Film noir
Film noir has been parodied many times in many manners. In 1945, Danny Kaye starred in what appears to be the first intentional film noir parody, "Wonder Man". That same year, Deanna Durbin was the singing lead in the comedic noir "Lady on a Train", which makes fun of Woolrich-brand wistful miserablism. Bob Hope inaugurated the private-eye noir parody with "My Favorite Brunette" (1947), playing a baby-photographer who is mistaken for an ironfisted detective. In 1947 as well, The Bowery Boys appeared in "Hard Boiled Mahoney", which had a similar mistaken-identity plot; they spoofed the genre once more in "Private Eyes" (1953). Two RKO productions starring Robert Mitchum take film noir over the border into self-parody: "The Big Steal" (1949), directed by Don Siegel, and "His Kind of Woman" (1951). The "Girl Hunt" ballet in Vincente Minnelli's "The Band Wagon" (1953) is a ten-minute distillation of—and play on—noir in dance. "The Cheap Detective" (1978), starring Peter Falk, is a broad spoof of several films, including the Bogart classics "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca". Carl Reiner's black-and-white "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982) appropriates clips of classic noirs for a farcical pastiche, while his "Fatal Instinct" (1993) sends up noir classic ("Double Indemnity") and neo-noir ("Basic Instinct"). Robert Zemeckis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988) develops a noir plot set in 1940s L.A. around a host of cartoon characters.