ONE name won’t spring to the lips of critics
naming the most accomplished classic noir actors. As you may recall, classic
noir usually refers to stylised Hollywood crime films made from the early 1940s
to the late 1950s. Robert Mitchum who is universally recognised as an essential
noir anti-hero, or maybe ant-hero, responded to the exotic title of film noir
in laconic noirish fashion. “We used to call them B-pictures,” he said.
Humphrey
Bogart is the other icon of male leads in noir acting. After this duo, the
picture gets a little fuzzy with the names Sterling Hayden and Dick Powell
likely to rise from the mist. Maybe Kirk Douglas. James Cagney, George Raft and
Edward G. Robinson if you want to stretch it to the gangster guys. No Edmond O’Brien.
Oh, yair, Edmond O’Brien. Eddie
O’Brien. Forgot about him. O’Brien starred in maybe a dozen or more noirs, including four
of the most famous, The Killers
(1946) White Heat (1949) The Hitch Hiker (1953) and the movie we will
enjoy later D.O.A. (1950). He also
played Winston Smith in the first cinematic
adaptation of George Orwell’s novel 1984.
