Noir Around the World

Turner Classic Movies host and Dark City Dames author Eddie Muller and Criterion Channel host Imogen Sara Smith offer an essential tour of international film noir, highlighting renowned movie classics and obscure noir masterpieces from around the world. Film noir has long been considered uniquely American, but Noir Around the World presents movies awash in noir themes and style that were made all over the globe. The journey entails a far-ranging itinerary of enthralling crime stories, celebrating renowned classics such as The Third Man (England, 1949), Rififi (France, 1955), and Bitter Rice (Italy, 1949), and unearthing obscure noir masterpieces from South America, Korea, Scandinavia, and the Middle East. In the process, the authors trace the artistic crosspollination that fueled the most significant cinematic movements of all-time, from neo-realism’s origins in early 1940s Italy, to the postwar “rubble films” of vanquished nations, from the “sun tribe” films that changed Japanese cinema, to the innovations of the French and Czech “New Waves” —all of which intersected with noir in ways both subtle and stunning. Noir Around the World features some of the most popular international actors of all-time: Jean Gabin, Pedro Armendariz, Lucia Bosè, Toshiro Mifune, and a young Ingrid Bergman. Readers will encounter extraordinary filmmakers such as Edith Carlmar (the Ida Lupino of Norway), Sweden’s Hasse Ekman, and Mexico’s Roberto Gavaldon, alongside familiar American directors like Edward Dmytryk and Robert Siodmak, making sensational films noir for international audiences. Illustrated by more than 150 black-and-white photos and full-color poster artwork, Noir Around the World is a stunning and revelatory movie guide from equally insightful and entertaining tour guides, Eddie Muller and Imogen Sara Smith.