Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

film which tells the story of a fine soldier, Dixon (Dana Andrews), who is today a New
York City Police Detective, and who despises all criminals because his father had been one
(see p. 248). The film has some very important noir motifs, namely Dixon as the
archetypal noir anti-hero and a brand of violence that is “lurking below urban society” and
that also lies beneath Dixon’s skin because of his genetic inheritance, the ruthless and
cynical “cop with a dark past.” Aching and disoriented near the end, Dixon summarises his
lot in a kind of reassessment of his life: “Innocent people can get into terrible jams, too.
One false move and you’re in over your head.” Kirk Douglas in Detective Story (a 1951
William Wyler feature) plays exactly the same role, that of a relentless NYC policeman,
whose bitterness allows him to show no mercy towards criminals. Robert Ryan’s Jim
Wilson in On Dangerous Ground (1952) is perhaps the clearest embodiment of this type.
Again, a New York City policeman, Wilson, who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown
and whose life has made him abrasive and aggressive. The film was acknowledged for the
special visual treatment it received from director Nicholas Ray and for its narrative (the
journey of a loner from city to country and, metaphorically, his own inner journey).
In conclusion, the narrative patterns and visual style of film noir enabled it to
explore this problem of maladjustment. As seen, World War II veterans rendered amnesiac
or psychotic by wartime traumas soon turned out to be an important preoccupation in the
immediate aftermath of the war with the returning veteran becoming key noir protagonists
of the period (1946-8). These veterans brought with them a series of social and
psychological problems, and their amnesia made them become victim heroes, as seen in
films such as Deadline at Dawn, Somewhere in the Night and High Wall (1947). The
memory of the heroes of these films is often blacked out after having committed a crime
(in High Wall Steven Kenet (Robert Taylor) blacks out while his hands are around his
wife’s neck) or having stumbled into a murder (as is the case with the protagonist George
Taylor in Somewhere in the Night).
Finally, it is worth recalling that the topical character of the maladjusted veteran in
film noir by the end of the forties was taken over by the rogue cop, another significant
figure who anticipates the concerns of the early fifties cycle of rogue-cop thrillers. I have
dedicated a chapter to this special noir character (chapter 1.8) who, seen as a destabilising
social force, happens to be the individual officer that sets himself above the law as he
comes to eclipse the many commendable law enforcement agents in film noir. As I will
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