What is film noir:

Name: Cinema Studies. The Key Concepts. Second Edition.
Author: Susan Hayward.
Printed: Routeledge
Place: USA and Canada at the same time.
Year: 2001.

"The film noir, predominately a B movie, is often referred to as a sub-genre of the crime thriller or gangstyer movie - although as a style it can be found in other genres (for example, melodramatic, westren). This is why critics see film noir as a movements rather than a genre. The critics point top the fact that, like all other film movements, film noir emerged from a period of political instability: 1941-58, the time of the Second World War and the Cold War. In the United states this was a time of repressed insecurity and paranoia: the American dream seemed in tatters and American national identity under severe strain."