terrific movie, but is it film noir?

Yes, it is film noir, in my opinion. It is in black and white, it has adult themes, and criminals. It does have some gritty scenes, such as the mannequin apartment, the seedy back room of the fur company, the spidery closet where the sister was locked up. Lots of scenes of cop cars driving down dark streets, a Glenn Ford that is serious and does not fall in love with the bank teller; this film contained none of that nervous Glenn Ford schtick that we've seen in other films.

Think of the scene on the back stairs when the character "Popcorn" is killed in the shootout - that is pure film noir. The shot of the telephone hanging on the wall in the hallway and almost all of the glass is broken out of the window looking in to the hall. The FBI agent and the informant climb the back stairs and are looking through the broken window at the phone when it starts ringing. Out comes a bad guy who starts shooting, FBI agent (Ford) shoots back and kills him, turns back to "Popcorn," the informant, and he has been killed in the shootout. Glenn Ford then says, "I feel bad for him" or something similar, and the other agent says, "Informants usually end up dead, this one just got it a little sooner," or something to that effect.

To me, the initial scene where Lee Remick is grabbed and held from behind by the bad guy in the dark out in her garage is pretty scary, but pure noir. The bad guy makes her get in the car and look straight forward while he pulls up the garage door and she sees his silhouette in the rear view mirror. She goes into the house and calls the FBI, it goes to the switchboard, then to the agents. Afterwards the bad guy has been listening in and gets into the house, knocks her off the phone and to the ground and puts his foot on her neck while he threatens her.

I felt that Glenn Ford looked really gritty in this film. He wasn't shaved and perfect looking, but a little grizzled, worried and trying to remain assured that he was going to catch the bad guy. Yes, there was a thriller aspect to this film, but I felt from the very beginning that this was a film noir. I loved this film and read your observations with interest. Did you read the comments about David Lynch's love for this film and how he named characters after characters from this film, etc? Interesting.

I would argue that film noir is as much a state of mind as it is a cinematic motif. So, I don't believe you can reject this one simply for falling outside a given time frame. Hell, even films as recent as Sin City had elements of noir. Cogito, ergo noir.

The first 15 minutes, the photography in many scenes, the villain and the unsafe heroine... to my mind, they're all reminiscent of classic film noir. While the film is ultimately more of a suspense thriller, calling it a latter-day film noir (or neo-noir) would maybe make sense.


Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!

This is a terrific film, and yes, I definitely think it qualifies as film noir. Check out the scene with Nancy Ashton in Ripley's office with the sunlight streaming through the blinds and casting shadows on the walls and the actors. Classic noir.

I don't limit noir to any particular time period. I would say it's noir because of its hardboiled attitude, gritty chiaroscuro look, nasty depiction of urban crime, and psychosexual overtones.