... . The earliest film noirs were detective thrillers, with plots and themes often taken from adaptations of literary works - preferably from best-selling, hard-boiled, pulp novels and crime fiction by Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain or Dashiell Hammett. Very often, a film noir story was developed around a male character [e.g., Robert Mitchum, Fred MacMurray, or Humphrey Bogart] who encountered a ... with the flashback story of a lethally-poisoned and doomed protagonist (Edmond O'Brien) who announced in the opening: "I want to report a murder - mine." Noirs with Chandler's Philip Marlowe: ...

• Word Count: 1859
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... , from depictions of our society to the exploration of an individual; the crime genre is now a genre that incorporates many other genres. Philip Marlowe from "The Big Sleep" written by Raymond Chandler, film directed by Howard Hawks has been thrust into a morally corrupt and decayed world of the 30's and 40's, with drugs, sex, blackmail, gamblers, pornographers and murders Crime was ... intelligence and looks down at the feeble intellect displayed by society whereas the hardboiled detective is mid-way between lawful society and the underworld, walking on the brink. Hardboiled writer Raym...

• Word Count: 1742
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate