Extreme definitions limit the film noir canon to fewer than ten films, while other listings include hundreds. Read my future. While all these definitions may have their own validity or problems, there can be little doubt that visual style is the one thing that all films noirs have in common. A happy ending turns a film noir into a film gris or a melodrama done in noir style. Ironically, although noir was most definitely a product of the Hollywood studio system, no one in Hollywood intentionally set out to create what we now call film noir.
Film historians name several sources.
Some see the cynical, fatalistic elements of film noir arising out of the dismal turmoil of World War II and the no-nonsense era it produced. Somehow, the combination of the historical period, American and European filmmakers and performers working in the Hollywood studio system, German film tradition, the relaxation of Production Code censorship, as well as an American literary genre all came together to produce a uniquely American cinematic art form. All rights reserved.