THE BLANK WALL, THE RECKLESS MOMENT, and THE DEEP END

above: Joan Bennett in a publicity still for THE RECKLESS MOMENT

Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's 1947 THE BLANK WALL might be the best classic noir novel that most noir fans have never read. It's a masterpiece of its kind, one the best examples of what some feminist critics call the "domestic noir," that subgenre of crime fiction and film that concerns itself with the secret world of the happy American housewife.

Holding's book was made into the brilliant 1949 Joan Bennett noir THE RECKLESS MOMENT, and was then adapted fifty years later into the excellent 2001 Tilda Swinton neo-noir THE DEEP END. Three very different works of high quality. That's an incredible feat. 

I wrote about the book and its cinematic legacy in a recent piece for the Book vs Film column for the magazine Noir City. Here's a link to the article. Check it out.