ABSTRACT
We’ve already talked some about the great work in noir of directors such as
John Huston, Edward Dmytryk and Billy Wilder. How much influence direc-
tors had in creating the genre film noir has been the subject of many articles
and essays. While director Alfred Hitchcock became known for his master-
ing of suspense thrillers, Frank Capri for his feel-good social commentary
films and Ernst Lubitsch for his romantic comedies, no single director really
became known exclusively for film noir. There were many significant direc-
tors who made major contributions to film noir, but all of them also made
other great movies that were not noir. While today there are certain directors
we widely recognize for their noir work, when the noir film The Blue Dahlia
was released by Paramount, the publicity featured the film’s stars Alan Ladd
and Veronica Lake and the name of mystery writer Raymond Chandler.
