Out of the Shadows explores the most celebrated examples of film noir such as Laura, The Maltese Falcon, and Sunset Boulevard but also offers new insight into underrated films that deserve reconsideration, including Spellbound, A Double Life, Anatomy of a Murder, and others.

Acknowledgments Prologue: Overlooked Noir PART ONE City of Night: The Advent of Film Noir CHAPTER ONE Black Mask Brigade: Dashiell Hammett, Hard-Boiled Fiction, and Film Noir CHAPTER TWO Exploring Film Noir: Stranger on the Third Floor and Other Films PART TWO Nightmare Town: Dashiell Hammett's Fiction as Film Noir CHAPTER THREE John Huston: The Maltese Falcon CHAPTER FOUR Stuart Heisler: The Glass Key Edward Buzzell: Song of the Thin Man PART THREE Darkness at Noon: Representative Noir Films CHAPTER FIVE Fritz Lang: Ministry of Fear and Scarlet Street CHAPTER SIX Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound and Strangers on a Train CHAPTER SEVEN George Cukor: A Double Life Billy Wilder: Sunset Boulevard CHAPTER EIGHT Robert Siodmak: The Killers (1946) Don Siegel: The Killers (1964) CHAPTER NINE Otto Preminger: Laura and Anatomy of a Murder CHAPTER TEN Fred Zinnemann: Act of Violence Stanley Kubrick: The Killing CHAPTER ELEVEN Orson Welles: The Stranger and Touch of Evil PART FOUR The Lower Depths: The Rise of Neo-Noir CHAPTER TWELVE Dashiell Hammett and Neo-Noir: The Dain Curse and Hammett CHAPTER THIRTEEN Anthony Minghella: The Talented Mr. Ripley Liliana Cavani: Ripley's Game Afterword by Jim Welsh Filmography Selected Bibliography Index About the Author