Taking issue with many orthodox views of "Film Noir," Frank Krutnik argues for a reorientation of the compulsively engaging area of Hollywood cultural production. By analysing individual films within a generic framework and using recent historical and theoretical research Krutnik looks at both the diversity of "film noir" and at its cultural significance. Through an examination of such films as "The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Gilda" and "The Lady From Shanghai" he looks at the tough' thriller in terms of

Part 1 Classical Hollywood, genre, film noir; Chapter 1 Classical Hollywood: film and genre; Chapter 2 Genre and the problem of film noir; Part 2 Film noir: sources and determinants; Chapter 3 'Hard-boiled' crime fiction and film noir; Chapter 4 Film noir and the popularisation of psychoanalysis; Chapter 5 Film noir and America in the 1940s; Part 3 The representation of masculinity in the noir 'tough' thriller; Chapter 6 Masculinity and its discontents; Chapter 7 The 'tough' investigative thriller; Chapter 8 The 'tough' suspense thriller; Chapter 9 The criminal-adventure thriller; Chapter 10 A problem in 'algebra': Dead Reckoning and the regimentation of the masculine;