The Worldwide Film Noir Tradition: The Complete Reference to Classic Dark Cinema from America, Britain, France and Other Countries Across the Globe
Film noir continues to be a compelling genre, even if its parameters remain elusive. Though largely an American phenomenon, film noir has worldwide representation. (Indeed, it was a French film critic who created the term.) This volume focuses on films released between 1940 and 1965. Selby, a longtime film aficionado, is the author of  Dark City: The Film Noir (1984), and this volume reflects his own insights.   The bulk of the volume is an alphabetical list of film noir titles, separated by country: almost 800 American films, 388 British films, and 177 French films, while an additional 257 films represent 27 other countries. Each entry includes the title (sometimes translated), the director, the head of photography, the head of music, the lead cast, the film length, and a brief plot summary. After these country-by-country lists, there are appendixes listing 50 masterworks each for the U.S., Great Britain, and France; a list of 250 American titles selected by Selby as the film noir canon; a list of classical noir films in color; antecedents of film noir; and an index of titles by year, separated by country. A two-page selected biography completes the volume. Three sets of small, low-resolution black-and-white movie stills provide visual cues about the genre.   Selby asserts that the list consists of “all classic films released in America that are deemed worthy of the noir label.”  Using the term all is a bit presumptuous (and rather arbitrary), particularly since even Selby notes that some films are hard to locate. For instance, western film noir is underrepresented (no mention of the films Yellow Sky or Naked Spur), while the inclusion of On the Waterfront and The Picture of Dorian Grey seems to be stretches. The French film Breathless was also omitted (perhaps because it also signals the French New Wave, even though it is also frequently listed as a film noir classic). But, on the whole, Selby has done a thorough job on identifying available films.   This work provides a unique bibliography of worldwide classic film noir. Although the selection of masterworks and canon cannot be considered definitive, the work provides a fair assessment that will inform readers. --Lesley Farmer