Film List Film Noir incl. FREE STREAMS  

As similarly only in the Depression years, American film flourished in the 1940s. The social upheavals of the banking crash and the outbreak of war allowed for freer treatment of themes, but were halted by the "Hays Code" and McCarthy's "witch hunt." A distrust of social order prevailed, which favored crime themes. Milieus were necessarily drawn authentically during the period, and the films of the '40s were pessimistic and shaped by the war. No new supertypes like Little Caesar were in sight, but impotent individuals, poorly paid detectives, alcoholics, corrupt cops and unfaithful wives. There were three tendencies during the 40s, the film noir as a black series, the documentary crime films and the socially critical films. Each group had its own pure specimens, but there were also overlaps between the three tendencies. The black series was until then the most radical rejection of the American way of life as well as the optimism of Hollywood. Unlike the gangster films of the 1930s, on which film noir was based, there was no longer good and evil, but total amoralism. Moral ambiguity and complex situations gave the viewer a sense of insecurity and unease.