I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker for old black and white movies; especially those that originated from the days when my grandparents were young, and when Hollywood gave the world screen dramas that are always worth revisiting.

From that era, among serious cineastes, there gradually evolved the now familiar tag Film Noir.

This was a particular kind of dark tinged movie that was initially brought into the light by prominent French critics, who came to notice certain traits and characteristics within certain movies, that appeared throughout much of the 1940s.

So for the uninitiated, what exactly is Film Noir?

Well, simply put – Film Noir projected a specific look and style that evoked a particular mood and atmosphere that contributed to many films that emerged first during the early 1940s and carried on well into the 1950s.

It became a type of film that was highlighted and brought to cinema audience’s attention by the skilled use of monochrome camera work, sharp angular lighting, and an overall mood that reflected the unease and uncertainty that had affected American society in the immediate post war years.

Many of the most famous examples were more often than not: dark, smoky, bleak and fatalistically romantic in tone. That often-featured sardonic private eyes, crooked cops, sultry and duplicitous females who offered a glimpse of sin but at a dangerous price; along with a deep strain of pessimism interwoven within the complex plots.

With a number of them, there was off-screen narration, frequent flashbacks, along with the deadly kiss of a spider-woman entrapping an all too willing victim. They also delved deep into lies, secrecy, deceit, treachery, double cross and betrayal… inevitably leading to cold blooded murder. So not many laughs you might say, though there is often a thread of mordant humour running through many of their narratives.

1941 is often thought of as being the time when the genre of was first properly noticed, with three films in particular standing out as possessing the required aspects of this new style: The Maltese Falcon, I Wake Up Screaming, and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

Despite their very different plot scenarios, they all tick the appropriate boxes when it came to complex characterisations, outstanding use of the camera, and an overall bleakness as regards the human condition.

Among other examples that flooded the cinema screens throughout the 1940s & 1950s included: Double Indemnity, Farewell My Lovely, Laura, Gilda, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, The Killers, Kiss Of Death, Crossfire, Out Of The Past and The Big Heat…

The influence of many of the above can seen later as a noirish aura infiltrates such diverse movies as: Chinatown, Night Moves, Blade Runner, The Usual Suspects & LA Confidential.

My own particular favourite Noir film arrived in 1950 under the masterful direction of John Huston. This was The Asphalt Jungle, an exemplary excursion into the dark underbelly of urban crime.

It’s also perhaps the original heist movie, in which a group of small time criminals are brought together by fate, or chance, to execute a daring jewel robbery.

All the usual suspects are involved in the line up: a corrupt cop on the take, a shady lawyer looking to bolster his diminishing bank balance, a slick opportunistic private eye wanting a piece of the action, a strong-arm gambler and petty crook yearning to wash away the big city grime from his soul and return to his Kentucky home, a pouting teenage blonde with dreams of endless riches (played by a pre-stardom Marilyn Monroe), a resolute police commissioner determined to clean up the city jungle of its undesirable elements, and a criminal mastermind with underlying depraved desires.

The script is taut, tough, unsentimental, as a malevolent mixture of greed, bad luck and untrustworthiness causes the plan to quickly unravel, proving to be the gang’s ultimate undoing before the wailing sirens of the law descend upon them.

Unusually, the music score (composed by the man who provided the definitive musical sound of Film Noir – Miklos Rozsa) is used sparingly throughout the plot, with its brevity heightening an almost documentary atmosphere.

So this engrossing tale of human fallibility, the trail of cigarette smoke, broken dreams and a deadly embrace down those dark, mean streets, provided the ultimate coda for the entire world of Film Noir: “Crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour…”