Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att genomföra en jämförande studie av den klassiska Hollywood-deckaren, representerad av de tre första filmerna i Thin Man-serien, och film noir. Analysen utgår ifrån Thin Man-filmerna The Thin Man (1934), After the Thin Man (1936) och Another Thin Man (1939) och noir filmerna The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) och Dark Passage (1947). Den grundläggande teorin för uppsatsen är genreteori och hur den klassiska Hollywood-deckarfilmen skilde sig ifrån film noir. Analysen är uppdelad i fyra kapitel, i vilka olika delar av innehållet i både Thin Man-filmerna och de fyra exemplen av film noir analyseras. De olika kapitlen handlar om manliga huvudkaraktären, den kvinnliga huvudkaraktären, hur de olika filmerna hanterade ämnen berörande sex och sexualitet och hur samhället och människorna representeras i filmerna. Slutsats omfattar sedan en diskussion om uppsatsens resultat och svaret på varför Thin Man-filmerna inte räknas som film noir.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / By start of the 1920s, the United States had seen nearly forty years of vast accumulations of wealth by a small group of people, substantial financial speculation and a mass change in the economic base from agricultural to industrial. All of this ended in 1929 in a crushing depression that spread not only across the country, but also around the world. Hard-Boiled detective fiction first reached the reading public early in the decade initially as adventure stories, but quickly became a way for authors to express the stresses these changes were causing on people and society. The detective is the center of the story with the task of reestablishing a certain degree of order or redemption. An important character hallmark of this genre is that he is seldom able to do this, or that the cost is so high a terrible burden remains. His decisions and judgments in this attempt are formed by his relationship with the people or community around him. The goal of this thesis is to look at the issues raised in the context of how the detective relates to a person or community in the story. For analysis, six books were chosen arranged from least level of personal relationship by the detective to the most intimate. The books are Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler, The Galton Case, by Ross MacDonald, Cotton Comes to Harlem, by Chester Himes, Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley, and I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane. In the study of these books, a wide range of topics are presented including political ideologies, corruption, racial discrimination and family strife. Each book provided a wealth of views on these and other subjects that are as relevant today as when they were written.