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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Starry Starry Noir: Rebels and Censors by Bernie Dowling analyzes the influence of censorship on 20th-century Hollywood film noir and provides a wide range of impacted directors, actors, and writers. It discusses the enforcement of the Hays Code, restricting portrayals of subjects like suicide, sexuality, and race, and details how these limits shaped films such as Dishonored Lady and Strange Illusion. Dowling talks about directors like Anthony Mann’s noir work and later shift to Westerns, Ida Lupino’s roles as actress and a rare turn as a female director, and the career transitions of actors such as Frank Lovejoy, William Talman, and Raymond Burr due to censorship and studio pressures. Dowling speaks on topics like Erich von Stroheim’s move from directing to acting and the adaptation issues faced by writers like Adele Comandini, all of which demonstrate censorship’s broad impact on film content and professional trajectories.
Starry Starry Noir: Rebels and Censors by Bernie Dowling is a fantastic resource, with strong, precise writing supported by an array of exceptional photography and visual elements that enhance the narrative, especially for readers like me who are new to the genre. The most interesting moment for me comes with a strange twist involving Akira Kurosawa’s The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, which was banned by Japanese wartime censors for allegedly mocking samurai and then by American censors for supposedly glorifying them. Another is Robert Stevenson’s move from noir to Disney, effectively showing the apples-to-oranges shift because of “moral values.” Overall, this exhaustively researched book, the third in the Film Noir in the Public Domain series, is brilliant in both its comprehensive delivery and visual detailing. Very highly recommended.
