Kimberly Truhler surveys film noir style in her new book Film Noir Style. This is more than an analysis of the costumes the actors wore in films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gilda, though it is that. Truhler occasionally discusses how lighting, set design, and camera angles fashioned the instantly identifiable noir aesthetic.
However, matters sartorial are at the forefront of Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s. Truhler explains how wartime deprivations forced noir to move away from the opulence of Depression-era Hollywood and toward the sleeker, skimpier style that defined the crime pictures of the forties. She gives a lot of background on the stylers (Paramount’s Edith Head and Oleg Cassini, Universal’s Vera West, Warner Bros.’ Orry-Kelly, etc.) and the stars they most ironically styled (Bogart, Bacall, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Gene Tierney, Barbara Stanwyck, Ava Gardner, etc.). She selects films major (Notorious, Double Indemnity) and less well-known (Dead Reckoning, I Wake Up Screaming, The Shanghai Gesture, which sounds really racist, though Truhler doesn’t comment on that) as throughways for appraising the genre and its signature looks. She explains how the bizarre outfits Edith Head selected for Norma Desmond comment on the character’s dreamworld and the austere ones she chose for Betty Schaefer reflect her realism in Sunset Boulevard, etc.
A book like this would not earn its keep without a generous selection of images, and Film Noir Style has plenty of those. As informative as Truhler’s text is, the photos are just as attractive a selling point.
