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I Died a Million Times
Gangster Noir in Midcentury America
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The mob bosses, rogue cops, and heist gangs of a film era
In the 1950s, the gangster movie and film noir crisscrossed to create gangster noir. Robert Miklitsch takes readers into this fascinating subgenre of films focused on crime syndicates, crooked cops, and capers.
With the Senate's organized crime hearings and the brighter-than-bright myth of the American Dream as a backdrop, Miklitsch examines the style and history, and the production and cultural politics, of classic pictures from The Big Heat and The Asphalt Jungle to lesser-known gems like 711 Ocean Drive and post-Fifties movies like Ocean’s Eleven. Miklitsch pays particular attention to trademark leitmotifs including the individual versus the collective; the family as a locus of dissension and rapport; the real-world roots of the heist picture; and the syndicate as an octopus with its tentacles deep into law enforcement, corporate America, and government. If the memes of gangster noir remain prototypically dark, the look of the films becomes lighter and flatter, reflecting the influence of television and the realization that, under the cover of respectability, crime had moved from the underworld into the mainstream of contemporary everyday life.
About the Author:
Robert Miklitsch is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Ohio University. He is the editor of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands: On Classic Film Noir and the author of The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s.
Press Reviews:
"Scholars of cinematic history and aficionados of gangster folklore will be riveted." --Library Journal
"I Died a Million Times is an enjoyable and informative read for film noir aficionados and casual movie fans alike, offering a cogent analysis of ’50s gangster noir as a cinema of social commentary." --Arts Fuse
"Miklitsch's book is gripping. . . . So the many facets of the individual versus the system or the one system against another one (in that case a mob/gangster syndicate) get a lot of attention." --PopCultureShelf
"This is a readable, engaging book. . . . Recommended." --Choice
See the publisher website: University of Illinois Press
> From the same author:
Red and the Black (2016)
American Film Noir in the 1950s
Siren City (2011)
Sound and Source Music in Classic American Noir
> On a related topic:
Fatalism in American Film Noir (2013)
Some Cinematic Philosophy
Unless the Threat of Death Is Behind Them (2008)
Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir
The Gangster Film (1998)
The Overlook Film Encyclopedia
Dir. Phil Hardy
Subject: Genre > Gangster films
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