Prior to the widespread availability of television, American men and women read short stories or novels for entertainment. Dashiell Hammett, the inventor of the hard-boiled detective story, made his living at times by writing short stories for the many mystery magazines available. He also wrote five novels. Hammett began his career by stating that he was going to take crime away from the upper classes of Agatha Christie’s novels and give it back to the common people, who were really good at it. Raymond Chandler acknowledged his debt to Hammett and went on to elevate the mystery story to the level of literature.
With all this popular fiction lying about, it didn’t take movie makers long to see that mystery stories could be turned into popular movies. In this fashion, film noir was born. The novels of Hammett, Chandler, and many others were adapted for the screen.
Then television happened. Television shows require no literacy, intelligence, or effort from the audience. Readers of mysteries, mostly men, stopped reading and started watching television. TV cop shows of no artistic merit led to the death of film noir. The wise-guy detective gave way to movies about cops who shot first and never asked questions. Compare The Big Sleep with any police movie of the present era, and you can’t fail to see the superiority of Chandler’s Phil Marlowe as adapted for the screen.
Film noir died from multiple wounds.
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