Noir En Couleur
The decline of American film noir is historically coincident with the advent of the “red menace” and the “blacklist” as well as the transformation of the motion picture industry occasioned by new technologies such as Technicolor and CinemaScope. However, a close examination of color and widescreen in select feature films of the period—Black Widow (1954), House of Bamboo (1955), Slightly Scarlet (1956), and A Kiss before Dying (1956)--suggests that film noir in the 1950s in fact adapted to the rapidly changing industrial landscape of Hollywood and, in the process, engaged such “classical” and topical issues as the femme fatale, femininity, and the “murder mystery” (Black Widow), homosexuality, interracial romance, and the occupation of Japan (House of Bamboo), criminality, gangsters, and female sexuality (Slightly Scarlet), as well as class, the homme fatal, and the female detective (A Kiss before Dying).