The soundtrack in noir movies, and the popular songs incorporated in them, whether in whole or in part, contribute significantly to the effect of the film. Which example(s) would you single out?
Suzanne Lummis:
Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950), has Dix Steele and Laurel Gray—Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame [see image on left] —sitting at a piano with other couples, listening to the silky smooth rendition of the lounge singer, vocalist and pianist Hadda Brooks, I was a lonely one, till you. I used to lie awake and wonder, if there was someone in this wide, wide world made for me… He lights a cigarette for her, and she takes it in her mouth, such an intimate gesture. He whispers to her. They are so in love. And it will never be that good again. Nothing is going to be that good again, for either of them. If these characters had lives beyond the credits at the end, we know that each on their dying bed looked back and thought, ‘that's what happiness felt like.’ And because someone who unsettles their composure enters the club, that happiness didn’t even last the length of the song. That’s noir.
David Lehman
Like the cigarettes, the drinks, and the clothes -- the fedoras and trench-coats, the women's hats and hose -- the music is a critical part of the noir charm. You have composers on the order of Bernard Herrmann [pictured right] doing the soundtracks for Hitchcock's most noir films, Vertigo and Psycho. You have jazz soundtracks from Duke Ellington (Anatomy of a Murder) and Miles Davis (Elevator to the Gallows). You have songs like “Put the Blame on Mame” in Gilda that seem to sum up an entire aspect of the noir attitude. (Click here for an enjoyable detour.) You have David Raksin’s “Laura,” without which that Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney classic would be a lesser work. You have these great American standards that show up almost as facilitators of the plot: “Tangerine” when Stanwyck and MacMurrary realize the jig is up in Double Indemnity; the same song on the car radio when Stanwyck is a spoiled heiress in Sorry, Wrong Number; “Too Marvelous for Words” when Bogart holes up in Bacall’s place in Dark Passage. (What else do these three songs , "Laura," "Tangerine," and "Too Marvelous for Words," have in common? Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for all three.) You have unforgettable scenes. Sam Jaffe, mastermind of the jewel heist in The Asphalt Jungle, is caught because he can’t take his eyes off the teenage girl and boy dancing the lindy, enjoying themselves with the nickels he provided for the jukebox.
Note: Professor Frank Tomasulo recommends this essay, "Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir." http://www.f.waseda.jp/norm/filmnoir/visualmotifs.pdf
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