Film Noir

Detour & Gun Crazy Discussion Notes

"A" Pictures (Majors)

• Generally known studios (MGM, Warner Brothers)
• Generally first tier stars
• Publicity machine
• Owned Distribution
• Premiers
• Usually 80% of the take

Poverty Row (Minors)

• Sub-industry
• Republic - John Wayne Westerns
• Monogram - became Allied Artists
• PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation
• CBC - became Columbia Pictures

CBC

• Academy Awards - took top 5 (sweeping):
  • It Happened One Night
  • One Flwe Over the Coocoo's Nest
  • Silence of the Lambs

"B" Pictures

• Little known production companies
• Westers, genre films
• Little or no publicity
• Low, low budgets
• Often films from Poverty Row
• Return at flat rate of $100 - $200
• Saturday Mattinees
• Double feature = "A" film + "B" film
• Modern day equivalent of a "B" film is direct to TV or DVD

Fil Noir

• Noir films were generally "B" pictures
• Classic Noirs - "A" pictures
• The Asphalt Jungle and Gun Crazy was a middle ground film
• By the 1950's the magors had "B" units (ex. MGM) and eventially Poverty Row dies off

Gun Crazy

• Directed by Lewis
• Well known
• Not released as a "B" film
• French see it as significant in film noir history
• Press reviewed in New York
• Had a premier
• Had some machine in place
• "B" Noirs could be elevated

Discussion Questions:

• Similarities and Differeces between Gun Crazy and Detour
• Evolution of film noir, what does Schrader say?
• Metaphor of the road in Gun Crazy and Detour
• Fasicination with "Lovers on the run"
• American Dream vs Waste Land
• Why is Detour a celebrated film?
• Visual representations of Waste Land in Detour
• Bofganovich and interview with Ulmer
• Unreliable narrator in Detour