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Resonances with other noirs


Although it was a staple of the noir to rerun the Adam and Eve story, in which a man befuddled by a woman descends into ignominy, for me two aspects of this film seemed to have few resonances with others.

One was the appalling wig disfiguring the female lead which, like the bizarre blonde contraption stuck on Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity”, should have warned the male that she was No Good.

The other was the closing Liebestod, in which the lovers chose joint death over escape to Mexico. This was in the book of “Double Indemnity” but was wisely omitted from the film, Raymond Chandler being an infinitely better writer than James M. Cain. The only case that springs to mind was “Out of the Past”, where Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum (again) drove into a police ambush.

Any other examples?

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