After emerging victorious from the horrors of World War II the US eagerly pushed into a new era of optimism hope and success But the shadowy and cigarettestained Bside to the bright shiny America emerged the film noir Made for cheap these dark tales scratched at a different society filled with twisted psyches and sinister motives Filmmaker Tom Thurman teams up with film critic and narrator David Thomson to weave together a hypnotic collage of a dark world that influences our national identity to this day