Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall

Abstract

As the director of Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and Night of the Demon, Jacques Tourneur crafted three horror classics which, decades later, have lost none of their power to frighten audiences. His 1947 Out of the Past is still acknowledged as the quintessential film noir. Yet Tourneur himself remains under-appreciated and his contribution to cinema history much neglected. Many of his films, however, reveal a fluid artistry absent from the routine studio fare of the era. Working in a variety of genres, from Westerns (Canyon Passage) and spy films (Berlin Express) to swashbucklers (The Flame and the Arrow) and melodramas (Experiment Perilous), Tourneur imposed a personal cinematic vision that emphasized mystery and sensuality. In this in-depth exploration of Tourneur's entire career, Chris Fujiwara offers a detailed film-by-film analysis of this influential director's work.

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