1946 Decoy and story structure

Question

So I'm watching this old film noir, Decoy from 1946, and during the whole thing I'm thinking two things:
1. There's no such thing as methylene blue. (There is, but it doesn'tdo what it did in the film.)
2. Why is this story so weird protagonist's role keeps flipping backand forth. This is an issue for me because I'm writing a paper about an element of the protagonist in film noir stories that I believe is a marker of whether a story is "pure noir" or just infused with elements of the style.
So then in the extras, the daffy screenwriter is all "oh, yeah, I thought I'll just write a script and I did and they bought it!" oi.

Serves me right

Plus, you wanna know a secret, there's not a single decoy in this whole frikkin movie...oh, wait, I think I know what they meant now. Can't tell you without spoiling ending.
Mysti
Mysti

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]So I'm watching this old film noir, Decoy from 1946, and during the whole thing I'm thinking two things: 1. There's no such thing as methylene blue. (There is, but it doesn't do what it did in the film.)[/nq]
I Widied it - looks like it was a MacGuffin. Is the movie worth watching?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So I'm watching this old film noir, Decoy from 1946, and during the whole thing I'm thinking two things: 1. There's no such thing as methylene blue. (There is, but it doesn't do what it did in the film.)[/nq]
You mean there's no chemical you can give to somebody who's been killed in the gas chamber that'll bring him back to life? ****.
[nq:1]2. Why is this story so weird protagonist's role keeps flipping back and forth. This is an issue for me because ... I believe is a marker of whether a story is "pure noir" or just infused with elements of the style.[/nq]
I'm not sure what you mean by the "protagonist's role." I think that it's pretty clear that the "femme fatale" is the protagonist. What she wants is the money. She's basically, lies, cheats, seduces, and murders her way through anything and anybody to get it and then, well, you know, given that's it's 1946, um she gets the money and lives happily ever after.
I mean, she's obviously a bad person. But "bad person" doesn't mean "antagonist" any more than "protagonist" means "the good guy."

MacBeth was the protagonist. MacBeth was not a good guy. He murdered his king, murdered his best friend, ordered the murder of innocent women and children. He was not in any sense "heroic" the fact that he was sort of vaguely guilty about the evil stuff that he did doesn't mean that he was not a complete ***. He was.
So we shouldn't mix up, "bad guy" vs. "good guy" with "protagonist" and "antagonist."
The woman was a "bad person" but was clearly the protagonist the character whose need drove the story.
[nq:1]So then in the extras, the daffy screenwriter is all "oh, yeah, I thought I'll just write a script and I did and they bought it!" oi.[/nq]
I'm guessing that the person on the DVD was Stanley Rubin, who only got story credit on this thing. The writer who got screenplay credit passed away in the sixties.
This certainly wasn't his first screenplay. He had a dozen credits prior to this movie (including, by the way, "Six Lessons from Madame Lazonga"), and also went on to write (uncredited) The Whip Hand a truly odd movie about ****/Commie infiltration in small town USA.

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1946 Decoy and story structure

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