‘Murder’ Gives Film Noir Fans Extra Treat

Even if this album just gave us musical highlights from 18 film noir gems, it would be a treat for fans of that school of dimly lit movies, which stretched in the ‘40s and ‘50s from “The Maltese Falcon” to “White Heat.”

But “Murder Is My Beat” goes an inspired extra step to include some of the dialogue that contributed so greatly to the tense, hard-boiled edges of those films.

“What are you sweating for?,” a voice asks in the scene from “The Asphalt Jungle” that opens the album.

“Money makes me sweat . . . “ another voice answers, underscoring the obsessions that push film noir characters to their dooms. “That’s the way I am.”

Producers Ian Whitcomb, Julie D’Angelo, James Austin and David McLees acknowledge the importance of the dialogue by including in the album credits the names of the screenwriters of the 18 movies, as well as the composers.

In both cases, it’s an impressive list. Among the writers: John Huston, William Faulkner, Richard Brooks, Ben Maddow, Howard Koch and John Paxton. The composers include Max Steiner, David Raksin, Miklos Rozsa, Andre Previn and Franz Waxman.

Here’s another classic excerpt from “The Asphalt Jungle,” a 1950 MGM thriller about a heist. A police radio barks in the background as a voice talks about the struggle between good and evil in the melodramatic terms common in film noir:

“We send police assistance to every one of those calls. . . . People are being cheated, robbed, murdered, raped. That goes on 24 hours a day. . . . It’s the same in every city in the modern world. But suppose we had no police force, good or bad. Suppose we had . . . [there’s a pause as someone turns off the police radio] . . . just silence. Nobody to listen, nobody to answer . . . the jungle wins. The predatory beasts take over. Think about it.”

Whoa!

Though the music and the dialogue pretty much define film noir for you, Whitcomb, a wonderfully entertaining pop culture observer, traces the history of the genre in the liner notes. He captures both the drama of what is seen and heard on the screen as well as the spirit of the form’s creators.

He describes film noir as “the dark cinema, where you’ll also find the shadow theater of steel bars, wooden banisters, spiral staircases, menacing silhouettes, and dingy room after dingy room containing hard liquor in toothbrush tumblers; desk drawers holding revolvers rather than paper clips; big bruiser men . . . who never seem to change their clothes or eat a proper meal or enjoy daylight.”

Other films represented in the collection include “Key Largo,” the original “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “The Big Sleep,” “Laura” and “Force of Evil.”

Though most of the films themselves are available on video, you can also catch them regularly on the American Movie Classics and the Turner Classic Movies channels. Marvelous stuff--on disc or on screen.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).