Writers matter

So I’m reading an article about Truffaut’s film The Bride Wore Black, and the writer mentions how it’s part of Truffaut’s Hitchcock-influenced period and mentions Hitchcock’s Rear Window specifically. What he doesn’t mention is that both films were based on stories by Cornell Woolrich, whose short stories and novels were the basis of over a hundred radio shows, movies, and TV shows. Truffaut did two films based on Woolrich stories. I don’t know how much control Hitchcock had over the TV series named after him, but the show adapted several Woolrich short stories. So… maybe the fact that these great auteurs made movies based on Woolrich’s books means that there’s something worth considering there.

Shoot, take a look at his IMDB page. Eleven adaptations are at various stages of development, and the guy’s been dead for more than fifty years.  It may be a coincidence, but the use of noir to describe a certain type of crime novel or movie came from Série Noire, a line of French paperback translations of American crime fiction, including Woolrich’s Black series (The Bride Wore Black, Black Alibi, Black Path of Fear, Rendezvous in Black, The Black Curtain, The Black Angel). I’ve seen at least one source suggest that the novel series name was in fact inspired by that group of novels. So, basically, you can’t talk about noir without talking about Woolrich. Go read some.

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