Does any classic noir film have a happy ending?

The Big Sleep.

Bogie gets Bacall and the police sirens indicate they'll be rescued. Though it fudges a bit by leaving them in a moment of peril and anxiety.

While we're on the subject of what is and isn't noir, if no one else read the NYTimes Magazine's interview with James Ellroy yesterday, I can assure you that he's still a creepy, self-satisfied prick. What I learned from the interview is that he's a creepy, self-satisfied prick who thinks he's the best novelist since Tolstoy. 'Cause, say, Faulkner. Would have been better, if only. He'd stuck to sentences. Short. Facile. Blunt. Ugly. Uninspired. Instantly forgettable.

The term New Wave emerged before NW directors even made films to describe the Zeitgeist of a new France emerging from the ashes of WWII. It described the directors (all from a new generation of filmmakers) rather than the films themselves.

C'mon! All the directors from the French New Wave were film theorists and critcs. They were extremely conscious of what they were doing as a group/movement.

I think I understand what Hec is saying. The makers of Noir didn't realize at the time that they were making Noir in the sense that, say, the makers of Westerns or Musicals realized that they were making Westerns or Musicals. If they thought within the framework of genres, they probably thought in terms of Detective or Crime or Suspense or maybe even Gangster. Done in a mindset that would speak to 1940s audiences.

From today's perspective, we can identify Noir in the same way we can identify, say, a Backstage Musical or a Screwball Comedy.

I'm not sure the distinction is extremely meaningful from a 2006 viewpoint, though. Because many of the genres cover so much ground that a 2006 audience almost has to subdivide to wrap our minds around what's out there.

Bogie gets Bacall and the police sirens indicate they'll be rescued.

Is that so? Seriously, I remember watching that film at least twice, and while I have vivid memory of the manners convo that ends up with "... I grieve over them on long winter evenings" and that infamous horse race conversation between Bogie and Bacall, I remember next to nothing of the plot. Bacall had a slutty sister somewhere, if I recall. That's about all.

Man, before I clicked on the thread I thought "there's a Lebowski mini-fuffle going on in there."

On viewing one I was underwhelmed.

This is me. To be fair, I haven't rewatched. I should rewatch. Possibly while drinking.

Noir, like the French New Wave, was not understood as a genre as it was being made. The studios were making melodramas and crime thrillers and detective stories. But because of the era in which they were made, many of these movies - across many genres - exhibited a commonality of tone and theme. Not their styles and forms, but the way they expressed the era.

So more like what is thought of as "70's cinema". I guess I can see that, but to me that seems to constrain Noir almost as much as the term "genre" would.

On a semi-related question - did Hitchcock ever make a noir (thinking back, off the top of my head I would say no)? If not, why not, do you think. The big thing I'd say is happy endings, at least when he was making movies in the noir era.

I also remember having a debate about this when I was discussing Veronica Mars with some folks online -- it gets called high school noir a lot, but despite a lot of noir elements, the show has a stubborn core of optimism and a genuinely loving, rewarding relationship between the protagonist (Veronica) and her father, which feels out of place for a noir.

I don't think the cynicism-drenched tone of noir is sustainable for any long-running series with a set cast of characters. Any drama worth its salt will burrow into its characters given enough time and the further a character is explored, the more sympathetic the audience will be to him or her; the nasty character becomes the messed-up character, the femme fatale becomes needy and pathetic.

did Hitchcock ever make a noir

Absolutely! Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train. Rebecca to a certain extent. It's sort of a mix of Noir and Gothic Melodrama. Falls in the discussion category of How Noir Is It? A favorite game among film scholars.

I don't think the cynicism-drenched tone of noir is sustainable for any long-running series with a set cast of characters.

Profit, we hardly knew ye...