Film Noir Graphics: Where Danger Lives

The authors of THE NOIR STYLE—and eight other volumes about film noir—turn their attention to the wide array of posters and lobby cards that were used to entice viewers into watching the movies of the classic period. This oversized study contains well over 300 full-color illustrations never before reproduced in book form. In this volume Alain Silver and James Ursini focus their unparalleled expertise on these images that brought audiences into theaters around the world. An Introduction traces the sometimes lurid line of graphics from pulp magazines like Black Mask and the dust jackets of hard-boiled novels to the earliest examples of film noir. A fully detailed survey of recurring themes and styles unfolds through chapters with titles such as Touch of Evil, The Killers, Night and the City, Out of the Past, and Deadly is the Female. Sidebars explore motifs such as fashion and Bogart’s face on posters from the U.S. and Europe. The volume includes an index of illustrations by movie title.