The time Film Noir was Film Vert

Humphrey Bogart pulled on a cigarette, a bead of sweat rain down the side of his face. Bathed in green light, he poured himself a whisky.

From a dark green shadow stepped Mary Astor.

“Room in that bottle for two?” She drawled. Her dress, damp with sweat from the heat of the green lamps, stuck to her back.

“Cut!” Called a weary John Huston.

He was making A Green New York Night, the first ever Film Vert movie. A movie about the dark deeds of shady characters. Hard-bitten dames and cynical tough guys would mingle together in the seedy parts of town.

To reflect the desperate deeds and tragic lives, the film would be bathed in green light.

“The problem,” said Mr Huston, in a 1957 Wogan interview, “was the green lamps generated a tremendous amount of heat, and the film was set in a New York winter.”

“It’s very tricky to do hard-bitten and cynical when you’re drenched in sweat.”

Behind the scenes, Mr Huston had argued vociferously that the green light was an impractical folly.

“Well, yes, but in those days, the studios held all the cards. French cinema was all the rage and if they wanted to start a new genre of crime movies called Film Vert, then I was in no position to stop them. No matter how impractical I thought it was.”

However, the studio executives had failed to grasp the technical limitations of filming in black and white.

“I tried to impress upon them, that no matter how many green lamps were used, it would be very difficult to show green light in a black and white film.”

Ultimately, when the studios saw the initial footage, the relented and allowed the legendary director to film without the green light.

However, without the green light, the footage became extremely dark and shadowy. The studio executives thought it would be unusable but John Huston was a genius.

“Well, I told them that it was Film Fonce or ‘Film Dark.’ They were happy that it sounded French, I got to make my picture and everything worked out fine.”

Without the green light, A Green New York Night became The Maltese Falcon and Film Fonce was born

However, that sounded a bit silly and unbelievable, so they changed it to Film Noir and crime movies would never be the same again.