"Since The Dark Side of the Screen first appeared two decades ago, when film noir was still a little-known group of dark, brooding postwar B movies, it has become the essential take on what has become one of today's most pervasive screen influences and popular genres. Covering over a hundred outstanding films and offering nearly two hundred carefully chosen stills, this is by far the most thorough and entertaining study available of noir themes, visual motifs, character types, actors, and directors.

Hirsch examines the features that make Burt Lancaster, Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum, and Humphrey Bogart into noir icons: as well as the camera angles, lighting effects, and story lines that characterize the work of such major noir directors as Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Orson Welles. With a complete list of credits to 112 films and a new introduction, Hirsch's work remains the classic analysis of the most original genre of American cinema."--BOOK JACKET.