the term is a good one
film noir has a nice ring to itdon’t you think?Sunday Paper-ish you could say
where a bit of French
always goes down a treatfilm noir est le mot juste
thenthough Its definition
est un peu flexiblethere are some givens:must be black and whitethe shots angled
light filtered alwaysthrough Venetian blindsGloria Grahame of the poutand wonderful slippery lipsmust be the mollPsycho i960 is definitely not film noirdespite being in black and whitePoint Blank 1967 definitely isdespite being in colour
film noirdoesn’t have to be FrenchHollywood is good at it toothough Jean Gabin and Michelle Morganin Le Quai Des Brumes 1938
have a lot to answer for
as they do their doomed biz
passion betrayal crossed-love
Gabin’s muirder is solitary
no bullets ricochet
in the half-light
though convention demanded
in their 40s-50s film noir heyday
that crime doesn’t pay
so the villain or villainess –
Barbara Stanwyck peut-être?
cannot get away with it
if Raymond Chandler
somehow had a hand in it
you’d regret the death of a petty crim
played by Elisha Cooke Jr
who else?
meantime it’s become obvious
this poem could go on forever
so if you fancy you can
finish it off yourself
like the gangsters finished off
en film noir typique
so blaze away
while the ghosts of
Humphrey Bogart
Lauren Bacall
Peter Lorre
Ingrid Bergman
Sydney Greenstreet
and a host
of lighting directors
stand by and applaud
J’espere
Jeff Cloves
.
John Garfield
Comment by Tim on 22 August, 2026 at 8:16 am