As in so much film noir, the crux of the story is a case of cherchez la femme.
It is here that Harrison departs, admirably, from the gloomy nihilism that pervades so much literary noir.
One of the first films to cement the nascent Sundance film festival's reputation, Blood Simple isn't so much neo-noir as neo-neo-noir, using postmodern flourishes that still seem bold today.
He played a mock film-noir tune and remixed a rock song, "Dirtwah" (by one of his aliases, Kid Spatula), under so much noise that it was indecipherable.
There's also a "Chinatown" poster that I used, not really for the style so much but the noir feeling, with the figure in the foreground.
Mr. Harvey, whose software companies did well enough in the early 1990s that he can now call himself a venture capitalist, loved Burgundy and pinot noir so much that he decided to see if he could make a little wine himself.
This breathless demi-noir has so much bounce that we barely get any time to mull over the gaping holes in its moth-eaten plot.
So much for a resurgence of film noir.
It recalls nothing so much as the shrewdly theatrical midcentury noir opera hits of Gian Carlo Menotti, including, of course, "The Medium".
Indeed, the meandering flâneur and the solitary noir detective have so much in common that they could even be dark brothers.
