheek sensibility, similar to the work of the New Wave directors and the Coens. Other films from the era readily identifiable as neo-noir (some retro, some more au courant) include director John Dahl 's Kill Me Again (1989), Red Rock West (1992), and The Last Seduction (1993); four adaptations of novels by Jim Thompson— The Kill-Off (1989), After Dark, My Sweet (1990), The Grifters (1990), and
17020-480: The classic noir period in Great Britain: Night and the City (1950). Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors— Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney —it is technically a UK production, financed by 20th Century-Fox 's British subsidiary. The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed 's The Third Man (1949), from
17205-466: The classic period were similarly low- and modestly-budgeted features without major stars— B movies either literally or in spirit. In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints. There was more visual experimentation than in Hollywood filmmaking as a whole: the Expressionism now closely associated with noir and
17390-507: The collections the company has released, but is by no means exhaustive. Time Life's video business has been growing quickly since 2000. Starting out at the dawn of the VHS era in 1978, the division began with (re-)issuing such documentary series as The World at War (1973–74), The Trials of Life (1990), The Civil War (1990), The Wild West (1993), The Nazis: A Warning from History (1997), and Growing Up Wild (2012). As evidenced by
17575-491: The company and its only official online retailer were permanently shut down by its last owner, though the one remaining official website only went dark in May 2024. As Time-Life Books, Inc. – which was not formally incorporated as an official subsidiary until 1964 – the company gained fame as a seller of book series that were directly mailed to households in (bi-)monthly installments, operating as book sales clubs , which
17760-434: The conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived, rejected, or reimagined. These efforts typify what came to be known as neo-noir. Though several late classic noirs, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) in particular, were deeply self-knowing and post-traditional in conception, none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time. The first major film to overtly work this angle
17945-669: The desired format using the original master recordings, as opposed to being "re-records"; and that the most popular and requested songs by customers could be found in a single collection (as opposed to a customer having to purchase many albums to obtain just a few desired tracks). Customers were given a choice of which format they wanted their box set: either vinyl albums (through 1990), 8-track or cassette tape , or compact disc ; today's box sets are offered only as compact discs. While most of Time Life's box-sets and releases were critically hailed, there were also some minor faults pointed out by critics. For instance, several early pressings of
18130-684: The early volumes in "The Rock'n'Roll Era" series contained stereo re-recordings of the original hits (something that would be corrected on later pressings, either with the correct original recording or a replacement track). Sometimes, the most popular songs of a given time period were omitted, frequently due to licensing issues. Examples included The Beatles and The Rolling Stones for the Classic Rock and "Super Hits"/"AM Gold" series;, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain on various country music series;, and Prince , Madonna , Whitney Houston , Guns N' Roses , Bon Jovi , Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson on
18315-548: The early-1980s and located at the time at Ottho Heldringstraat 5, 1066 AZ Amsterdam , Netherlands ) as headquarters for mainland Europe and the British isles, which maintained administrative satellite offices in Paris ( France ), London ( UK ), and Munich ( Germany ), not by coincidence all located in the countries where Time-Life Books took on the publisher role itself. However, not rarely were these translated versions truncated for
18500-780: The editorial services of both for their early 1960s book series, particularly where pictorial content was concerned. The subsidiary moved out of the New York City premises to its own headquarters in Chicago, USA after that building had finished construction in 1969 (though it had left the book division at New York for the editorial convenience of having the Time and Life pictorial archives nearby), before it relocated back east again to 8280 Willow Oaks Corporate Drive, Fairfax, VA 22031 in 1986 where it remained until its ultimate demise in 2023. Starting in 1967, Time Life combined its book offerings with music collections (two to five records) and packaged them as
18685-406: The era; at least four qualify by consensus: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Wrong Man (1956), Otto Preminger 's success with Laura (1944) made his name and helped demonstrate noir's adaptability to a high-gloss 20th Century-Fox presentation. Among Hollywood's most celebrated directors of the era, arguably none worked more often in
18870-519: The events of publication and the aftermath: In A Catalogue of Crime (1971), a reference guide to detective fiction, Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor describe The Big Clock as "a truly brilliant story, laid in a large mass-communications organization … Tone and talk are sharp and often bitter—the whole business is a tour de force worthy of the highest praise." Barzun and Taylor selected The Big Clock for their hardcover-reprint series, Fifty Classics of Crime Fiction 1900–1950. "As if showing
19055-488: The expressionistic effects of classic black-and-white noir. Like Chinatown , its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson 's Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, demonstrates the opposite tendency—the deliberately retro film noir; its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953, the year in which it is set. Director David Fincher followed
19240-458: The femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade , and Murder, My Sweet (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe . The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example
19425-461: The field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style". Alain Silver , the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to film noir as a "cycle" and a "phenomenon", even as he argues that it has—like certain genres—a consistent set of visual and thematic codes. Screenwriter Eric R. Williams labels both film noir and screwball comedy
19610-622: The film's commercial success and seven Oscar nominations made it probably the most influential of the early noirs. A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946), and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to
19795-531: The finest neo-noirs in any medium, some critics rank it among the greatest television productions of all time. Among big-budget auteurs, Michael Mann has worked frequently in a neo-noir mode, with such films as Thief (1981) and Heat (1995) and the TV series Miami Vice (1984–89) and Crime Story (1986–88). Mann's output exemplifies a primary strain of neo-noir, or as it is affectionately called, "neon noir", in which classic themes and tropes are revisited in
19980-457: The first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster . Hungarian émigré Peter Lorre —who had starred in Lang's M —was top-billed, although he did not play the primary lead. (He later played secondary roles in several other formative American noirs.) Although modestly budgeted, at the high end of the B movie scale, Stranger on
20165-559: The first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde [ fr ] and Étienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 ( A Panorama of American Film Noir ), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject. They emphasize that not every noir film embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike; another, particularly brutal. The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship, but in
20350-464: The first years of its existence after Time & Life had shortly before relocated from its previous premises in Rockefeller Center in 1960. In 2014 it relocated again to smaller premises elsewhere in the city. As a brand, Time-Life actually outlived its sire by five years, as the remnants of Time & Life went defunct in early 2018 after a steady three-decades long decline (mirroring in effect
20535-801: The first, second and penultimate titles, Time Life Video had over its lifespan been the distributor of choice of British broadcasters, the BBC in particular, for the dissemination of their documentaries on home video formats in the US market. Time Life subsequently branched out into nostalgic television shows as well at more recent times, having been able to leverage their already music industry knowledge and contacts to release television shows previously held back because of expensive music rights clearances. Their collections were known for having extensive bonus features, liner notes and packaging. Television show releases from Time Life include: Film noir Film noir ( / n w ɑːr / ; French: [film nwaʁ] )
20720-429: The format of their choice); customers and had the option of keeping just the volumes they wanted. In time, each volume was also offered for individual sale. Several of the series – especially the pop, rock, country and rhythm and blues series – had retail versions for sale, released after the entire series was issued. Typically, these were sold at discount stores, often grouped in three-CD sets of 12 tracks each and having
20905-420: The fourteen-volume "40th Anniversary Edition" The Civil War: A Narrative and the eighteen-volume Voices of the Civil War series, where the volumes "Petersburg Siege to Bentonville" ( ISBN 0783501129 ) and "Shenandoah 1864" ( ISBN 078354717X ) were the rarer ones respectively. The same applied for "The Rise of Cities" volume ( ISBN 0705409910 ) from the twenty five-volume History of
21090-485: The genre include 1944's Phantom Lady (a top-of-the-line B and Woolrich adaptation), the ironically titled Christmas Holiday (1944), and Cry of the City (1948). Criss Cross (1949), with Lancaster again the lead, exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B-movie to the A noir. In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets, the nature of B production lent itself to
21275-483: The immensely successful neo-noir Seven (1995) with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original, disappointing release: Fight Club (1999), a sui generis mix of noir aesthetic, perverse comedy, speculative content, and satiric intent. Working generally with much smaller budgets, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir, with films such as Blood Simple (1984) and Fargo (1996),
21460-414: The inceptive noir, Stranger on the Third Floor , was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown, many of the films noir still remembered were A-list productions by well-known film makers. Debuting as a director with The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston followed with Key Largo (1948) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from
21645-409: The industry blacklist—as well as Henry Hathaway ( The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss of Death (1947)) and John Farrow ( The Big Clock (1948), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)). Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie. Some were Bs in the most precise sense, produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low-budget unit of one of
21830-427: The late 1950s, new trends emerged in the post-classic era. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer , Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Samuel Fuller , and Brainstorm (1965), directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad , all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir. The Manchurian Candidate examined
22015-440: The latter as a film noir despite its early date. Burnett's characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots—his protagonists were often heroic in their own way, which happened to be that of the gangster. During the classic era, his work, either as author or screenwriter, was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as noir, including three of
22200-554: The latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo-noir mode. The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama Miller's Crossing (1990)—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key —and the comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of The Long Goodbye . The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as
22385-563: The main Sounds of the Eighties series. Time Life Music too, was included in the December 31, 2003 sale of Time Life, Inc. to Direct Holdings Global, the former Time Warner owners having cited the "earnings drag of the direct-marketing music division" caused by the "challenging publishing environment where sales have suffered from a lack of hits and the downturn in the music business" as the reason to have
22570-412: The main book series had been. Yet, Time-Life Books was still able to sell 20 million books in 1985, which, at a US$ 260 million turnover that year (after having suffered a disastrous sales plunge to a mere US$ 1,6 million two years earlier ), made the subsidiary the largest single earning component of Time-Life, Inc. at that particular point in time – though it had to lay off over 200 employees (out of
22755-718: The main characters are policemen in Orléans , France . Directed by Roger Donaldson , No Way Out (1987) stars Kevin Costner , Gene Hackman , and Sean Young . Robert Garland's adaptation updates events to the American political world in Washington, D.C., during the Cold War . In October 1973 The Big Clock was also dramatized on radio as Desperate Witness , an episode of Mutual's The Zero Hour , hosted by Rod Serling . Time-Life Time Life, Inc. (also habitually represented with
22940-478: The major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry . Of the others, one was a small-studio release: Detour . Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists , the "studio without a studio": Gun Crazy ; Kiss Me Deadly ; D.O.A. (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick . One
23125-478: The master’s work but for the textual and pictorial presentation." Other examples standing out for their perceived picture/text quality included the 1970-72 LIFE Library of Photography series which featured for its time very high-quality duotone printing for its black-and-white reproductions in its original edition, having been able to draw on Life ' s own vast archive of journalistic and art photographs from virtually every major contemporary photographer (hence
23310-477: The mini-series became one of the very first to be also distributed through regular book store retail channels, sales picked up dramatically, thereby becoming a sales success after all. As a result, Time Life Books series, including the older ones that were still in print, were henceforth concurrently marketed through the regular book store channels as well, alongside the hitherto DTC-only channel – which incidentally, also encompassed Andrews' own 1996-98 Voices of
23495-457: The misfortunes of its erstwhile progeny), with its handful of surviving assets being broken up and sold piecemeal to a variety of third-party outsiders. In order to settle outstanding financial obligations pursuant their 2012 bankruptcy, Reader's Digest Association sold Time Life in 2013 to Mosaic Media Investment Partners. In 2023 and without so much as a whisper in contemporary media, Time-Life ended its six decades-long existence eventually, when
23680-452: The month before Lang's M , City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir; both its style and story had many noir characteristics. Raymond Chandler , who debuted as a novelist with The Big Sleep in 1939, soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school. Not only were Chandler's novels turned into major noirs— Murder, My Sweet (1944; adapted from Farewell, My Lovely ), The Big Sleep (1946), and Lady in
23865-469: The most famous classic noirs. By 1931, Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade, making as many as six films a year. Movies of his such as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and Private Detective 62 (1933) are among the early Hollywood sound films arguably classifiable as noir—scholar Marc Vernet offers the latter as evidence that dating the initiation of film noir to 1940 or any other year
24050-606: The most famous: High Sierra (1941), This Gun for Hire (1942), and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang, are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms. The film now most commonly cited as
24235-431: The most popular of the series' tracks, and cover artwork and naming loosely based on the subscription/catalog-exclusive titles. Additionally, the "Classic Country" series had special 15-track single-CD versions of several of its volumes issued for retail sale (in addition to budget 3-CD sets). As of March 2023, Time Life began shutting down its DTC CD and DVD music service. Until May 2024, the company's website only listed
24420-476: The most understandable of femme fatales; Dan Duryea , in one of his many charismatic villain roles; and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber, doomed by a romantic obsession. Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States; Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, for example, argue, "With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form ...
24605-501: The noir style for economic reasons: dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets (mist and smoke also served the cause). Night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules. Plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts. There was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene. In Criss Cross , Siodmak achieved these effects, wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo , who played
24790-416: The novel by Raymond Chandler, it features one of Bogart's most famous characters, but in iconoclastic fashion: Philip Marlowe, the prototypical hardboiled detective, is replayed as a hapless misfit, almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality. Where Altman's subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics, around the same time Woody Allen
24975-433: The once highly successful division included in the sale as well. Through 2010, several different series Time Life had offered were available on a subscription basis, either by calling a 1-800 number or sending a completed postcard-sized card and payment to Time Life. Purportedly, the customer would get a specific volume (as advertised on TV or in a magazine) first, before receiving a new volume roughly every other month (on
25160-505: The ones covered in the late 1980s Understanding Computers and Voyage Through the Universe series which were already outdated before either series had even completed its run. Nor were their history series entirely exempt from this phenomenon either, especially the early 1960s ones, as new insights, archeological findings and new technology have the potential to completely rewrite history as understood in past decades. Mayan history for example,
25345-428: The only other known paperback book series the publisher released afterwards), the new subsidiary started out for real in 1962 with the 1960-67 LIFE World Library (the "Time" qualifier was only in 1966 added to the company's name and book logos, coinciding with the renaming of sire company "Time, Inc." to "Time & Life, Inc.") hardback series it had inherited from its mother company, with the hardback slated to become
25530-578: The parallel influence of the cinematic newsreel. The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction , led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett (whose first novel, Red Harvest , was published in 1929) and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask . The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Glass Key (1942) were based on novels by Hammett; Cain's novels provided
25715-412: The period or subject featured. An essay published by Both Sides Now Publications noted that Time-Life's move into rock music came at a time when much of the adult audience Time-Life catered to grew up during the rock-and-roll era and, as such, the new series was consistent with its goal of catering to an adult audience. " The Rock 'n' Roll Era " series was a big success, and by the time the final volume
25900-459: The period, updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways, but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy, Long Goodbye -style humor: Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange, usually supernatural occurrences. The turn of the decade brought Scorsese's black-and-white Raging Bull (1980, cowritten by Schrader). An acknowledged masterpiece—in 2007
26085-514: The plethora of later output as the publisher moved away from soberly presented science and history toward sensationalism (that then with new age overtones imbued trend started in the mid-1980s with The Enchanted World and Mysteries of the Unknown series, followed in the early 1990s by the Library of Curious and Unusual Facts and True Crime series as prime sensationalist examples), less academically but more popularized written history (such as
26270-420: The position that film noir is a genre, argues that these elements are present "in abundance." Hirsch notes that there are unifying features of tone, visual style and narrative sufficient to classify noir as a distinct genre. Others argue that film noir is not a genre. It is often associated with an urban setting, but many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road; setting
26455-542: The post-classic area. Some of these are quintessentially self-aware neo-noirs—for example, Il Conformista (1969; Italy), Der Amerikanische Freund (1977; Germany), The Element of Crime (1984; Denmark), and El Aura (2005; Argentina). Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir, such as Castle of Sand (1974; Japan), Insomnia (1997; Norway), Croupier (1998; UK), and Blind Shaft (2003; China). The neo-noir film genre developed mid-way into
26640-478: The potential other-language editions in Europe. These European Time Life versions are far less common, if not outright rare, in used-book markets—the North American ones in particular—than Time Life's own proprietary releases are. The non-proprietary US home market releases on the other hand, are rare on European soil. Licensed series published under the Time-Life Books brand had the licensors dutifully mentioned in
26825-427: The preceding year, deeming them "too unprofitable". In essence, Time, Inc. emulated what former competitor Reader's Digest had been doing before them and what contemporary competitor National Geographic Books was still doing at that point in time, actually coming in more than one way full circle as they had done likewise themselves prior to their 1960 book series introduction. Somewhat confusingly, they began to employ
27010-566: The proto-noirs They Drive by Night (1940), Manpower (1941) and High Sierra (1941), now regarded as a seminal work in noir's development. Walsh had no great name during his half-century as a director but his noirs The Man I Love (1947), White Heat (1949) and The Enforcer (1951) had A-list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle. Other directors associated with top-of-the-bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk ( Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947))—the first important noir director to fall prey to
27195-525: The rare one, still commanding premium prices on Dutch/Belgian used-book markets for its extreme scarcity. Non-USA-specific topic series were habitually translated into other languages (French being the most predominant, due to Time Life's desire to have to bordering French-Canada served as well), and disseminated through local branches of Time-Life Books in the intended target markets. For several, usually smaller language areas, Time-Life regularly resorted to licensing out their publications to local publishers, as
27380-526: The reader’s intelligence, and, therefore, more worthy of praise". The same held equally true for the slightly earlier 1963–64 The LIFE History of the United States series where each of the volumes was written by an American historian of contemporary renown. Because of their intrinsic transient nature in regard to validity, most science book series quickly became ephemera of their time only a short while later on, especially those concerning fields in which developments followed each other at breakneck speed, such as
27565-618: The remake of The Getaway (1994); and many more, including adaptations of the work of other major noir fiction writers: The Hot Spot (1990), from Hell Hath No Fury , by Charles Williams ; Miami Blues (1990), from the novel by Charles Willeford ; and Out of Sight (1998), from the novel by Elmore Leonard . Several films by director-writer David Mamet involve noir elements: House of Games (1987), Homicide (1991), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), and Heist (2001). On television, Moonlighting (1985–89) paid homage to classic noir while demonstrating an unusual appreciation of
27750-505: The sale of the other stations, and remained owned by the company until 1984. It was also the U.S. television distributor of programs from the BBC in the United Kingdom until Lionheart Television took over in 1982. Time-Life, Inc.'s progenitor company Time & Life, Inc. had remained throughout its entire existence headquartered in New York City. Its 1271 Avenue of the Americas location became Time-Life's nascent headquarters as well in
27935-422: The sciences, and (world civilization) histories, as well as an early series on contemporary life in various countries of the world. Content of all of these earlier series was somewhat academic in tone and presentation, providing the basics of the subjects in the way it might be done in a lecture aimed at the general public. One of the earliest such series concerned the 1965–68 Great Ages of Man history series, which
28120-542: The seat of its subsidiary Direct Holdings Global during their 2003–13 ownership of Time Life. In their post-August 2009 haste to quit the book publishing business as quickly as possible, Direct Holdings decided to liquidate their leftover book stock by dumping it wholesale on specialized US and European remainder book stores, which included relatively new, late-1990s, produced series like The Civil War: A Narrative – 40th Anniversary Edition or Myths and Mankind . Subsequent owner Mosaic Media Investment Partners too, kept
28305-552: The semi-documentary style that later emerged represent two very different tendencies. Narrative structures sometimes involved convoluted flashbacks uncommon in non-noir commercial productions. In terms of content, enforcement of the Production Code ensured that no film character could literally get away with murder or be seen sharing a bed with anyone but a spouse; within those bounds, however, many films now identified as noir feature plot elements and dialogue that were very risqué for
28490-444: The sense of humor often found in the original cycle. Between 1983 and 1989, Mickey Spillane 's hardboiled private eye Mike Hammer was played with wry gusto by Stacy Keach in a series and several stand-alone television films (an unsuccessful revival followed in 1997–98). The British miniseries The Singing Detective (1986), written by Dennis Potter , tells the story of a mystery writer named Philip Marlow; widely considered one of
28675-600: The series temporary return to the "Life"-only title), remaining in print for over a decade besides spawning two spinoff photography series. In similar vein, the 1968–77 Foods Of The World series featured contributions by renowned contemporary food writers/critics and chefs such as M. F. K. Fisher , James Beard , Julia Child , Craig Claiborne , among others. The 1978–80 The Good Cook series, edited by Richard Olney , featured likewise contributions from Jeremiah Tower , fe Grigson, Michel Lemonnier, and many others. Other well regarded series covered nature, (urban) geography ,
28860-464: The situation of American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War . Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post-war functioned as an inspiration for a "Cold War Noir" subgenre. The television series The Fugitive (1963–67) brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run. In a different vein, films began to appear that self-consciously acknowledged
29045-660: The sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986) and the delusionary protagonist of Lost Highway (1997). The Twin Peaks cycle, both the TV series (1990–91) and a film, Fire Walk with Me (1992), puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms. David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in Naked Lunch (1991), inspired by William S. Burroughs ' novel . Perhaps no American neo-noirs better reflect
29230-408: The songs, with the addition of placement on various Billboard magazine charts. Like the earlier box-sets featuring other musical styles and genres, the country and pop music series were advertised in magazines, catalogs and direct mail. By this time though, and like its Time-Life Books sibling division, most of these collections were advertised on television as well, vigorously so in effect. There
29415-474: The subsidiary's staple book release format. The by the general populace perceived cachet of the hardback format where quality of both format and contents were concerned, actually lined up fully with the intent of original publisher Jerome Hardy, who had declared early on that his publishing company would succeed through a strategy to "give the customer more than he has any right to expect." Several of these book series garnered substantial critical acclaim unusual for
29600-594: The term has been used to describe films from around the world. Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially . Latter-day works are typically referred to as neo-noir . The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s. The question of what defines film noir and what sort of category it is, provokes continuing debate. "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric , strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ..."—this set of attributes constitutes
29785-430: The time ( Charley Pride was the first artist featured) getting their own album. But until the mid-1980s, Time Life did not feature a rock music-intensive series for customers, preferring to cater to older adults with conservative music tastes. Time Life's first successful foray into rock music came in 1986, with a series called "The Rock 'n' Roll Era." Each volume in that series—like similar series that followed—focused on
29970-519: The time) in box-sets. Although there were television advertisements, Time Life advertised most of these sets in magazines, specialty catalogs and direct mail , just like it did with their book series. In the early 1980s, Time Life began branching out, offering a series of albums focusing on country music . The first series was 1981's "Country Music," with volumes focusing on a particular artist and featuring eight or nine tracks per album. Twenty volumes were issued, with many of country's greatest artists of
30155-558: The time. Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on portrayals of women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity , directed by Billy Wilder; setting the mold was Barbara Stanwyck 's femme fatale , Phyllis Dietrichson—an apparent nod to Marlene Dietrich , who had built her extraordinary career playing such characters for Sternberg. An A-level feature,
30340-555: The total 1,243 employee pool of 1983, spread over ten worldwide offices ) and shutter the Mexico City (Time-Life International de Mexico S.A. de C.V.) and Tokyo , Japan (Time Life International Publishing) operations to turn around the dramatic net operating losses suffered earlier that decade, but which also heralded the beginning of Time-Life Books' gradual withdrawal from the Far Eastern and Latin-American markets. Of some series it
30525-412: The used-book market, due to their being published in millions of copies. The same incidentally, also applied for the handful of later stand-alone book titles the company had published that were not part of a series, such as the 1995 "Eyewitness: 150 years of photojournalism" ( ISBN 0848710223 ) title, but which were nonetheless usually conceived along the same thematic and format execution lines as
30710-411: The words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon." Though film noir is often identified with a visual style that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions , films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream. Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from
30895-425: Was French director Jean-Luc Godard 's À bout de souffle ( Breathless ; 1960), which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day. In the United States, Arthur Penn (1965's Mickey One , drawing inspiration from Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste and other French New Wave films), John Boorman (1967's Point Blank , similarly caught up, though in
31080-488: Was a difference though; did Time Life Books contend itself with the standard one-to-two minute long commercials, Time Life Music also made much more use of half hour commercials, which they poured in the guise of documentaries, the so-called " infomercials ", and not rarely presented by artists whose music was presented on the underlying release. The television advertisements used slogans (e.g., "Relive your high school days ..."), clips of songs included in each volume (along with
31265-458: Was adapted into film in 1960. Among the first major neo-noir films—the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition—was the French Tirez sur le pianiste (1960), directed by François Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers, David Goodis . Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in
31450-436: Was an independent distributed by MGM , the industry leader: Force of Evil (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield , both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s. Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but Sweet Smell of Success , despite the plans of the production team, was clearly not made on the cheap, though like many other cherished A-budget noirs, it might be said to have
31635-539: Was critically acclaimed by the Los Angeles Times where it was stated in a 1966 editorial that the series "(…)demonstrates the imposing possibilities of pictorial history… This, of course, is to be expected from the TIME-LIFE specialists. What is even more important is the selection of scholars of the reputation of Bowra and Hadas for texts. Research is meticulous and relevant. This is history written with respect for
31820-553: Was featured in Time Life's early Great Ages of Man and The Emergence of Man series. However, historians were forced to largely rewrite Mayan history after their script had been fully unlocked and modern technology had revolutionized Maya archeology in the 21st century, making the Time Life book entries on the subject obsolete and outdated. This even held true for their 1993 "The Magnificent Maya" outing ( ISBN 0809498790 ) in their more recent Lost Civilizations series. Some other series were less highly regarded, especially
32005-649: Was for example the case with The Old West and The Enchanted World series. One major such licensee had been Barcelona, Spain-based Ediciones Folio, S.A. who for decades was signed for several Spanish-language series editions in Europe – for Latin America Time-Life Books resorted to (smaller) local publishers on an ad-hoc basis. The British, French, German and Dutch European edition releases though, were handled by Time-Life themselves through their in 1976 established subsidiary branch "Time-Life International (Nederland) B.V." (renamed to "Time-Life Books B.V." in
32190-473: Was founded in 1961 as the book marketing subsidiary of the New York City-based Time Inc. , the later, around 1966, coined Time & Life, Inc. (note use of different connecting characters between "Time" and "Life") and took its name from Time Inc.'s two then-flagship magazines, Time and Life . It remained independent from both however, even though the company could in the beginning draw on
32375-400: Was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. She does not appear in the best-known film she directed, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), developed by her company, The Filmakers, with support and distribution by RKO. It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of
32560-558: Was issued in the early 1990s, more than 50 different volumes (including two Christmas albums) had been released. This paved the way for more country and pop music-intensive series, including " Country USA ," " Classic Rock ," " Sounds of the Seventies ," "Sounds of the Eighties," "Your Hit Parade" (a series featuring popular music of the 1940s through early 1960s) and " Super Hits ." Like the earlier series, each volume issued had its own paperback booklet containing liner notes and information about
32745-412: Was kept as a brand name however, though the copyright disclaimer had it emphatically stated that it is "not affiliated with Time Warner Inc. or Time [& Life], Inc.," the former owners of the Time and Life magazines, and from which the company name originated from in the first place. At the time of the takeover, it was reported the Time-Life, Inc.'s turnover had contracted to US$ 350 million, turning
32930-444: Was known as the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model. From its very launch in 1961 it was a runaway success with sales already expected to reach US$ 100 million one year into its existence. Prior to the division's establishment, Time, Inc. had already dabbled with single-title book publications on an occasional, ad-hoc basis such as the 1957 "Three Hundred Years of American Painting" ( OCLC 339210 ) or 1961 "Great Battles of
33115-413: Was known that a particular series title enjoyed a much smaller print run than the other volumes in the series, resulting in the after-market value of that particular volume and/or the set as a whole increasing initially – though the general trend of waning interest in physical books, those of Time-Life included, has caused these prices to decrease again after the turn of the millennium. Examples include
33300-501: Was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films. Successful films in that genre such as Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) demonstrated that there was an audience for crime dramas with morally reprehensible protagonists. An important, possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism , with its romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes. The movement's sensibility
33485-483: Was not even the first screen version of Cain's novel, having been preceded by the French Le Dernier Tournant in 1939.) In Japan, the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir, including Drunken Angel (1948), Stray Dog (1949), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and High and Low (1963). Spanish author Mercedes Formica's novel La ciudad perdida (The Lost City)
33670-472: Was paying affectionate, at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with Play It Again, Sam (1972). The " blaxploitation " film Shaft (1971), wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African-American private eye, John Shaft , takes conventions from classic noir. The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski 's 1974 Chinatown . Written by Robert Towne , it
33855-670: Was the inspiration for the Dragnet series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951. Several directors associated with noir built well-respected oeuvres largely at the B-movie/intermediate level. Samuel Fuller 's brutal, visually energetic films such as Pickup on South Street (1953) and Underworld U.S.A. (1961) earned him a unique reputation; his advocates praise him as "primitive" and "barbarous". Joseph H. Lewis directed noirs as diverse as Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). The former—whose screenplay
34040-753: Was the second biggest shareholder. Lang, Bennett and her husband, the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger , made Secret Beyond the Door (1948) in similar fashion. Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist , Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major/independent line: Brute Force (1947) and the influential documentary-style The Naked City (1948) were developed by producer Mark Hellinger , who had an "inside/outside" contract with Universal similar to Wanger's. Years earlier, working at Warner Bros., Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh ,
34225-412: Was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo , disguised by a front—features a bank hold-up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential. The Big Combo was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits. The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson ( The Phenix City Story [1955] and The Brothers Rico [1957]) tell stories of vice organized on
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