Dark city the lost world of film noir

DARK CITY: THE LOST WORLD OF FILM NOIR

May 1998, Trade Paperback, St. Martin's Griffin


Dark City
is unique among film books. It entwines classic silver screen fictions with intriguing factual back-stories about the people who created the moody and mysterious world of film noir. The truth is often bleaker—and more cruelly humorous—than the darkest cinematic concoctions. The author dispenses with the staid formalism of most film writing, relating this slice of cinema history with the headlong thrust of crime fiction, peppered with the hardboiled argot of the period.

Between the big-screen shakedowns and seductions emerges a real-life swirl of labor racketeers, corrupt moguls, "parlor pinks," and femmes fatale.
Dark City
presents post-WWII Hollywood as ground zero in the explosion of artistic, political, and cultural cynicism that engulfs us today. And it manages to be funny at the same time. The book is lavishly illustrated with more than 200 black and white photos, and a color insert featuring classic film noir movie posters.


Dark City
was nominated for the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America as "Best Critical/Biographical Work of

Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir




Fans of film noir are certainly in luck this summer! Eddie Muller, TCM’s “Czar of Noir,” has released a revised and expanded edition of
Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir
with plenty of new information and photographs for readers to enjoy.

Film noir is celebrated for its pessimistic tone, harsh atmosphere, and its ability to make female artists shine. While there are numerous noir films that immediately come to mind as classics exemplary of the filmmaking style, there are many more lesser-discussed films noir that are yet to enjoy the spotlight.

Muller’s
Dark City
offers a thorough overview of a varied selection of films noir, from the staples to the hidden gems. His book delves into each film with a thoughtful discussion of its context, production, as well as on- and off-screen talents involved. Readers can learn about what made each particular film special, in addition to the challenges faced along the way during production.

Moreover, Muller also offers intriguing glimpses into the personal and professional lives of various stars who appeared in noir, including the likes of femme fatales like Rit


Book Review: Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir (Revised and Expanded Edition) by Eddie Muller





Author Eddie Muller, founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation and host of TCM’s
Noir Alley,
once again serves as a tour guide for
Dark City
, a job he had previously done in 1998. Having not read the previous version, all I know is this Revised and Expanded Edition has added 64 pages, and as his Author’s Note states, “allows [him] to include in this historical excursion movies once feared lost forever, gems such as
Woman on the Run, Too Late for Tears, The Guilty, Trapped
, and
The Man Who Cheated Himself
.” In his Afterword, Muller reveals “the Film Noir Foundation has restored and preserved more than thirty films,” including those aforementioned “gems”.

Rather than a chronological history through the many titles that fall under the “film noir” umbrella, made in and outside Hollywood studios, Muller has organized the book into thematic chapters, from criminally corrupt characters in “Sinister Heights” to “The Precinct” which finds local and federal law enforcement involved and not always as the good guys. Other character types getting their own


When I first began watching film noir, Eddie Muller's DARK CITY: THE LOST WORLD OF FILM NOIR was an indispensable guide.

I was initially slow to embrace film noir, finding it, well,
dark
; my gateways into the genre included films with favorite musical stars, Betty Grable in I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) and Alice Faye in FALLEN ANGEL (1945), which I saw in 2006-2007.

In 2007 my dad sent me a softcover edition of the original 1998 edition of DARK CITY to support my developing interest; I know the exact year because the Amazon packing slip remained in the book as a bookmark! I was later able to have Eddie sign my copy in 2011.

From those early years I watched more and more of the noir genre, attending my first Noir City Hollywood Festival in 2010 -- and every year since! I've also attended several editions of the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs and additional screenings at venues such as UCLA's Billy Wilder Theater and the late, lamented Leo S. Bing Theater at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.



DARK CITY was there with me every step of the way, the first reference I turned to as I became acquainted with dozens of new films over the past decade and a half.
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