Setting the mood! Crime fiction is one of the most enduring of all genres in Film, books, radio and television. It is a genre

that has been adapted into many forms and reimagined a dozen or more times. Hard-boiled fiction rose from the pulps to prominence in the U.S. during the 1930s and 1940s. Not only did it reflect the pressures of the Depression and World War II, but it also offered a code for dealing with physical and economic conflict. Its villains changed from the small-time hoodlums of "Old Cap Collier" at the turn of the century to adventurers such as Casper Gutman of The Maltese Falcon(1930) and then to "white-collar criminals" like Walter Huff of Double Indemnity (1936). It began to incorporate sexual opportunism as a parallel theme, whether in male characters such as Frank Chambers of The Postman Always

Rings Twice or in female ones such as Eileen Wade of The Long Goodbye. In the 1950s and 1960s Raymond Chandler and then Ross Macdonald delved into the psychology of their characters, bringing the genre to a point where it could

employ a greater variety of plots, which suited the demands of movies and later of television. The genre had a formula,

so audiences expected certain narrative elements, which writers and directors found easy to supply. Yet it could be varied to emphasize romance, violence,

suspense, psychology, or popular political concerns such as Communism.

But the vivid co-mingling of lost innocence, doomed romanticism, hard-edged cynicism, desperate desire, and

shadowy sexuality that was unleashed in those immediate post-war years proved hugely influential, both among

industry peers in the original era, and to future generation of storytellers, both literary and cinematic.

Here is a small list to get you into the spirit of things, watch any three and you will understand what this game is all about.

1.Sunset Blvd. (1950) 2.Gaslight (1944) 3.The Third Man (1949) 4.In a Lonely Place (1950) 5.The Woman in the Window (1944) 6.The Hitch-Hiker (1953) 7.M (1931) 8.Double Indemnity (1944) 9.High Sierra (1941) 10.Suspicion (1941)