Hardboiled

The sub-genre of crime noir, hardboiled fiction, was invented by Edgar Allan Poe. His publication of The Murders in the Rue Morgue in 1841 marked the creation of the hardboiled genre of crime fiction, which further took off fifty years later with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels. The mystique surrounding these genre’s is what attracts audiences, a tradition that has continued in the production of films. The Maltese Falcon is one of the most popular examples of both crime noir and hardboiled fiction, due to the characterization of Sam Spade and the design of the film. It is necessary for the protagonist of a hardboiled detective story to have a tough attitude and possess the disposition of a loner. Sam Spade is the epitome of a hardboiled detective because he possesses these qualities. When combining his character with the setting and plot, it creates the ideal hardboiled noir film. It is for these reasons that it is the first example of crime noir and hardboiled fiction that people reference when speaking about these genre’s. The first brush with the fundamentals of hardboiled fiction that the audience are met with upon beginning their viewing of The Maltese Falcon is Sam Spade. At the beginning of the film, Sam meets with a potential client alongside his…

In the Maltese Falcon, Hammett builds a detective through the genre of hardboiled fiction and his writing style. Like a boiled egg that has lost all softness. “The writing style is gritty and tough.”(the big read). In the writing a hard boiled detective is a “man at odds with society, whose motivation stems not from monetary reward but from a personal code and the search for truth.”Throughout the novel, Spade’s definition of a detective comes to be a hardboiled hero that isn’t afraid to use…

work. First, what is a femme fatale? In Criminal Femmes Fatales in American Hardboiled Crime Fiction, Maysaa…

The hard-boiled detective, in noir tradition, is typically depicted as a lone wolf figure, one that upholds morality while balancing the corruption inherent in his line of work. He could be defined by his sexual potency, just as much as by his denial of pleasure. Raymond Chandler, in his 1950 essay, The Simple Art of Murder, outlines this archetype, with an authority appropriate to his foundational authorship. Chandler writes, “He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a…

detectives, and to the realism behind his works. Hammett’s was born in 1894 in Maryland; he lived a tough life he had to drop out of school at a young age to support his family. He picked up small jobs until he got a job working in as a detective for the Pinkerton Agency. Later in life Hammett severed in World War I, and notices the violence surrounding him in life. So he decided to focus his works on more violent side of the world. His works often focused on the world being a hostile and…

Raymond Chandler’s The High Window introduces Philip Marlowe as a private detective. Mrs. Murdock is in need of a private detective, and she heard Marlowe can get the job done. He is hired and his duty is to find Mrs. Murdock’s daughter-in-law, Linda, without anyone getting arrested. Linda has stolen one of the valuable coins that Mrs. Murdock’s deceased husband collected. Already the suspicion starts when Marlowe senses that Mrs. Murdock is not telling him the entire story; she doesn’t want her…

The crime drama ‘Heat’ (Mann) tells the story of a criminal, Neil, and a cop, Vincent. One is content, calm, and has a budding love interest. The other is unhappy, brash, and is at the end of his third marriage. In any other movie, the first description would characterize Vincent and the second would represent Neil. ‘Heat’ flips these roles and makes the criminal behave like a cop and the cop act criminal. Michael Mann, the director of ‘Heat’, chooses to portray these characters as opposites to…

Tough Guys: Masculinity in Hard-Boiled Fiction Hard-boiled fiction initially emerged in the pulp magazines, such as the Black Mask, in the late nineteen twenties and early thirties. The genre originated through the writings of Dashiell Hammett and further developed by the work of Raymond Chandler. Hard-boiled fiction is often acclaimed as an icon of American masculinity in modern literature. The conception of masculinity represented by the protagonist in these narratives became popular amongst…

Film Noir started when American film change its context to a much darker subject matter due to the aftermath of World War II. Based from the article of Christopher McColm, McColm gathers information to review the book “Blackout: World War II and the origins of Film Noir” whose author is Sheri Chinen Biesen. In the book, Biesen argues that the term noir emerged during the war era. Noir authors used the concept of post-war American angst to relay to the audience that noir fiction tends to…

After the Great Depression period, people needed a new beginning. The United States experienced a rise of prosperity where big cities such as Los Angeles were in the center. The American Dream was revitalized. In the late 1930s, the hard-boiled novel became increasingly popular, but when hard-boiled novels were later adapted as films, the films were regarded as works of Noir. The term Noir was adapted by French critics because the films featured techniques such as black and white coloring and…