Film noir, a genre characterized by dark lighting, seedy characters and raging sexuality, became an American movie mainstay in the early 1940s. Influenced by the stylized cinema of the German Expressionists and the white-hot violence of 1930s pulp magazines like “Black Mask,” film noir would leave an indelible mark on film. Read more...
Photo: One of the definitive mystery and noir films of the 1940s, Otto Preminger’s “Laura” stars Dana Andrews as Mark McPherson, a detective who falls in love with Laura (Gene Tierney), a woman who’s murder he is investigating.