The Children’s Noir

When it comes to film noir: To quote what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about a movie (admittedly rendering judgment in a vastly different cinematic context)—I know it when I see it. And MGM’s 1949 film version of the beloved Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 children’s classic, The Secret Garden, is (despite its kiddie-geared focus)—Film Noir. I know it when I see it, too… Yes, I know—Noir is adult. Murder, money, mystery, madness; it’s grifters grifting, schemers scheming, fraudsters frauding, and femmes fatales…er, femme-fataling; plus, a whole lotta nasty business with crime, adultery, homicide, theft, and revenge; as well as double crosses, twisty plots, murky motives, and guilty pasts. And all of it right in a kiddie film. (Well, not quite all. But still, a lot…) Noir is an uncertain, flexible category to begin with. It’s not really a genre, not as 1930s-40s-50s Hollywood would have understood it. Certain American films were first referred to as ‘film noir’ in 1946…

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