Los Angeles, known as the "City of the Angels," has inspired a subgenre of movies called L.A. Noir, in which the sunshine, orange groves and laid-back California lifestyle are substituted for the neon lights, glittering sidewalks and Eastern cityscapes that are the mainstay of traditional film noir.

In promotion of his newest film, Motherless Brooklyn (2019), Edward Norton appears with TCM's Alicia Malone to co-host a pair of films that fit into the "L.A. Noir" classification: The Big Sleep (1946) and Chinatown (1974).

Motherless Brooklyn, based on the 1999 novel of the same title by Jonathan Lethem, is Norton's sophomore effort as a director (his first was 2000's Keep the Faith). A Boston native, Norton is best-known in the film world for his work as an actor, which includes Oscar-nominated performances in Primal Fear (1996), American History X (1998) and Birdman (2014).

Set in mid-century New York City, Motherless Brooklyn stars Norton as a private investigator struggling with Tourette syndrome as he attempts to solve the mystery of his mentor's death. The noteworthy cast also includes Alec Baldwin, Bruce Willis, Willem Dafoe and Cherry Jones.

The Big Sleep, based on the 1939 Raymond Chandler novel that introduced the character of Los Angeles noir detective Phillip Marlowe, gave Humphrey Bogart one of his most iconic roles. The film marked Bogie's reunion with wife-to-be Lauren Bacall and Howard Hawks, the pair's director on 1944's To Have and Have Not. One of the screenwriters on The Big Sleep was the celebrated American author William Faulkner. But the famously convoluted plot, about the blackmailing of a wealthy family, is overshadowed by the sexy byplay between the two stars and the atmospheric portrayal of L.A. as a seedy and dangerous town.

Chinatown, directed by Roman Polanski from an Oscar-winning screenplay by Robert Towne, is often compared to The Big Sleep since both films deal with crimes in the early- to mid-20th century involving prosperous and decadent California families. In Chinatown, Jack Nicholson stars as an L.A. private eye inadvertently led into a plot involving control of the city's water supply. Other powerful performances come from Faye Dunaway as the femme fatale of the film and John Huston as her malignant father.

by Roger Fristoe