Since their introduction at the turn of the century, cars have become a fundamental part of American culture. The noir narratives that emerged in the 1940s and influenced cinema for decades to come are a perfect example of this. Almost every noir narrative you see uses automobility in a central aspect of the plot. Automobility-as used here-refers to the intersecting social, physical, and political components that comprise the dominance of automobiles in American culture. Automobility had recently established itself in the US in the 1940s when film noir emerged, and this coestablishment is noticeable in the portrayal of cars in noir films. The 40s portrayals go on to influence the neo-noir genre, which also heavily features automobility. As described in Robert Porfirio's "No Way Out: Existential Motifs in the Film Noir", one key theme explored in noir is existentialism. Two aspects of this theme specifically relate to automobility: isolation and chaos. Noir's cars enable criminality and violence through the isolation of individuals even in public spaces. Noir is also influenced by, and often represents, the spatial isolation created by car centric urban planning in Los Angeles where many of the narratives were developed and set. The masculinity associated with automobility is individualistic and socially isolated, as well as being associated with violence. The random nature of automobile violence upon both those within and separate from the vehicle removes the possibility of logic from characters' lives. This theme was preceded by high rates of car related fatalities and injuries in the 40s, as well as the chaos of the oil industry in LA during World War II. The centrality of the oil industry and car centric urban planning in Los Angeles, the high rates of automobile related deaths, and steep rise in automobile ownership and reliance in the 1940s provide a basis and context for the role that automobiles play in noir: enabling and encouraging criminality through the creation of private spaces and enacting violence.
Automobiles, as opposed to open carriages, provide a private bubble within public space, isolating their occupants from the outside world. The trope of the car as a private space that serves as protection for characters' criminal actions, often murder, is present in many noir narratives and is influenced by the social isolation present in an increasingly automobile dependent American society. In his essay "Tails, Gunfights, and Murder: The Role of the Automobile in the Noir Fiction of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler.", Shelby Smoak explains that "From the safe interior of the car, fictional characters are allowed to commit illicit acts with the car functioning as a protective shield or an alibi; the car becomes a private safety zone existing outside public law" (41). In "Noir's Cars: Automobility and Amoral Space in American Film Noir", Mark Osteen further posits that cars in noir "become not only alternative homes but also amoral spaces where laws and social arrangements--marriage, class hierarchies--are suspended" (184). There are a wealth of examples in noir of cars being utilized this way. In Double Indemnity (1944), Neff hides in the backseat of the Dietrichsons' car in order to murder Mr. Dietrichson using the cover of the vehicle. The car becomes a private site of violence. Detour (1945) has Al and Vera speak openly about Al's (inadvertent) crimes in the privacy of the car he has (inadvertently) stolen from the late Haskell, and the concealing nature of the car is Al's protection against prosecution for Haskell's death. In Trapped (1949), an important criminal deal is planned to take place in the privacy of a car. However, its simultaneous public nature exposes it to threat from the FBI agents who are aware of the deal through their inside man, John Downey. This scene exemplifies the duality of cars as both private and public and how this can enable criminal activity. In The Hitch-Hiker (1953), the violence is at first contained to the interior of the car, with Myers pulling his gun on Roy and Gilbert. The car then conceals Myers from the border patrol, hiding the threat that the two men are under and therefore enabling Myers' crimes. The murder spree Myers goes on would not be possible without the prevalence of automobility in America. Unlike most noir films, this film was directly based on a true story, emphasizing how the violence of cars in noir is based in real life. In the realm of neo-noir, Kill Me Again (1989) shows Fay and Vince using the cover of the car to rob the mobsters and the two fighting in the privacy of the car. Vince also hitch-hikes with a family to follow Fay, exemplifying the archetype of the dangerous hitch-hiker. Again and again, the private space of the car conceals criminal action.
Automotive isolation was a prevalent issue in Los Angeles, where car centric urban planning lent itself to social separation, precluding crime and emphasizing the existentialist motif in film noir. Los Angeles in the 1940s was unique in many ways. One of these was its relative youth; LA only became properly urban in the 1920s. This meant that it was one of the first cities constructed with automobility in mind. In his article "Los Angeles as the Scene of the Crime", Paul Arthur describes how this led to the heavy catering to cars over more human considerations. As explained by Paul Mason Fotsch in the chapter "Film Noir and the Hidden Violence of Transportation in Los Angeles", the highway construction in LA was based purely on engineering statistics related to how to quickly move vehicles in and out of the city center, sidestepping the political implications of the layout. Instead of being centralized, LA was spread out with housing available in suburbs that were more like "connecting villages" than a single city. Depictions of this can be found in noir films such as Double Indemnity, which according to Arthur: "exemplifies the culture of transience and automobility on which the city is literally built" (21-22). This fostered intense social isolation and alienation, since people had no connection between their home communities and work communities. Alienation is a key component of the existential motif found in noir. Noir protagonists-- such as Phillip Marlowe of Raymond Chandler's hardboiled novels, Walter Neff of Double Indemnity, and neo-noir characters such as Jack Andrews of Kill Me Again and the unnamed protagonist of Drive (2011)-- are characterized by their emotional detachment from the people around them. In the existentialist motif, the individual is separated from any societal or intellectual influence (Porfirio), allowing for the meaninglessness of the narrative to feel more all consuming. The isolation created by LA's urban planning is reflected in the noir films produced in the same city at a time when the city and its reliance on cars was expanding.
Women especially were impacted by this isolation, since many were reliant on their husbands' driving. However, this changed as women gained independence throughout the 30s and 40s, spurred by necessity with the absence of men during World War II as described by Margaret Walsh in "Gendering Mobility: Women, Work, and Automobility in the United States". The women in noir films are victims of the isolating properties of Los Angeles's urban planning and had to upset those norms in order to gain agency, much like many real women were in the 1940s. This can be seen in the characters of Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity and Lucia Harper in The Reckless Moment (1949). In Double Indemnity, Phyllis is able to drive, but is economically dependent on her husband and is socially isolated in her suburban LA home. She subverts this role by plotting with her husband's insurance agent, Walter Neff, to kill her husband and split the life insurance payout. In The Reckless Moment, there is both a spatial and (perceived) thematic distancing between Lucia's perfect suburban home in Balboa Island and the corrupt city of Los Angeles. At first, the corrupting influence of Darby on her daughter Bea is confined to the city, with Lucia having to visit the city to confront him, but as the film goes on the lines become blurred. Lucia must subvert her role as a housewife due to her husband's absence. She takes on a patriarchal role involving driving to protect her daughter and her suburban lifestyle and is hindered by the lack of experience caused by her isolation.
History also plays into noir's relationship to automobility when we look at Los Angeles's oil industry. The oil industry in LA coexisted with citizens in a unique way that exposed many of them to the reality of oil extraction, and this resulted in the portrayal of oil as a dangerous thing in noir. Sarah Elkind's article "Extracting Property Values and Oil: Los Angeles' Petroleum Booms and the Definition of Urban Space in the Twentieth Century" details the development of oil extraction in Los Angeles. Oil was not discovered in LA until 1892, after urbanization had begun. The discovery contributed to rapid economic growth; it eliminated dependence on imported coal, inspired the construction of harbor facilities, and attracted tire and automobile industries to the area. This meant that oil drilling operations were set up dangerously close to residential areas and beaches that the city's tourism industry depended on. Regulations were put in place starting in the 1920s, but when World War II began, the demand for oil skyrocketed and the federal government stepped in to overrule local regulations in the interest of oil for the war effort. A "Petroleum Administration for the War" was created, and oversaw the oil industry from 1942 to 1946, estimating that oil production would need to double to fulfill wartime needs. It called to develop "every field and pool in the state, including those within the city of Los Angeles" (Elkind 104). These policies were opposed by much of the public and by Mayor Bowron, but their concerns were overruled. Power over land was shifted from local officials who were concerned about citizens' needs to federal officials who were concerned with military and industrial needs, as well as profit for the oil corporations. Pangborn suggests that many of the themes in film noir stem from the West Coast oil economy of the early 20th century, and that the moral and social complexity of noir is a response to the broad and complex influence of oil on society. The oil boom that fueled the automobility boom represented freedom for many Americans, but in reality trapped participants and put them in danger, a familiar theme in noir narratives. Some noirs even give a nod to LA's oil rich history, such as the inclusion of Mr. Dietrichson's job on an oil rig in Double Indemnity which is known to be dangerous, and the oil explosion caused by an earthquake that injures Gittes in the neo-noir The Two Jakes (1990). The history of LA as an oil rich area where extraction has taken place alongside urbanization influenced the portrayal of automobility towards violence.
Along with their need for gasoline which fuels the violent extraction of the oil industry, cars in noir have needs and characteristics that often steer the narratives towards violence. In Detour, many important story beats are dictated by the needs of the car rather than the needs of the human characters. Haskell only picks Al up because he is tired and the car needs a second driver, and this interaction sets the stage for the rest of the film. Next, Al has to stop to put the top up to protect the interior of the car from the rain, and this stop is when Haskell is discovered to be dead, either from a blow to the head when falling out of the car, asleep, or previously from some unknown cause. It is possible that if Al had not needed to stop, Haskell would have lived. Vera appears when Al stops at a gas station to refill the car, another point that relies on the needs of the car. This theme of the car dictating characters' actions reflects the political climate surrounding cars during World War II, when a major propaganda campaign concerning cars was implemented. Sarah Frohardt-Lane gives an overview of the history of America's World War II propaganda campaign in her article "Promoting a Culture of Driving: Rationing, Car Sharing, and Propaganda in World War II". The day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese military took control of American rubber plantations in the Pacific, halting 97% of the rubber coming into the US. This created a drastic rubber shortage and strict rationing; in other words, the needs of American automobiles had to be curtailed to make way for the needs of war. Somewhat surprisingly, the propaganda campaign created by the US government through the new "Office of War Information" (OWI) focused not on suppressing driving or alternative options, but on driving in proper ways that would reduce the national need for gasoline and rubber but preserve America's culture of automobility. It showed driving as essential to the American way of life and emphasized the need to keep cars functional throughout wartime. This is another example of the needs of automobiles influencing human behavior. The powerful influence of automobiles on human decision making is reflected in films such as Detour, and the specific need for oil which has a history of dangerous extraction further ties automobility to violence.
There are dozens of examples of car crashes in the noir films of the 1940s and the neo-noirs inspired by them, showing the commonality of this violence. The Postman Always Rings Twice, both the 1934 novel and 1946 film adaptation, is an excellent example of this. Throughout the narrative, there is an emphasis on the violence brought about by cars, including Nick's murder, Frank's injuries, and Cora's death. Violence seems to be an inherent property of their interaction with automobiles (Smoak). Frank and Cora's second murder attempt relies on the commonality of car crashes for its efficacy. They plan to kill Nick in the car and then push it off of a cliff, making it look like an accident. Frank explains, "This was going to be such a lousy murder it wouldn't even be a murder. It was going to be just a regular road accident, with guys drunk, and booze in the car, and all the rest of it" (Cain 35). The two successfully carry out the murder, but Frank is seriously injured when the car tips over onto his arm, emphasizing the uncontrollable nature of automobile violence. Finally, Cora's death in a car crash ends up condemning Frank. Other notable depictions of car crashes occur in The Reckless Moment, Fadeout (1970), Kill Me Again (1989), and Mulholland Drive (2001). The Reckless Moment kills the male lead, Donnelly, in a car crash that results from a chase. The mystery in the neo-noir novel Fadeout by Joseph Hansen begins with Fox faking his death by driving his car off of a bridge. Kill Me Again concludes with the two antagonists, gangster Vince and his femme fatale girlfriend Fay crashing into a petroleum tank while trying to evade the police and exploding. Mulholland Drive begins with a car crash that sets the tone for the entire film. The Postman Always Rings Twice and Fadeout are notable because they rely on the normalization of fatalities from car crashes to misdirect attention away from crimes. This trope points to the commonplace nature of car accidents in the 1940s. The other examples heighten the existentialism present in noir through their randomness; Porfirio notes that noir narratives are often driven by chance and chaos rather than by destiny. The frequency and effect of automobile violence in these narratives results from a culture that has seemingly accepted the danger that comes with automobility.
Another important association to mention is the link that exists between automobility, violence, and masculinity in American consciousness and, by extension, in noir. The marketing of American automobiles initially catered to men. One of the ways it did this was by othering women, through the sexualization of their bodies and the likening of cars to women (Pangborn) and in advertising that portrayed women as too delicate to operate cars (Walsh). World War II propaganda around driving was also targeted towards white men, "conflat[ing] car ownership with citizenship and portray[ing] driving as integral to the American way of life" (Frohardt-Lane 337). The web of connection between automobility, violence, and masculinity is clear in such films as The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), and Drive (2011). In Postman, Frank and Cora consummate their murder of Nick through violent sexuality, expressing a clear connection between Nick's masculinity and the murder, and this is associated with automobility through the means of the murder. Earlier in the film, Frank's line "Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing. But stealing his car, that's larceny" also serves to establish the importance of car ownership to American masculinity. In The Hitch-Hiker, Myers exploits the association between masculinity and automobility to enact violence upon drivers, and sees himself as dominating in all of the three areas. Finally, Drive is a perfect distillation of this association-- the film depicts a protagonist who is closely associated with cars in every part of his life, is an example of idealized masculinity, and commits multiple acts of extreme violence. The tie between automobility, violence, and masculinity is entrenched in American media and culture and examples of this association can be found in both noir and neo-noir.
Noir's cars serve a wide variety of purposes in their narratives through their many cultural implications, connections to industry, and their versatility, however, they are almost inevitably associated with violence. Cars in noir enable violence through their needs, their creation of a private space, their association with masculinity, and their intrinsic proclivity towards brutality. They also exemplify existentialism through their associations with isolation and chaos. These themes stem from a society and culture in 1940s LA that was deeply entrenched in automobility. Without oil, roads, and cars, it is reasonable to suggest that the movement we call noir would not have existed at all.
Arthur, Paul. "Los Angeles as the Scene of the Crime". Film Comment, Vol. 32, No. 4, August 1996, pp. 20-26. Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Braun, Robert and Richard Randell. "The vermin of the street: the politics of violence and the nomos of automobility". Mobilities, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2022, pp. 53-68.Detour. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, Producers Releasing Corporation, 1945.
Double Indemnity. Directed by Billy Wilder, Paramount Pictures, 1944.
Drive. Directed by Nicholas Winding Refn, FilmDistrict, 2011.
Elkind, Sarah. "Extracting Property Values and Oil: Los Angeles' Petroleum Booms and the Definition of Urban Space in the Twentieth Century". Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 57, No. 1, 2016, pp. 91-113.
Fotsch, Paul Mason. "Film Noir and the Hidden Violence of Transportation in Los Angeles".Watching the Traffic Go By: Transportation and Isolation in Urban America, University of Texas Press, 2007, pp. 93-120.
Frohardt-Lane, Sarah. "Promoting a Culture of Driving: Rationing, Car Sharing, and Propaganda in World War II". Journal of American Studies, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2012, pp. 337-355.
Hansen, Joseph. Fadeout. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970.
The Hitch-Hiker. Directed by Ida Lupino, RKO Radio Pictures, 1953.
Kill Me Again. Directed by John Dahl, Propaganda Films, 1989.
Mulholland Drive. Directed by David Lynch, StudioCanal, 2001.
Osteen, Mark. "Noir's Cars: Automobility and Amoral Space in American Film Noir". Journal of Popular Film and Television, Vol 35, No. 4, 2010, pp. 183-192.
Out of the Past. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, RKO Radio Pictures, 1947.
Pangborn, Matthew. "Lessons in 'Bad Love': Film Noir and the Rise of the American Oil Regime in Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945)". Journal of American Studies Vol. 55, No.4, 2021, pp. 780-814.
Porfirio, Robert. "No Way Out: Existential Motifs in the Film Noir". Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. 45 No. 4, 1976, pp. 212. British Film Institute.
The Postman Always Rings Twice. Directed by Tay Garnett, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1946.
The Reckless Moment. Directed by Max Ophüls, Walter Wagner Productions, 1949.
Smoak, Shelby. "Tails, Gunfights, and Murder: The Role of the Automobile in the Noir Fiction of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler." Clues, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2011, pp. 40-6.
Trapped. Directed by Richard Fleischer, Eagle-Lion Films, 1949.
The Two Jakes. Directed by Jack Nicholson, Paramount Pictures, 1990.
Walsh, Margaret. "Gendering Mobility: Women, Work, and Automobility in the United States". History, Vol. 93, No. 3, July 2008, pp. 376-395. The Historical Association and Blackwell Publishing.