Film noir is one of the most exciting and most debated products of studio-era Hollywood, but did you know that American radio broadcast many programs in the noir vein through the 1940s and 1950s? These included adaptations of such well-known films as The Maltese Falcon, Murder, My Sweet, and Double Indemnity, detective series devoted to the adventures of private eyes Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, and the spine-tingling anthology programs Lights Out and Suspense. Thrillers, Chillers, and Killers is the first book to explore in detail noir storytelling on the two media, arguing that radio’s noir dramas played an important role as a counterpart to, influence on, or a spin-off from the noir films. Besides shedding new light on long-neglected radio dramas, and a medium that was cinema’s major rival, this scrupulously researched yet accessible study also uses these programs to challenge conventional understandings of the much-debated topic of noir.
Introduction : Radio and Film Noir
Chapter 1: Noir Movies on the Radio
Chapter 2: Strange Romance - Laura, Film Noir, and Radio Drama
Chapter 3: Seriality and the Radio Detective
Chapter 4: The Transmedial Seriality of Michael Shayne, #1 - From Book to Film
Chapter 5: The Transmedial Seriality of Michael Shayne, #2 - Radio Drama
Chapter 6: Not for the Timid Soul - The Weird Mysteries of Lights Out
Chapter 7: Radio’s Outstanding Theatre of Thrills
Chapter 8: Noir Anguish: Cornell Woolrich and Suspense
Coda: Radio/Noir
Appendix: Radio Adaptations of Noir Films
Acknowledgements
Notes
Index
