...Listed! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Phillip Marlowe

I engaged Phillip Marlowe in conversation and discovered that he had been created by Raymond Chandler, a prolific author who only took seriously to writing after he was fired from his highly-paid job in the oil industry. He chuckled as he told me that he had been used as the prototype of a hard-boiled gumshoe detective, and had appeared in seven of Chandler's novels.

Marlowe told me that such notable actors as Elliot Gould, Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum had portrayed him. 'Farewell, My Lovely' was the novel upon which the movie 'Murder, My Sweet' was based.

Answer: Burt Lancaster

Mr. Lancaster, so he told me, was born in New York, and the film noir, 'The Killers', was his first movie. He remembered that it was not Gardner's first, though knew it was the one that drew attention to her and was pivotal in her career.

Along with many of those associated with the film noir movement of the 1940s-'50s, Lancaster told me he was accused of communist tendencies. At one stage he was forced to send a letter to the U.S. State Department in order to renew his passport. He took a newspaper clipping out of his wallet, a report of those events. He is quoted as having said, "I am not now a Communist. I never been a Communist and I am not in sympathy with the Communist movement."

Answer: Double Indemnity

I walked over to where Mr Robinson stood and commenced my interrogation. I found out he was born Emmanuel Goldenberg in 1893 in Bucharest, Romania. He appeared at a sitting of the House Un-American Activities Committee, accused, as were many of his contemporaries, of communist affiliation. He told me he was exonerated, and continued work in the industry. Many actors of that period were not similarly fortunate.

I scribbled some notes as he talked. The film noir 'Double Indemnity' was adapted by Raymond Chandler from the novella by James M. Cain, 'Three of a Kind'. Its male lead was played by Fred MacMurray; Barbara Stanwyck starred in her first unsympathetic femme fatale role. Poor Mr. Dietrichson, the victim, is incidental to the story, which is related retrospectively by insurance investigator, Barton Keyes, played superbly by Edward G. Robinson.

Answer: Rita Hayworth

Ms Hayworth descended the staircase slowly and stopped in front of me, her face obscured by a shadow. She told me that her character in 'The Lady From Shanghai', Elsa Bannister, enthralled Michael O'Hara (Orson Welles). In a complicated plot, Grisby and Elsa planned to frame O'Hara for the murder of Arthur Bannister, played by Everett Sloane.

The 1948 film noir 'The Lady From Shanghai' was dominated by the work of Orson Welles, who directed, produced and acted in it. He also collaborated on the screenplay, based upon Sherwood King's 1938 novel 'If I Die Before I Wake', with a number of others.

Answer: Austria

Mr Lang slammed the door behind him and consented to have a few words with me. He explained that a significant number of people now associated with film noir, many of them Jews, went to America between the wars from what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among them were many of his contemporaries including Peter Lorre, Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Max Steiner, Marlene Dietrich and Ingrid Bergman. Austrians, Germans, and Swiss were influenced by the German Expressionism movement, leading to the use of angular photography, sinister shadows and venetian blinds to create a sense of menace.

Answer: Ida Lupino

I asked Ms Lupino about what else she was known for. Apart from film noir style movie, 'The Hitch-Hiker', she told me she was also responsible for the 1953 film 'The Bigamist' and 'Hard, Fast and Beautiful' (1951). She recalled that she had started in movies as an ingénue, but had starred in 65 movies in total, one of her favourites being 'Anything Goes' with Bing Crosby.

Answer: Peter Lorre

Even in my gumshoes I stood at eye-level with Mr Lorre (he was only (165 cm (5'5") tall). No need to ask him his background; I knew he was born in Hungary as László Lowenstein. He settled in Germany and worked with playwright Bertolt Brecht and Fritz Lang's 'M'. After Hitler came to power in 1933, Lorre fled to London, where he appeared in Hitchcock's 'The Man Who Knew Too Much', his first English-language film. He worked with Sydney Greenstreet in a series of nine films.

What I didn't know, and was grateful for him telling me, was that in common with many in the motion picture industry at the time, Lorre was interviewed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was asked to name anyone suspicious he had met since coming to the US and allegedly responded by giving them a list of everyone he knew. That left me chuckling.

Answer: Max Steiner

Mr Steiner stopped playing long enough to tell me he had trained under Gustav Mahler, studying music at the Imperial Academy of Music. He blushed a little as he told me he had completed an eight-year course in one year, at the age of sixteen.

Steiner said he was responsible for the theme music for 'Gone with the Wind' and the composer of the well-known Warner Brothers fanfare. When I asked if there was a musical style associated with film noir, he informed that it was usually described as moody and evocative, occasionally employing plaintive saxophone voices and jazz improvisation.

Answer: Alfred Hitchcock

I took a deep breath and approached the king of suspense. However, as I had heard from others, he was most affable and made me feel comfortable. I asked him about the making of 'Vertigo' in 1958. He said it was towards the end of the time when film noir was considered to be at its peak.

I suggested to him that his techniques had led to significant changes in the way filming was done in the whole movie industry. He nodded and with a gleam in his eye said that the way he 'drip fed' information to the audience, with the threads all coming together at the last minute was different from what had gone before, and was reminiscent of an Agatha Christie denouement. As I left him, he bowed and said "Good eeevening."

Answer: Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk saw my eyes on him and approached me. "Yes, I'm who you're looking for," he said. He told me he had had a successful career, somewhat curtailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee, who required him to provide names of all those he considered to have communist leanings. He had spent time in jail because of it. However, Edward (he asked me to call him that) had received assistance from a number of his colleagues, and managed to revitalise his career.

'Murder, My Sweet' was the name of the film version of the Raymond Chandler' book 'Farewell, My Lovely'.