May 22, 2013
Super Bass
Is Gian’s love for the Summer King stronger than his hate?
May 15, 2013
The Button Man and the Murder Tree
An all-new Wild Cards story
May 14, 2013
Shall We Gather
When one world brushes another, asking the right question can be magic…
May 8, 2013
Fire Above, Fire Below
The dragon below our city has died. What is to be done?
There are obvious choices for my favorite film noir actors: trenchcoat-draped Robert “Baby, I just don’t care!” Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart can do no wrong. Their line delivery alone makes them noir icons.They could make reading a shopping list sound like noir.
But everyone knows Mitchum and Bogie. Here’s a few of my favorite actors/actresses of a smaller marquee profile that you might consider when stepping into the dark, back alleys of film noir.
When Tor.com asked me to write something for their Noir Week, I jumped at the chance. Being a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and noir, this is the ultimate mashup for me.
Noir has lots of connections with sci-fi and fantasy, but lets get something out of the way: Batman is not film noir. I get that the early Batman and Dick Tracy comics drew heavily on Hollywood. The clothing styles, stories and art-deco look were very much inspired by early crime movies. Dick Tracy was modeled after square-jawed actor Jack Holt. The Joker was Conrad Veidt in the Man Who Laughs. However, when Batman movies are made today they take inspiration from the old great looking comics — not from noir. There is nothing I see in The Dark Knight that I would consider truly noir. The same with Sin City and all the comic movies in between — except for the fact that they’re almost black and white at times and they wear hats.
