Noir only talks of emperors to claim they have no clothes

Noir actually doesn't really talk - much less frankly : the Breen Office put full stop to that idea.

But its small scale and relatively personal dramas among downmarket nobodies are free to cast a highly suggestive and subversive mood - and they do - in (Sam) spades.

Their mood clearly suggests that corruption, double-crossing and deception extends through all aspects of human life - not just in the lower ranks where dis-honour among working class thieves has long been taken for granted by the upper crust.

That the big double cross actually extends upwards to (or is that 'extends downwards from' ?) the sunny, sacred, servants of the people top of national society.

And beyond. Far beyond.

With Nazi Germany's abrupt 'Pact with' and then 'Attack upon' communist Russia being perhaps the ultimate double cross - particularly to the left wing writers, directors and movie critics who responded by creating Film Noir in the years immediately following Germany's sneak attack upon its new ally.

When, in turn , mainstream Hollywood's newest best buds, Russia and America, also suddenly fell out with heated criminations, it only further fuelled Film Noir's downbeat deconstruction of the overly sunny "official version" of reality ...