Austin Improv

Mike_K wrote:In The Maltese Falcon, I think a secretary would have ruined the story.

Actually, she was there. Just a very minor character. Unless I'm getting my Bogie films mixed up, she was the one who took care of (and misdirected) the widow of Spade's partner a bit.

kbadr wrote:

Mike_K wrote:In The Maltese Falcon, I think a secretary would have ruined the story.

Actually, she was there. Just a very minor character. Unless I'm getting my Bogie films mixed up, she was the one who took care of (and misdirected) the widow of Spade's partner a bit.

Ok, my bad. It's been awhile since I saw the movie.

i believe you're talking about what we called in film school the femme fatale. the deadly sexy female character set to screw over the prot and question her legitimacy in saying she can help him.

Noir and detective fiction overlap but they're not the same thing. I'm with Kareem: if the protagonist has someone that he can rely on no matter what, it's probably not noir unless that person gets bumped off before the second reel.

I think people throw around 'noir' a little promiscuously these days (cf. Veronica Mars). For one thing, it wasn't a self-conscious designation like Dogme 95, it was a tag applied after the fact. For another, it's about mood, not content. You could make a noir western if you were willing to find a way to shoot a Western that was mostly dark and in which the hero could trust nobody. (But the conventions of community are so powerful in the Western that you'd probably have to spend half the movie upending them, which is a different conversation.)

By the way, Mike, Dan Blocker was the drama teacher at Sonora High School when my dad and uncles went there in the '50s.

ratliff wrote:By the way, Mike, Dan Blocker was the drama teacher at Sonora High School when my dad and uncles went there in the '50s.

That sounds awesome. I wonder what his classes were like.

Mike_K wrote:

ratliff wrote:By the way, Mike, Dan Blocker was the drama teacher at Sonora High School when my dad and uncles went there in the '50s.

That sounds awesome. I wonder what his classes were like.

Lots of naked roughhousing, is my understanding.

ratliff wrote:

Mike_K wrote:

ratliff wrote:By the way, Mike, Dan Blocker was the drama teacher at Sonora High School when my dad and uncles went there in the '50s.

That sounds awesome. I wonder what his classes were like.

Lots of naked roughhousing, is my understanding.

Don't you slander Dan Blocker's good name!

I think "the secretary" and "the good girl" are the same. You can usually find one or the other in noir, so that makes her a (stable/staple?), right? Either she's rooted in the office, or she's on the prowl with the prot (even though the prot prefers to work alone). But this may be a more modern take. Hm.

My Narrative Class troupe is doing a Western, so I will get back to you with my Western list...

kaci_beeler wrote:

ratliff wrote:

Mike_K wrote: That sounds awesome. I wonder what his classes were like.

Lots of naked roughhousing, is my understanding.

Don't you slander Dan Blocker's good name!

It's not slander unless you think there's something wrong with naked roughhousing.

When people add their genre breakdowns, could they please include a couple of key examples of that person's work that best show that genre?

Like Kareem, what movies or books in the Noir genre would you most recommend?

Done. I updated the original post with some classic suggestions, most of which people have probably seen. If not, you should. They're some all-around amazing films, regardless of genre.

I like/understand these genres and think they could work in improv:

Tennessee Williams - (southern drama)
The Glass Menagerie & A Streetcar Named Desire
& Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Sam Shepard - (another kind of southern drama)
Buried Child &
Curse of the Starving Class (my favorite!!!)

Comedy of Manners - There are several!
Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
The Rivals - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Country Wife - William Wycherley
Oscar Wilde - Lady Windermere's Fan & The Importance of Being Ernest

Realist turn of the century Drama -
A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen
The Cherry Orchard - Anton Chekhov

Dream/Freudian-inspired play:
A Dream Play - August Strindberg
M. Butterfly - David Henry Hwang

Burlesque (the vaudeville-like one, not the half naked show of today)

French farce - See Moliere works (can also be classified as Comedy of Manners)

I'm working on a ridiculously long description of science fiction. It'll be posted tomorrow or the day after.

phlounderphil wrote:I'm working on a ridiculously long description of science fiction. It'll be posted tomorrow or the day after.

I will likewise work on some sort of description/list for the Kung-Fu/Martial Arts genre...because why not, eh?