Part 4/13:
The classic era, from roughly 1941’s The Maltese Falcon to 1958’s Touch of Evil, set the template for noir’s signature themes and aesthetics. Preceding noir, gangster films of the 1930s like Little Caesar and Scarface introduced audiences to morally compromised characters, but noir deepened this ambiguity. Unlike earlier crime films where wrongdoers met swift punishment, noir characters often operate under a gray code, with no clear "good guys" or ending happily ever after — “film noir never has a happy ending,” as critics have observed.