--- title: Film Noir History: How Tabloid Journalism Inspired the Genre description: Read an excerpt from LIFE's new special edition 'Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films' canonical: https://time.com/4460487/tabloids-film-noir/ author: LIFE Books article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-31T12:00:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:35.236Z og:title: Film Noir History: How Tabloid Journalism Inspired the Genre og:description: Read an excerpt from LIFE's new special edition 'Film Noir' og:url: https://time.com/4460487/tabloids-film-noir/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf85a0bc6ac77bf1b/6988a3278e0601c869467376/160822-film-noir-life-book-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2265 og:image:height: 1274 og:image:alt: Mildred Pierce 1945 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Film Noir History: How Tabloid Journalism Inspired the Genre twitter:description: Read an excerpt from LIFE's new special edition 'Film Noir' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf85a0bc6ac77bf1b/6988a3278e0601c869467376/160822-film-noir-life-book-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Tabloids Inspired Film Noir > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [J.I. Baker / LIFE Books](https://time.com/author/life-books/) ## J.I. Baker / LIFE Books Aug 31, 2016 12:00 PM UTC  Mildred Pierce, James Flavin, Don O'Connor, Joan Crawford, 1945. Mildred Pierce, James Flavin, Don O'Connor, Joan Crawford, 1945. Courtesy Everett Collection by [J.I. Baker / LIFE Books](https://time.com/author/life-books/) ## J.I. Baker / LIFE Books Aug 31, 2016 12:00 PM UTC By covering political scandals such as the Teapot Dome bribery incident, and giving ink to poker-game shootings and boozy brawls, the New York _Daily News_—America’s first successful tabloid paper—dredged the depths of ’20s and ’30s culture, replacing staid journalism with lurid photos and a shocking, sleazy sensibility. In the process, it offered narratives tailor-made for the burgeoning world of pulp fiction—and the films noirs that ensued. Novelist James M. Cain’s _Double Indemnity_ and _The Postman Always Rings Twice_, for instance, were based on the murderous machinations of Ruth Snyder, who killed her husband with the help of her lover. Dashiell Hammett’s _Red Harvest_ and David Grubb’s _The Night of the Hunter_ are among other works that were “ripped from the headlines.” The tabloids also influenced the distinctive look of the films that were inspired by these fictions. In the 1930s, flashbulbs, new cameras, and faster shutter speeds allowed newspaper photographers to ply their trade pretty much anywhere, anytime. The result: a daily documentation of the previously unexplored underbelly of urban existence. Even the look of these photos added to their impact: “The lack of naturalness in these pictures was not a shortcoming but a source of their melodramatic power,” wrote John Szarkowsi in _Photography Until Now_. “It is as though terrible and exemplary secrets were revealed for an instant by lightning.” Historian Luc Sante has even made a connection between specific photos and subsequent films. “A 1945 picture of a slaying at Tony’s Restaurant, with its violent angle, oblique window approach, and mocking use of advertisements, anticipates the blunt force of Anthony Mann’s _T-Men_ . . . and the jazzy chill of Robert Aldrich’s _Kiss Me Deadly_,” he wrote, adding that a 1930 shot of a homicide at New York’s Chinatown People’s Theater reflects the look of Howard Hawks’s 1932 film _Scarface_. No photographer was more identified with tabloid journalism than Arthur Fellig, a.k.a. Weegee, who made his name freelancing out of Manhattan’s police headquarters. (“Here was the nerve center of the city I knew,” he wrote, “and here I would find the pictures I wanted.”) With relentlessness and relish, he covered auto accidents, deli holdups, gambling joints, and “jumpers,” turning a nation of readers into rubberneckers even as he imbued ghastly Gotham with a kind of poetry. “Crime was my oyster,” Weegee said, “and I liked it.” Weegee’s first photography book, 1945’s autobiographical _Naked City_, inspired the 1948 noir film _The Naked City._ Reflecting the documentary style that gave many noirs their sense of authenticity, _The Naked City_ was shot entirely in New York City and ended with the iconic line “There are eight million stories in the naked city—this has been one of them.” The success of the book and film led to a minor acting career for Weegee. In a self-reflexive Hollywood hall of mirrors, he appeared in a few of the films his work had helped shape: 1949’s classic boxing noir, _The Set-Up,_ and 1951’s forgettable remake of Fritz Lang’s proto-noir _M_. Even as the photographer disdained L.A.’s natives as “zombies” (“they drink formaldehyde instead of coffee, and have no sex organs”), he was collecting material for his next book: _Naked Hollywood_, naturally.  LIFE Books _Read more in LIFE’s new special edition_ Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films, [_available on Amazon._](http://amzn.to/2b4lknB)  Mildred Pierce, James Flavin, Don O'Connor, Joan Crawford, 1945. Courtesy Everett Collection  Bonnie And Clyde, Faye Dunaway, Warren Beatty, 1967. Courtesy Everett Collection  Mildred Pierce, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, 1945. Courtesy Everett Collection  Touch Of Evil, director Orson Welles on set, 1958. Courtesy Everett Collection  Scene from Touch of Evil, 1958. Courtesy Everett Collection  Alfred Hitchcock at work for the film Shadow of a Doubt. 1943. William Vandivert—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Body Heat, William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, 1981. ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection  The Third Man, Orson Welles (far left), 1949. Mary Evans/London Film Productions/British Lion Film Productions/Ronald Grant—Everett Collection  Double Indemnity with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, 1944. Rights Managed—Ronald Grant Archive / Mary Evan  Blue Velvet, Angelo Badalamenti (at piano), Isabella Rossellini, 1986. 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