Noir and You: David Lehman Asks Suzanne Lummis About The Studio System

David Lehman:

Do you believe that true noir as a genre -- leaving out neo-noirs, parodies, and ingenious movies on the order of The Getaway, The Usual Suspects, and Memento -- owes its existence to the studio system, where you had the value of a generic formula, the availability of contract players to round out a cast, and excellent writers of dialogue?

Suzanne Lummis:

Film noir probably owes its origins to the studio system but not necessarily its flourishing. I’ve come upon alternative views that say the abrupt weakening of the studio system in the aftermath of some legal battles allowed more independent producers to enter the field, producers who then hired independent directors with their own visions and signature styles. I think it would’ve been hard to get a movie as weird and anarchistic as Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly made under the strictures of the earlier studio system.  

Maybe the question has no definitive answer, because there always was a type of formula B-movie cranked out within the profit-making machine. Get yourself a Man, a Woman, and a Gun, maybe a second woman, maybe a couple more guns, and, somewhere, Money—that can be gotten by cheating, thievery, or murder.  Oh, and you’ll need law enforcement, which could be a squad car filled with anonymous cops or one guy who’s made it his life’s work to crack this case or dog these fugitives. They could roll those elements around each other and come up with a working script to film fast and cheap.

On the other hand, we have examples of brilliant moviemaking. Double Indemnity, for instance -- no one pitched that as a B-movie. It was top-tier all the way: Billy Wilder directing and writing, Raymond Chandler co-writing, the source material a book by a seminal writer of hard-boiled crime, James M. Cain.  Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson. All of them, great talents at the top of their game. 

I just read a quote by Robert Aldrich about the paradox of the studio system, the good and the bad of it. This makes me laugh — file it under You Can’t Win for Losing. “We'd had twenty years of petty dictators running the industry, during which time everybody worked and everybody got paid, maybe not enough, but they weren't on relief. Seventeen years later you wonder if the industry is really more healthy in terms of creativity. Are we making more or better pictures without that central control? But when everybody worked under those guys, they hated them.”      

This is the fifteenth in a series of exchanges about noir. For previous posts, click here.

Comments

[Michael Shepler]

"Kiss Me Deadly" along with several other great Aldrich flicks of the mid-50s ("Big Knife", "Attack" among them) were released thru UA but made under the auspices of Aldrich's company, Associates & Aldrich, so in that instance they were basically independent rather than studio produced. I do think we owe the studios a major debt for nurturing, even inadvertently, the genre. I think "Maltese Falcon" was considered a "nervous A", certainly not big budget. "Indemnity" aside, probably more classic noirs were considered programmers at the time of their release.

[Suzanne Lummis]

Michael, that's good to know. I came across that quote from Aldrich and he sounded as if he'd had plenty of experience or run-ins with the studio heads. Maybe he got some of his training and experience within the studio system before he struck out on his own.

What's a "nervous A" -- I've never heard that term. Oh, you must mean a movie that might be the "A" of the double bill, but it's hanging on the edge.

[Michael Shepler]

That was a genuine expression which I just love ("Nervous A). Aldrich had a lot of great experience before directing himself, working with Renoir ("The Southerner"), Lewis Milestone ("A Walk in the Sun"), William Wellman ("Story of GI Joe"), Rossen ("Strange Love of Martha Ivers" & "Body & Soul") Abe Polonsky ("Force of Evil"), Losey("The Prowler" & "M"). He worked at RKO, Paramount & Columbia. His first notable films as a director were for Burt Lancaster, "Vera Cruz" & "Apache", both 1954. Love Aldrich. His version of Odets' "The Big Knife" was, he admitted, an attempt to get revenge for John Garfield who'd been crucified by HUAC & who had played the lead in the Broadway version of "Knife".