Lana Turner walks out of the shadows into a pool of light then into the shadows again. Into another pool of light and a second set of shadows. She is wearing an overcoat, walking the streets, looking troubled. This must be a film noir; the only real questions are where the corpse is, and what she has to do with it. None of these details is accidental or unimportant for the film we are watching, and the effect is memorable, but half of our inferences are wrong. This is Lana Turner and she is supposed to look troubled; but she is not outside, she is in an empty movie studio. After she has crossed the apparent streets to the set of the film she is about to make, she looks at her waiting chair then steps into her trailer, which from above looks like a large storage crate. She is an actress panicking before the shooting of her first big role, and the studio is part of her panic, a material manifestation of her fright. The noir effect is a stand-in for the movies in general, and the corpse may well be Turner’s career. It’s all too much for her, and she goes off on a drinking binge, her old habit.

LRB 5 April 2012 | PDF Download