Noir for the Next
Generation
by
Lisa Diana Shapiro
When I was a kid, it was my mother’s rule
that I was not allowed to watch any movies made after 1960. In her estimation,
the only good movies were either black and white, MGM musicals, or Gone with the Wind.
So I knew nothing of Star Wars or E.T., but I
could quote Humphrey Bogart at length.
Then I read Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe books, and that pretty much
sealed my fate - the girl too geeky to ever get a date.
When I grew up I discovered that there
were plenty of other geeks who knew references like, “You know how to whistle”
and I eventually caught up on all the films I had missed growing up. But I
never lost my love of those old black-and-white detective movies.
Recently I was commissioned to write a
new musical for Off-Broadway’s TADA! Youth Theater. I had worked with them
before, writing book and lyrics for the tremendously successful family musical Princess Phooey (music by Eric
Rockwell).
This time, I pitched them a film noir
spoof. I thought, this will be fun - I’ll call it “The Maltball Falcon,” it
will have obscure references to Sam Spade and Miles Archer, a sultry blonde
with legs up to here, a tough-talking detective with all the answers.
I sat down with my 13-year-old niece to
do some research, watching The Big Sleep (who could be cooler than Lauren
Bacall?). I was writing a song that would use all the hard-boiled slang from
the period - you know, jake and hoosegow and palooka. I asked my niece to let
me know what words she didn’t understand.
Ten minutes into the movie, she told me
she didn’t understand a thing that was going on. Not only did she not
understand the slang, they talked too fast and she couldn’t follow the story at
all.
Noir was a foreign language to her.
I realized at that moment that I couldn’t
write a spoof. You can’t make fun of something if your audience doesn’t know
what you’re making fun of. I realized that I had a bigger mission instead - not
to spoof it, but to re-create it. I had to re-imagine noir for the next
generation.
The project grew. In order to reboot the
genre for this generation, I needed a much bigger audience - I needed . . . the
Internet. And I needed to make a film.
I wrote a short film based on a song from
the show - “Slingin’
the Slang,” the very song I was working on that day I sat down to watch The
Big Sleep. The music is by the divine Georgia
Stitt.
We’ve launched a Kickstarter
to fund the film, and it will ultimately be the centerpiece of a website loaded
with mysteries to solve, blogs from characters, recommendations of great books
and movies - all designed to save the future of noir fiction and film - and
create more little geeks who will grow up to use their creative powers for good
and not evil.
Log
on and get involved. TADA! Youth Theater is a non-profit, so donations to
the Kickstarter
are tax-deductible!
I gotta dangle now - the gumshoe’s
waiting for me, and everything’s gonna be jake.
For more about Lisa and to get updates on the project, follow on Twitter @SamSpadeMystery
Every year, I try to see at least a couple of plays at Toronto's Fringe Festival, and every year it's a treat to see innovative, honest, creative, low-budget shows. As much as I love the overblown, million dollar Broadway productions, there's something special about seeing smaller scale (much smaller!) where the script and the acting really survive on their own merits. 
The first play of the evening was a light family comedy called "If It's Not Too Much Trouble". I liked it well enough, but to me the acting was a bit uneven. The character Glen was my favourite and the actor playing him did a great job, but a couple of the others need a bit of polishing. In my opinion, the script also needs a bit of tweaking - it felt like too much was squeezed into a one act play. That, plus there was one blip in script continuity that irked me. Nevertheless, there were a few good lines and I generally liked the ways the characters were drawn. 
Ha ha Ha! My friend and I didn't plan to see this one - the show we wanted to see was sold out, so we rolled our eyes and bought tickets to this one. It was terrific!!! It's about two men, who've know each other since they were kids, and the competitiveness that permeates their friendship. The approach (sort of like a boxing match, with a winner declared for each round) was original. The "referee" was a young girl the men knew when they were growing up. The actors had their timing down pat, the script was terrific, the execution was great. So glad to have stumbled onto this play! 
Hmmm... This was okay, but quite different from what I'd thought it would be. It wasn't quite a musical, but it did have some songs in it (I'd expected more of a musical comedy). It was a bit of a tongue in cheek, old west story about frontier justice, and while it had some very funny moments, it definitely wasn't a comedy. However, I liked the characters and I think the acting was quite good, it's just that overall the story wasn't really my cup of tea.
