Overview The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang, are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms.Silver and Ward (1992), p. 333, as well as entries on individual films, pp. 59–60, 109–10, 320–21. For description of City Streets as "proto-noir", see Turan (2008). For description of Fury as "proto-noir", see Machura, Stefan, and Peter Robson, Law and Film (2001), p. 13. For description of You Only Live Once as "pre-noir", see Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 9.
Overview The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms.Silver and Ward (1992), p. 333, as well as entries on individual films, pp. 59–60, 109–10, 320–21. For description of City Streets as "proto-noir", see Turan (2008). For description of Fury as "proto-noir", see Machura, Stefan, and Peter Robson, Law and Film (2001), p. 13. For description of You Only Live Once as "pre-noir", see Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 9.