TV Noir: Dark Drama on the Small Screen

Allen Glover

Hardcover | 20.32 x 2.92 x 25.4 cm | 256 pp

Abrams | 2019 | 9781590201671

Noir as a style, movement, or sensibility has its roots in hardboiled detective fiction by writers like Chandler and Hammett, and films adapted from their novels were among the first called film noir by French cinéastes.

But film isn't the only medium with a taste for a dark story - hundreds of noir dramas have been produced for television, featuring detectives and femmes fatales, gangsters, and dark deeds, continuing week after week, with new disruptions of the social order. 

This pioneering, incisive, lavishly illustrated survey of noir on television is the first of its kind. Television historian Allen Glover presents the first complete study of the subject. Deconstructing its key elements with astute analysis, from NBC s adaptation of Woolrich's The Black Angel to the anthology programs of the 40s and 50s, from the classic period of Dragnet, M Squad, and 77 Sunset Strip to neo-noirs of the 60s and 70s including The Fugitive, Kolchak, and Harry O. This is the essential volume on TV noir.