Driven to Darkness: Jewish Émigré Directors and the Rise of Film Noir (review)

Vincent Brook looks at the contribution of German and Austrian Jewish émigrés to the development of American film noir in the 1940s. Film noir, literally “black film” or “dark cinema,” was originally coined by French critics in 1946 to describe a series of cynical, atmospheric crime films produced in Hollywood during World War II that were noted for their brooding, distinctively shadowy visual style.

German Expressionism’s influence on film noir has long been recognized, along with the important contributions of many émigrés who came to Hollywood from Europe. Brook’s study is noteworthy in examining these émigré contributions in the context of Jewish identity, ethnicity and experience. Brook provides a review of literature on the subject and an overview of German and Austrian Jewish culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that influenced the development of Expressionism. As he shows, Jews played disproportionately large roles in Weimar cinema and theater. With the rise of the Third Reich in the 1930s and the Nazis taking control of Germany’s state-run UFA studio in 1933, however, many Jewish directors fled the Nazis and emigrated to America (often via France or England), where they eventually found work in Hollywood during and after the Second World War.

Brook considers Fritz Lang the “father of film noir” and devotes two chapters to his work, one on his German films and one on his American films (58). Directors Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, W. Lee Wilder, Otto Preminger, Edgar G. Ulmer, Curtis Bernhardt, Max Ophuls, John Brahm, Anatole Litvak, and Fred Zinnemann each merit individual discussion. Their exile set them apart from those Germans who had earlier voluntarily moved from Weimar cinema to Hollywood in the 1920s UFA era, especially with the transatlantic ParUfaMet agreement transferring money and talent between the German and American film industries. Without discounting the contributions of thousands involved in the Hollywood studio system, Brook considers the specifically Jewish and exile characteristics of these directors’ noir films. The overall picture fits in with my own argument that the war played a crucial role in the development of film noir. Brook classifies sixty-nine noir films directed by these eleven men.

Brook takes an auteurist, historical biographical approach, viewing the noir films as primarily the product of the director. He argues for a group auteur approach, finding common elements in the émigrés’ work. An important observation is that the American hard-boiled detective, so characteristic of film noir, is absent in the Jewish émigrés’ films. The femme fatale instead often deals with a “soft” protagonist, such as a banker (Lang’s Scarlet Street) or a pianist (Ulmer’s Detour). Strong females are common, such as the working-girl-turned-detective of Siodmak’s Phantom Lady. Brook convincingly argues that these character types play off European Jewish cultural traditions. Brook identifies many examples of the “homme fatale” villain, many also exploiting Jewish stereotypes. Hollywood had a fascination with Freud and psychology at this time, a fascination that played to the strengths of the European émigrés and was intrinsic to film noir.

Brook makes skillful use of the films, the directors’ memoirs, published interviews, secondary sources, and his own interviews with surviving family members and friends. Most of the directors are well known, but the author’s insightful discussion of each of their noir films will appeal even to noir experts. Brook does intervene on behalf of Willy Wilder, Billy Wilder’s older brother, who worked under the name “W. Lee Wilder” but who is often dismissed as untalented by comparison. W. Lee’s low-budget “B” films include eight films that can be classified as noir by Brook’s count.

Film noir, noted for its disillusioned critique of American society where the American Dream often turns into a nightmare, presented a critical stance that was natural for the many émigrés living in exile from their home country. Having...