The History of Film Noir

It has been 60 years since the genre of Film Noir was founded, The term film noir which is French for "black film" it was first applied to America by film critic Nino Frank. Film Noir developed from the crime sub-genre and gangster movies, they are based around "choosing a dame with a past and a hero with no future" they have a lot of sexuality and attractiveness based around women who are also known as femme fatales meaning any man that is unfortunate to fall for this woman would be in a power relationship run by her and her view and opinion is the only one. The main character is always based around a man (the hero) who normally has the occupation of a detective or a businessman, making it easier for him to meet the dangerous femme fetales. A lot of the Film Noirs are often based in an urban setting, many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road, the settings are never the same so the storyline always appears to be different as the audience is fooled by the different location, but there is always a similarity in the storyline.
There were big budget studios that some film Noirs were produced in, Paramount and Universal studios were the main studios that were used, as these two studios are very successful businesses now it is good to see that the Film Noirs were created and may have influenced their successfulness.
Film Noirs started during WW2 so it was hard to get the right professionals needed to create the films, so this was the women that were left behind during the war to put themselves to good use and enter the workplace, women were enlightened by this and come to the end of the war did not want to relinquish this new found empowerment, this was a huge social shift.

There are many films that have been made that relate to the Film Noirs such as pulp fiction; a detective film, Film Noir heavily used and influenced by the "hard boiled" and seedy private eye. Although these two movies were made 50 years apart they do share some of the same qualities.