Article: From 'Shutter Island' to 'The Maltese Falcon': Noir through the ages

[Frank W. Baker]

Noir is now. It has its own film festival (Noir City, held annually in San Francisco), its own reference books (“The Film Noir Encyclo pedia,” just out in an updated edition from Overlook, is the standard).It even has its own nonprofit organization, the Film Noir Foundation, dedicated to restoring films and educating fans — which also puts out the online Noir City Sentinel and some pretty terrific T-shirts. And noir continues to inspire — and profit — studios that have realized that just putting the word on a box can turn a bunch of B movies into a steady seller.