From Dark Streets to the Blacklist. Long shadows, angst, people trapped in impossible circumstances — these are the characteristics most associated with film noir. But the content and context of these films are much more complex, according to James Naremore and Dave Wagner. Noir was created from the Popular Front politics of the 1930s Left and draws on influences ranging from writers Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and Dashiell Hammett to French poetic realism and American horror films.