Editing Film noir (section)

===Literary sources===
[[File:BlackMask1934Oct.jpg|thumb|alt=Magazine cover with illustration of a terrified-looking, red-haired young woman gagged and bound to a post. She is wearing a low-cut, arm-bearing yellow top and a red skirt. In front of her, a man with a large scar on his cheek and a furious expression heats a branding iron over a gas stove. In the background, a man wearing a trenchcoat and fedora and holding a revolver enters through a doorway. The text includes the tagline "Smashing Detective Stories" and the cover story's title, "Finger Man".|The October 1934 issue of ''[[Black Mask (magazine)|Black Mask]]'' featured the first appearance of the detective character whom [[Raymond Chandler]] developed into the famous [[Philip Marlowe]].<ref>Widdicombe (2001), pp. 37–39, 59–60, 118–19; {{cite web|author=Doherty, Jim|url=http://www.thrillingdetective.com/carmady.html|title=Carmady|publisher=Thrilling Detective Web Site|access-date=2010-02-25|archive-date=2010-01-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100104102528/http://thrillingdetective.com/carmady.html|url-status=live}}</ref>]]

The primary literary influence on film noir was the [[History of crime fiction#Hardboiled American crime-fiction writing|hardboiled]] school of American [[detective fiction|detective]] and [[crime fiction]], led in its early years by such writers as [[Dashiell Hammett]] (whose first novel, ''[[Red Harvest]]'', was published in 1929) and [[James M. Cain]] (whose ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice (novel)|The Postman Always Rings Twice]]'' appeared five years later), and popularized in [[pulp magazine]]s such as ''[[Black Mask (magazine)|Black Mask]]''. The classic film noirs ''[[The Maltese Falcon (1941 film)|The Maltese Falcon]]'' (1941) and ''[[The Glass Key (1942 film)|The Glass Key]]'' (1942) were based on novels by Hammett; Cain's novels provided the basis for ''[[Double Indemnity]]'' (1944), ''[[Mildred Pierce (film)|Mildred Pierce]]'' (1945), ''[[The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film)|The Postman Always Rings Twice]]'' (1946), and ''[[Slightly Scarlet (1956 film)|Slightly Scarlet]]'' (1956; adapted from ''Love's Lovely Counterfeit''). A decade before the classic era, a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama ''[[City Streets (1931 film)|City Streets]]'' (1931), directed by [[Rouben Mamoulian]] and photographed by [[Lee Garmes]], who worked regularly with Sternberg. Released the month before Lang's ''M'', ''City Streets'' has a claim to being the first major film noir; both its style and story had many noir characteristics.<ref>See, e.g., Ballinger and Graydon (2007), p. 6; Macek (1980), pp. 59–60.</ref>

[[Raymond Chandler]], who debuted as a novelist with ''[[The Big Sleep]]'' in 1939, soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school. Not only were Chandler's novels turned into major noirs—''[[Murder, My Sweet]]'' (1944; adapted from ''[[Farewell, My Lovely]]''), ''[[The Big Sleep (1946 film)|The Big Sleep]]'' (1946), and ''[[Lady in the Lake]]'' (1947)—he was an important [[screenwriter]] in the genre as well, producing the scripts for ''Double Indemnity'', ''[[The Blue Dahlia]]'' (1946), and ''[[Strangers on a Train (film)|Strangers on a Train]]'' (1951). Where Chandler, like Hammett, centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye, Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving;<ref>Irwin (2006), pp. 71, 95–96.</ref> the Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed "[[noir fiction]]". For much of the 1940s, one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was [[Cornell Woolrich]] (sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish). No writer's published work provided the basis for more noir films of the classic period than Woolrich's: thirteen in all, including ''[[Black Angel (1946 film)|Black Angel]]'' (1946), ''[[Deadline at Dawn]]'' (1946), and ''[[Fear in the Night (1947 film)|Fear in the Night]]'' (1947).<ref>Irwin (2006), pp. 123–24, 129–30.</ref>

Another crucial literary source for film noir was [[William R. Burnett|W. R. Burnett]], whose first novel to be published was ''Little Caesar'', in 1929. It was turned into a hit for [[Warner Bros.]] in 1931; the following year, Burnett was hired to write dialogue for ''Scarface'', while ''[[The Beast of the City]]'' (1932) was adapted from one of his stories. At least one important reference work identifies the latter as a film noir despite its early date.<ref>White (1980), p. 17.</ref> Burnett's characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots—his protagonists were often heroic in their own way, which happened to be that of the gangster. During the classic era, his work, either as author or screenwriter, was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as noir, including three of the most famous: ''[[High Sierra (film)|High Sierra]]'' (1941), ''[[This Gun for Hire]]'' (1942), and ''[[The Asphalt Jungle]]'' (1950).<ref>Irwin (2006), pp. 97–98, 188–89.</ref>