Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films by Sheri Chinen Biesen (2014)

Compared to the total number of film noir productions, those with a jazz soundtrack or jazz music, serving as the dominant sound to accompany the story, is rather small. Brass sounds, strings, heavy orchestration and the use of a theme were more familiar than typical jazz phrases, since this kind of audio was common in the 1940s and ’50s.

Nevertheless, if we wanted to point out those noir films that will stay in our memory as masterpieces where all components fit together perfectly, those movies which take place in dark bars, smoke filled jazz clubs and jazz as the theme for most of the action, will most probably be in that group. And some of the best noir movies were shot in the war years.

As film historian Sheri Biesen, associate professor of radio, television, and film studies at Rowan University, puts it: “Besides restrictions in lighting, wartime film making constraints discouraged huge sets, lavish costumes, crowds of extras, and big production numbers, which contributed to the developmental film noir style and altered the ambiance of the musicals. Modest black-an-white film noir with popular jazz numbers served to provide a cheaper alternative to expensive color musicals …” Furthermore, there was a musician’s strike lasting from 1942 until 1944, when “…Noir musical performances presented jazz music on film without having to cut a record, which was prohibited by the strike.”

Biesen already proved her expertise on film noir in her very recommendable publication Blackout: World War II and the Origins of Film Noir from 2005.

(The title like so many other interesting details of the book refers to Government policies not to shoot film footage at daytime, fearing to reveal possible locations of strategic national targets during wartime.) There she offered a new perspective on the general style and chronology of film noir; she insists that the disappointed, sad and pessimist outlooks transported by the majority of the protagonists were typical for aspects of American life already during the war.

By building on this solid foundation about studio strategies, production methods, budgets, the studio system and wartime Hollywood, in Music in the Shadows, she concentrates on originally two different genres namely “the musical” and “film noir,” and shows the many instants in (mostly American) film history when these genres were masterfully intertwined, leaving strange and beautiful works as A Star is Born (1954) or Gilda (1946).

To put it very simple: while musicals seem to center around a plot taking place either in show business among show business people with lots of dancing, singing and rehearsing going on, the noir film deals with individual disaster, a world turning against the individual and many rather unpleasant topics ready to eliminate a dream or even a life.

And in fact, I was surprised that taken into consideration all her points, research of aesthetical and technical conclusions, there actually could be something like a hybrid of the two genres, something that she calls the “noir musical.” Many noir films then are also musical noirs.

The list of films being analysed in this way is a long one and reevaluates West Sides Story, The Red Shoes, To Have and Have Not, Phantom Lady, Lured, Love Me or Leave Me, All that Jazz, The Singing Detective, and Cabaret among many others.

Jazz fans will be delighted by Biesen’s study of classic jazz-musician-as-protagonist movies like New York, New York, Young at Heart, Sweet Smell of Success, Casbah, Roadhouse, Young Man With a Horn, Round Midnight, Syncopation and Jammin’ the Blues.

The masterpiece Blues in the Night from 1941 deserves (and fortunately here is granted) an entire chapter, since it boldly challenged camera angles, was seemingly shot only through omnipresent thick cigarette smoke and mirrors, paired musical expression with obsession and finally presented jazz and blues as individual performers, thus creating a unique experience.

However, I cannot agree with Biesen completely, since some movies she labels noirs would not belong to that category in my eyes.  Additionally, there have been many attempts at neo-noir in the 1980s and ’90s which easily would have deserved mention here. And I missed mention of the great TV production Johnny Staccato.

But then the text makes sense the way it is presented here. And there are hardly two books on film noir that list the exact same movies as part of the core noir canon. Nevertheless, there are way too few books that deal with these two art forms; this publication is a definitive book about the topic for fans of jazz and noir alike.

Review by Dr. A. Ebert © 2014

Sheri Chinen Biesen. Music in the Shadows: Noir Musical Films. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, 210 p.