Added 1.22.19. Born in the 1930s in the United States but greatly appreciated, analyzed and advanced by European critics and auters, the film noir genre accented the predatory side of man and the city as a vortex of temptation and depravity. The femme fatale, the “good girl,” the flawed hero – not infrequently a detective married to the bottle – all these archetypes plus the brooding, atmospheric chiarascuro  cinematography helped to define the genre. Many of the early modern films now received as classics were film noir, such as Maltese Falcon; Murder, My Sweet; Double Indemnity;  Sunset Boulevard; and Asphalt Jungle. With numerous audio scenes from such films added to the mix, Milt explores the birth and life of film noir with Hugh Ingrasci, an expert on the topic who at the time of the broadcast was an English professor at DePaul University in Chicago.