The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the third oor (1940, Boris Ingster)La gura del periodista en el nacimiento del lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster) doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | 279 July-December of 2024ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978How to cite this articulo: Deltell Escolar, L. (2024). e gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the ird Floor (1940, Boris Ingster). Doxa Comunicación, 39, pp. 279-292.https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n39a2115Luis Deltell Escolar. Codirector of research group ESCINE (Grupo Complutense de Estudios Cinematográcos). He is a lmmaker and professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). He has been the coordinator of the degree in Audiovisual Communication and the Doctorate in Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations at the UCM. Deltell was a visiting scholar at Berkeley, the University of California, Stanford University, Universidade de São Paulo, and the University of El Cairo. In addition, he has obtained thirty international awards for his audiovisual works and various recognitions for his research, such as the Premio Dragos and the Premio Joven de Comunicación UCM. He is the co-director of the documentary No escribiré arte con mayúscula (2015) and a the Valcárcel Medina´s experimental short lm Un diálogo circunstancial (2020).University Complutense of Madrid, Spain [email protected] ORCID: 0000-0002-5230-1409is content is published under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. International License CC BY-NC 4.0.Received: 15/10/2023 - Accepted: 25/01/2024 - Early access: 29/02/2024 - Published: 01/07/2024Recibido: 15/10/2023 - Aceptado: 25/01/2024 - En edición: 29/02/2024 - Publicado: 01/07/2024Abstract:is article summarises the results of an investigation into the gure of the journalist and the importance of journalism in early lm noir in the United States. To this end, we analyse the lm Stranger on the ird oor (1940, Boris Ingster), a low budget feature (a so-called B-movie) produced by RKO. is lm should be considered the rst full-blown example of the US lm noir genre and in it, the press and the character of the journalist are key to understanding its plot, internal narrative, and even the structure of the lm. Here, we propose a three-fold analysis encompassing the historical context, plot, and form of the lm to examine how Boris Ingster and the RKO cinematic production team succeeded in making Stanger on the ird Floor into a stylistic model for US lm noire in which journalism plays a key role.Keywords: Film noir; Boris Ingster; journalist; lm; press.Resumen:El presente artículo es un resumen de una investigación que aborda la gura del periodista y la importancia del periodismo en el nacimiento de lm noir estadounidense. Para ello se analiza el lme Stranger on the ird Floor (1940, Boris Ingster), largometraje de bajo presupuesto (categoría B) de la productora RKO. Esta película debe ser considera como el primer ejemplo completo de dicho género y en ella la gura de la prensa y el reportero son claves para entender la trama, la narrativa interna y hasta el aspecto formal de la obra. Planteamos un triple análisis –histórico, argumental y formal para analizar– cómo Boris Ingster y el equipo de cineasta de la RKO lograron en Stranger on the ird Floor crear un modelo para la construcción estilística del lm noir donde el periodismo resulta clave.Palabras claves: Film noir; Boris Ingster; periodista; cine; prensa.

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280 | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | July-December of 2024The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicación1. Introduction 1.1. Film noir’s “origine mythique” and the gure of the journalistIn 2012, Jean-Pierre Esquenazi published a defence of the “origine mythique du lm noir” (2012, 337), or, more precisely, the enigmatic yet epic or legendary nature of the inception of lm noir as a genre. His reections addressed the complexities of identifying this North American genre that endured for a mere decade, from 1940 to 1950. In particular, Esquenazi cited the important contributions of his fellow countrymen, Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre Chartier, both critics, the former also a journalist. ese authors are responsible for two seminal texts on the topic, Frank’s (1946) celebrated article: “Un nouveau genre policier: l’aventure criminelle” published in August 1946 and Chartier’s (1946) work, “Les Américains aussi font des lms noirs” which appeared in November of the same year. As Esquenazi reminds us, neither Nino Frank nor Jean-Pierre Chartier could ever have imagined the impact their articles would have on world cinematographic history. eir brief texts –or critiques– are best described as specialist journalism, rather than as academic or historical analyses (Esquenazi, 2012: 340). However, at the same time, these short works achieved one important goal, specically, they oer, without doubt, the best explanation of the features distinguishing lm noir from the thrillers or crime lms of the past –or the future: eir originality derives, primarily, from how they classify the lms they deal with: Frank and Chartier “create” the category of lm noir: rstly, to distinguish these lms from ordinary thrillers; secondly to indicate their moral decadence in opposition to French lm noir (Esquenazi, 2012: 349)1.Although Frank (1946) and Chartier (1946) dier in their opinions on certain aspects of lm noir, above all, concerning questions of morality in this genre, together, their articles oer a successful classication of the genre. Essentially, to qualify as lm noir a work must be not only feature length and North American but also produced in Hollywood; it should have a crime-based plot; it should be subjective and have a prominent central character; and nally, its visual conventions should be highly expressionistic. e unquestionable merits of their authors’ ideas concerning lm noir’s “origine mythique” have, however, given these two brief articles an exaggerated authority. Indeed, until the nineteen eighties, e Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) was taken to be the rst example of lm noir purely because it was the oldest lm cited in Nino Frank’s (1946) classic text. Nevertheless, while the contributions of these two journalist-critics are extremely relevant and unquestionably valuable, both Frank and Chartier completed their analysis without access to the full range of US lmography. ese two French writers based their work solely on their recollections of the lms released in France and did not consult –as might have been desirable– any Hollywood lm archives. us, these two articles cannot be used as the only sources of information to identify either the origins of lm noir or, indeed the seminal lm from which the genre grew –if, in fact, such a work exists. Anthony J. Steinbock (2023) claims that H. Bruce Humberstone’s I Wake Up Screaming (1941) initiated the lm noir genre, while other scholars such 1 Translated to English from the original French: Leur originalité réside évidemment dans leur façon de classer les lms dont ils parlent : Frank et Chartier “inventent” la catégorie de lm noir, le premier pour distinguer ces lms des lms policiers ordinaires, le second pour signaler leur décrépitude morale en les opposant au lm noir à la française (Esquenazi, 2012: 349).
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 279-292 July-December of 2024Luis Deltell EscolarISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 281 as Eddie Robson (2005), Miklitsch (2014), and the authors of the present article, would suggest instead that Boris Ingster’s Stranger on the ird Floor (1940) is its inaugural work. In this article we propose two areas of discussion: rst, we intend to reassert the originality and foundational nature of Boris Ingster’s Stranger on the ird Floor in the cannon of classic US lm noir; and secondly, we shall demonstrate how the gure of the journalist and journalism itself constitute the two fundamental pillars of the lm’s narrative proposition. As we will explore, the journalist is a prominent gure in US lm noir from its inception, or “origine mythique”, and, alongside the detective, is one of the iconic characters, or archetypes, of the genre. Of course, as both Rick Altman (2000) and Alain Silver (2013) have discussed, identifying the rst lm noir feature –or indeed the rst of any genre– could be seen as an unproductive, even absurd, task: To answer in kind, “So what?” Did the rst audiences for e Great Train Robbery or Nosferatu congratulate themselves on attending the rst Western or the earliest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula? e best answer to anyone’s assertion that lmmakers of the classic period never specically decided to make “a lm noir” is still cinematographer John Alton’s evocation of the noir milieu in his book Painting with Light: “e room is dark. A strong streak of light sneaks in from the hall under the door. e sound of steps is heard. e shadows of two feet divide the light streak. A brief silence follows. ere is suspense in the air” (Silver, 2013: s/p).Despite this, we think it could be potentially revelational to identify the lm that might properly be considered as a bridge between the crime lms of the nineteen thirties and lm noir. As we shall discuss, Stranger on the ird Floor could be such a lm and, as the lead role is played by a journalist rather than a detective this work also allows us to explore our second aim of demonstrating the narrative importance of journalism and the journalist within the framework of this lm and lm noir more generally.ere is ample literature analysing the gure of the journalist in various cinematographic eras and genres. With respect to Spanish cinema, this topic has been addressed in the work of, among others, María Cristina San José de la Rosa, Mercedes Miguel and Alicia Gil Torres (2020), concerning Argentine cinema we should cite work by Giacomelli (2020), while there is a huge breadth of work relating to the role of journalism in classic Hollywood lm noir (for a review of this area see, Spicer and Hanson, 2013). e present article discusses how the central character in Stranger on the ird Floor is dened and explained by his work as a reporter and how Boris Ingster gives journalism and journalists a key role in the search for truth. is quest is an essential ingredient in the classic thriller and, in Stranger on the ird Floor, there would be no narrative on the truth without the presence of the press in its plot and as part of its setting. 2. Method: a triple analysisAlthough academic debate concerning the existence or otherwise of lm noir as a specic genre has been settled for some time, there is still some divergence of opinion among researchers. Before we outline our own analysis, we would like to start with the words of Foster Hirsch: Noir deals with criminal activity, from a variety of perspectives, in a general mood of dislocation and bleakness which earned the style its name. Unied by a dominant tone and sensibility, the noir canon constitutes a distinct style of lm-making; but it also conforms to genre requirements since it operates within a set of narrative and visual conventions […] Noir tells its stories in a particular way, and
282 | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | July-December of 2024The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónin a particular visual style. e repeated use of narrative and visual structures … certainly qualies noir as a genre, one that is in fact as heavily coded as the western (Hirsch, 1981: 72).Interestingly, the aspects of the genre that Hirsch identies here coincide –although not identically– with several of the dening elements highlighted by Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre Chartier. ese can be synthesised, in the words of Conrad (2006b:10), as: “the tone of dark cynicism and alienation, the narrative conventions like the femme fatale and the ashback voice-overs, and the shadowy black-and-white look of the movie”.us, for the purposes of this research, we intend to search for evidence of these dening elements in Stranger on the ird Floor using three layers of analysis to cover each of the main factors inuencing cinematic genre: rst we examine the lm’s creation and reception system, that is, make a historical analysis of its production, distribution, showing, and impact; second, we analyse the lm’s plot; and third we explore the lm’s structure. For this triple analysis we propose the following objectives: First analysis: Production Objective 1. To give a historical context to the lm’s production.Objective 2. To explore the impact of the lm’s release and re-release in non-celluloid formats. Second analysis: PlotObjective 3. To describe the narrative elements of lm noir contained in the lm. Objective 4. To demonstrate the impact of journalists and journalism in the lm’s plotird analysis: StructureObjective 5. To demonstrate that the lm conforms to the visual conventions of the lm noir genre.rough these ve objectives we seek to justify the assertion that Stranger on the ird Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940) constitutes the rst example of the lm noir genre and demonstrate the prime importance of journalists and journalism in this US lm.2.1. Production analysis: historical context and impactAccording to the records of the lm’s production company, RKO, Stranger on the ird Floor, is a B-movie, or low-budget lm and while it was not totally unknown, when rst released in 1940 –rst to the US domestic market and later to the remainder of the English-speaking world– it reached only a small audience and had little impact (RKO Archive 1940-1941). At the time the lm was being made in RKO’s Hollywood studios, the second world war was raging, and naturally, this impeded the commercial success of the lm outside US borders, particularly in Europe and its colonies. RKO’s archives, held at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), in their Library Special Collections, include the working notes for Stranger on the ird Floor and provide details about the lm’s production (RKO Archive, 1940-1941). However, no information exists –or has been archived– concerning the lm’s release and distribution on the world stage. What is available are various newspaper articles about the lm’s reception in the United States, for instance one by Bosley Crowther (1940), which we shall return to later, another by Douglas Churchill (1940) for the New York Times, and Staf’s (1940) article for the Variety Review Database. In addition, despite the ongoing conict in Europe, the lm was released in London as recorded in an article that appeared in the Monthly Film Bulletin (Anonymous, 1940).
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 279-292 July-December of 2024Luis Deltell EscolarISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 283 Before Stranger on the ird Floor, Boris Ingster was an emerging screenwriter and this lm, a small production as far as RKO was concerned, is his debut feature lm. e Yiddish-speaking Ingster, born in 1903 in Riga (at that time part of the Russian Empire), formed part of an important, and numerous, group of Jewish immigrants, largely of Ashkenazi descent, that came to be known for its contribution to the initial ourishing and consolidation of lm noir (Brook, 2009). Originally named Boris Mikhailovich Azarkh, Ingster had collaborated with his brother Alexei Mikhailovich Granovsky in Mosco in the 1920’s where he also met and worked with the celebrated director Serguéi Eisenstein (Ingster, 1951). Ingster emigrated to the United States in the 1930’s and came to Los Angeles where he wrote screenplays for romantic comedies such as Dancing Pirate (Lloyd Corrigan, 1936), in Ice (Sidney Laneld, 1937), I’ll Give a Million (Walter Lang, 1938) and Happy Landing (Roy del Ruth, 1938).At the time of its release, there is nothing to suggest that RKO considered Stranger on the ird Floor to be in any way important in their production schedule or commercial strategy. In the words of Palmer, the lm was: “A B production (only 64 minutes in running time) that was hardly intended by RKO executives to be groundbreaking in any sense,” (Palmer, 2013: 125). ere is, in fact, only one element in this small, low-budget project that stands out, an element that would be key to establishing lm noir in Hollywood: the presence of the popular actor, Peter Lorre. is artist, also a European Jew of Yiddish background, dedicated the last two days of his RKO contract to lming two scenes for Boris Ingster’s Stranger on the ird Floor. Despite his brief appearance, Lorre became the commercial face of the lm and was pictured in all the original publicity posters and press releases (RKO Archive, 1940-1941). As might be expected, his name also appears in the largest typeface in the lm’s initial credits. us, when Lorre signed with Twentieth Century Fox, the journalist Douglas W. Churchill, writing in the New York Times, recalls Lorre as the “star” of Stranger on the ird Floor (Churchill, 1940).In the context of the second world war, the low-budget nature of the lm meant that its distribution beyond the English-speaking world was very poor. In the Spanish-speaking world, Stranger on the ird Floor, like many classic titles, is subject to cataloguing errors due to the many dierent ways in which the title has been translated. In Spain alone, for instance, the lm’s title was translated as both El extraño del tercer piso and El desconocido del tercer piso. While in Mexico and Argentina, the lm was released as El misterio del tercer piso. is diversity of translations into Spanish arises because Boris Ingster’s lm was fully on commercial release in the early 1940’s and thus, the feature only became more widely known many decades later –in the 1980’s and ‘90’s– when copies became available in formats other than celluloid: VHS, DVD’s and Blue-ray, and could thus be seen outside of cinemas. Nevertheless, and despite its low prole throughout the 1940’s, from the end of the 20th and into the rst decade of the 21st century, signicance of Stranger on the ird Floor both in terms of its structure and as a seminal work of lm noir, began to be recognised. As Dixon notes, Stranger on the ird Floor “is often cited as one of the first unadulterated film noirs, and in its unrelentingly bleak and hallucinogenic structure” (Dixon, 2009: 9).Notwithstanding its low-budget, B-movie status, now, in the second decade of the 21st century, Stranger on the ird Floor is considered to be one of Boris Ingster’s masterworks. In fact, rather than a minor work by a great Hollywood studio, it is better described as an experimental lm that took advantage of all that a major studio could oer. Robert Miklitsch interprets the lm thus:
284 | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | July-December of 2024The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicación… but it’s easy to appreciate […] the collective brilliance of the creative personnel surrounding him [Boris Ingster], including cinematography (Nicholas Musuraca), art direction (Van Nest Polglase), music (by Roy Webb), and, last but by no means least, sound recording (Bailey Fesler). Not only is RKO’s “house sound” distinctly audible in Stanger on the ird Floor (in, for example, the lm’s pervasive recourse to an echo chamber), but Michael Ward’s (John McGuire) interior monologue sets the precedent for one of the dening features of classic noir: rst-person voiceover narration (Miklitsch, 2014: 204).As a result, while RKO may have produced Stranger on the ird Floor as a B-movie, this is no reason to dismiss the lm as an irrelevance. Quite the reverse, the rst of Boris Ingster’s feature-length lms, it boasts not only a solid narrative structure and but also all the requisite elements of lm noir. e low-budget nature of this work meant that Ingster had to innovate and take risks with the lming. Most of the department heads involved in Stranger on the ird Floor, the use of narration, the visual conventions, and even the sound of this lm, however, seem to indicate stylistic choices on the part of its producer, symbols of an identity that the cinematographers involved would go on to impose on their own noir productions. Of course, at the same time RKO’s role is far from irrelevant –of all the large Hollywood production companies it gained by far the most artistic and commercial success with this particular genre. 2.2. Plot analysis: the journalist in actionWe begin this strand of our research by providing a brief summary of the lm’s plot, with particular attention to the ending. As the narrator tells us, this is the story of Michael Ward (John McGuire), a reporter, the ctitious New York Star2 and his ancé, Jane (Margaret Tallichet), who intend to be married as soon as he gets the promotion he has been waiting for. We also learn that Ward has recently witnessed a murder and now needs to testify in court, events that are shown being reported in the press. e lm opens with a scene in a café in which Jane asks her ancé if he is sure he saw the accused, Joe Briggs (Elisha Cook Jr), commit the crime. For the rst time, Ward doubts himself and, later, in court, he testies only to having seen the accused touch the body explaining that he was not present when the murder itself took place. Ward mentions that, a few days before the crime, he saw, the accused, Joe arguing with the murder victim, Nick, who happens to own the diner where he was found dead. Ward also relates how he heard Joe vowing to kill Nick. Joe is convicted and condemned to death. In the solitude of his room, Ward reects on Jane’s words and realises that he may have been mistaken and, in fact, he himself has also publicly expressed a desire to kill someone: his neighbour (Charles Halton) whom he hates. Ward recalls several episodes with this man and fantasises about, how, if this neighbour were murdered, he himself might be accused of the crime. He imagines being vilied and hounded by the press as Joe was. At that moment, Ward notices that he hasn’t heard anything from his neighbour for a while and his apartment seems strangely silent. He goes out on the third-oor corridor and sees a stranger (Peter Lorre) leaving the neighbouring apartment. His neighbour really has been murdered and Ward, terried, considers eeing; but, in the end he calls the police. Just as he feared, the chief of police suspects the young journalist of this new murder. 2 ere was, in fact, a real-life New York Star in print between 1868 and 1891, and another paper of the same name between 1948 and 1949, however these are not related to the paper depicted in the lm.
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 279-292 July-December of 2024Luis Deltell EscolarISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 285 To prove her ancé’s innocence, Jane begins her own investigation to nd the stranger. Alone, she scours the streets of New York until she nds the murderer in a bar. e man, realising he has been found out, tries to kill Jane but she manages to escape: the murderer pursues her down the street he gets hit by a truck before he can catch her. As the murder lies dying at the scene of the accident, he confesses his crimes to the crowd that has gathered. In the lm’s closing sequence, shot in the same café as the opening scene, Jane and Ward celebrate their happy ending. Ward has got his promotion at the newspaper and they can nally get married. At the very end, on the way to their wedding, the happy couple meet Joe who, absolved of the crime he did not commit, is now working as a taxicab driver. e rst and nal scenes of the lm demonstrate a circular construction centred on journalism (Figure 1); both take place on a New York street where, visible in the background, in large, capital letters is the word: NEWSPAPERS. Figure 1. Stills from the opening and nal scenes of Stranger on the ird Floor (1940)Source: Internet ArchiveIn the still from the beginning of the lm only the word NEWSPAPERS is visible, however, in the last scene we get a slightly wider view allowing us to see the name of the newspaper vending kiosk: Out of Town. Journalism is clearly an important theme in the lm. It is no coincidence that the lm’s opening and closing scenes are set on hustling streets where the presence of the print media is highlighted. ese scenes clearly intend to show the journalistic –the events that might make the news. Indeed, according to Palmer, the lm contains a certain semi-documentary element in its approach to journalism creating a self-reexivity that is almost in the mould of an audiovisual essay. Although this may seem to be taking things a little too far, we would agree with Palmer’s contention that: What may be most interesting about the lm, however, is that its story features a “dark passage,” a self-reexive turn toward a morally vexed interiority away from the dramatically oriented objectivism hitherto characteristic of the standard Hollywood product of the era, in which the narrative is advanced by exterior forms of representation, that is, by dialogue and action (Palmer, 2013: 126). e semi-documentary or self-reexive nature of the lm referred to by Palmer, is contained in the lead character’s profession as a reporter and the fact that he must himself testify to the things he has seen. us, the lm and its plot present an intriguing variation of the noir genre: in the cannon of lms where the hero is a detective –a retired police ocer or private detective, perhaps– it is the testimony of others that must be veried; however, in Stranger on the ird Floor, the reporter must verify his
286 | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | July-December of 2024The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónown testimony. It is he himself, thanks to Jane, who must deduce that his original interpretation of events –Joe standing over the body of the man he was known to hate must mean he was the murderer– followed a false logic and, as a result led to a false conclusion. at is, while Ward knew that Joe hated the victim and had seen him at the scene of the crime these facts alone did not make Joe the murderer. e premise of the whole lm revolves around the journalistic process; the hero is not only a reporter but he is also the news as the key witness in a murder trial (Figure 2). Furthermore, if Ward questions his own testimony, his dreams of being promoted at the (ctitious) New York Star might be dashed. Nevertheless, he cannot hope to become a good journalist, or, indeed, citizen, if he is unable to uncover the truth about the murder. Figure 2. Stills from Stranger on the ird Floor (1940)Source: Internet Archivee role of Ward’s ancée is also key to the lm’s plot. Jane’s character is a powerful contrast to the stereotypical femme fatale so beloved of lm noir. She is, in fact, its complete opposite in that not only does she commit no crime but also becomes the detective who saves the day –and the hero. Many scholars see Jane’s role as incontrovertible evidence that this lm should not be included in the lm noir cannon. However, there are several other lms of this genre featuring female characters who assist in the solving of crimes. Philippa Gates, for instance, cites at least twenty classic lm noir features in which a woman takes on a minor, or indeed more signicant role (2014: 21) as a detective or in unravelling a mystery. Indeed, Stranger on the ird Floor is among the titles mentioned by this author for its relevance in this regard. Of course, twenty lms is not a great many of the total lm noir output; however, it does challenge the idea that a lm should be excluded for use of this particular narrative device. e lm theorist, Miklitsch discussed the importance of the female sleuth (Miklitsch, 2014: 205) making a clear distinction between the female characters appearing in the rst two lms of the noir genre: Stranger on the ird Floor and e Maltese Falcon. us, far from devaluing Boris Ingster’s lm, Jane’s character is contextualised within the wider movement in which women do investigate and do collaborate in the solving of crimes. e most striking dierence between Stranger on the ird Floor and e Maltese Falcon, however, may well be the lms’ respective guration of femininity. Whereas Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) in e Maltese Falcon is a classic femme fatale (the rst, 1932 adaptation of Hammett’s novel was titled Dangerous Female ), so much so that whatever redemptive qualities accrue in the end to
doxa.comunicación | nº 39, pp. 279-292 July-December of 2024Luis Deltell EscolarISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978| 287 Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) derive almost entirely from his knight like renunciation of her, Jane (Margaret Tallichet) in Stranger on the ird Floor anticipates the female sleuths in Phantom Lady (1944), Black Angel (1946), e Dark Corner (1946), and I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (1948), intrepid women who actively assume the private-investigative mantle in order to come to the rescue of their distressed male partners (Miklitsch, 2014: 205)Other critics have expressed reservations about the lm’s noir credentials due to its optimistic ending. For these authors, this kind of ‘happily ever after’ is in direct opposition to the very essence of lm noir and, indeed, distinguishes it from the journalist-centred lms of the previous decade. Nevertheless, exactly as with the objection to the concept of a woman detective and the absence of a femme fatale, here again there are a signicant number of noir lms that also have happy endings. To name but a few examples from the 1940’s, consider Laura (1944) and Fallen Angel (1945), both by Otto Preminger, e Big Sleep by Howard Hawks (1946), Gilda by Charles Vidor (1946) and Dark Passage by Delmer Daves (1947). In this way, Jane’s role in Stranger on the ird Floor, while unusual within the lm noir genre, is not the only case nor indeed that unusual. Furthermore, her sleuthing in combination with the lm’s happy ending serve to reinforce the gure of the journalist, in this case, a man who is prepared to admit an error despite the risk of losing his promotion at the New York Star and, worse, getting accused of murder himself. 2.3. Structural analysis: representations of journalismWithout doubt, Boris Ingster’s most successful gamble as a debut director lies in the structure of Stranger on the ird Floor. Since the appearance of Nino Frank’s and Jean-Pierre Chartier’s articles in the French press, lm noir has been associated with photographic expressionism and, in this respect, Ingster’s rst lm is one of the best examples. e rst true, perhaps the greatest, noir cinematographer, according to Quim Casas (2021) was the Italian, Nicholas Musuraca, known for his “narrative of shadows”. Working together on Stranger on the ird Floor, Musuraca and Ingster make masterful use of shadow and light keeping large sections of the set in darkness while others are starkly lit to create startling visual contrasts. e result is a deeply sinister atmosphere. Lighting eects are especially exaggerated in certain scenes, specically, those where journalism comes to the fore. One such scene is the rst time we see the press oce. First, we see a close-up of a plaque indicating that this room is a place reserved for journalists, then, through this door, we enter a crowded room and encounter a highly charged, hypermasculine atmosphere (Figure 3). e camera then shows us a panoramic view of the room illuminated, brightly and directly, by light ltering through the slats of a venetian blind.
288 | nº 39, pp. 279-292 | July-December of 2024The gure of the journalist in early lm noir. Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978doxa.comunicaciónFigure 3. Stills from the rst scene showing the press oce in Stranger on the ird Floor (1940)