:00:00. > :00:15.Now on BBC News, it is time for From Out of Town.
:00:16. > :00:21.For decades, our country has lived through the greatest jobs left in
:00:22. > :00:26.the history of the world. You know it better than anybody in
:00:27. > :00:31.Pennsylvania. Our factories were shuttered, our steel mills closed
:00:32. > :00:37.down, and our jobs were stolen away and shipped far away. How did Donald
:00:38. > :00:41.Trump pull off his surprise victory? He did it partly by appealing to the
:00:42. > :00:46.feeling that across the USA, small towns have taken a battering. Main
:00:47. > :00:52.street. There is plenty of room here. Room for the individual to
:00:53. > :01:03.expand, to plan for himself and his children. The small towns of
:01:04. > :01:07.America, where once life was good. The less densely populated the place
:01:08. > :01:12.you lived, the more likely you were to back Trump for president. While
:01:13. > :01:17.they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to
:01:18. > :01:25.celebrate for struggling families all across our land. Washington
:01:26. > :01:31.versus real America, Wall Street versus Main Street. The small town
:01:32. > :01:38.has long been the home of sunny American innocence. While the big
:01:39. > :01:43.bad city was the source of all corruption. If only, Trump seemed to
:01:44. > :01:48.say, the innocence of the small town could be recaptured, we could make
:01:49. > :02:01.America great again. It is still a powerful story, but was it ever
:02:02. > :02:08.really that simple? In the 1940s and 1950s, big bad city 's really came
:02:09. > :02:17.to dominate and overshadow America. And, as they did so, they inspired a
:02:18. > :02:22.whole new style of cinema. In film noir, the American city is dark, and
:02:23. > :02:27.anonymous, and frightening. People are not what they seem. You can
:02:28. > :02:36.trust no one. Everyone is out for themselves. It is no place for the
:02:37. > :02:42.innocent. Yes, I know, I am... I am being foolish. In DOA, dead on
:02:43. > :02:47.arrival, Frank Bigelow makes the mistake of leaving his small home
:02:48. > :02:54.town and his girlfriend for a sneaky vacation in San Francisco. Within
:02:55. > :03:05.hours, he has been fatally poisoned, and is tearing around the city
:03:06. > :03:09.trying to find his killer. I am Adam Smith, a historian of America, and
:03:10. > :03:12.in this programme, I am going to investigate what film noir and its
:03:13. > :03:22.sharp contrast between corrupt city and innocent small town can tell us
:03:23. > :03:25.about America today. After 1945, Americans moved to the cities, and
:03:26. > :03:31.especially the booming suburbs, in huge numbers. Many of them found
:03:32. > :03:35.what they were looking for, but there was also this sense that they
:03:36. > :03:40.had lost the sense of the community they had had in the small towns
:03:41. > :03:45.they'd left behind. So film noir is not only about the city. It also
:03:46. > :03:52.plays on the contrast with the small town. Against this innocent
:03:53. > :03:59.background, the dodgy, sophisticated incomers from the cities standout.
:04:00. > :04:04.In some film noirs, the small town is the place you run to the try to
:04:05. > :04:10.escape your past. And it is where your enemies from the city catch you
:04:11. > :04:16.running a gas station. That is what happens to Robert Mitchum's
:04:17. > :04:22.character, Geoff Bailey, in Out of the Past. In the 1940s, America was
:04:23. > :04:25.becoming the land of the car, and that meant it was getting harder and
:04:26. > :04:30.harder for small towns to be the isolated islands they had once been.
:04:31. > :04:34.If you wanted to avoid marauders from the cities, a gas station was
:04:35. > :04:48.about the last place in a small town to work. Long time. Hello, Joe. Wish
:04:49. > :04:52.it was nice to see you. Everyone sure miss you, Jeff. Bailey
:04:53. > :04:57.discovers that even hiding in the eternal innocence of Bridport, his
:04:58. > :05:03.urban past will finally catch up with him. I had to find you? I owe
:05:04. > :05:10.you something? Geoff Bailey clearly hadn't watched Burt Lancaster in the
:05:11. > :05:16.Killers, where more or less the same thing happens. Pay you! Look at the
:05:17. > :05:21.oil, will you? Driving into the small town where he is hiding comes
:05:22. > :05:33.the man he really didn't want to meet again -- hey, you!
:05:34. > :05:42.In the Killers, a man's big-city past comes to him in the shape of
:05:43. > :05:48.two hitman hired by the man he once doublecrossed. They tracked him to
:05:49. > :05:56.that centre of smalltown life, Diana -- hitmen.
:05:57. > :06:02.And the men don't exactly hide their opinion of the place their victim
:06:03. > :06:10.has run two. This is a hot town. What do you call it? Brentwood. Did
:06:11. > :06:16.you ever hear of Brentwood? What do you do with your nights? They eat
:06:17. > :06:22.the dinner. They all come here and beat the big dinner. The killers go
:06:23. > :06:27.and kill Burt Lancaster's character, Peter Lund, but Brentwood New Jersey
:06:28. > :06:31.can at least consoled itself that it remained on standby this viciousness
:06:32. > :06:34.from the city. The way I look at it, this killing doesn't rightly
:06:35. > :06:39.concerned Brentwood at all. What concerns us is protecting the lives
:06:40. > :06:44.and integrity of our citizens. This man Lund lives here, that's all. The
:06:45. > :06:48.killers came from out of town. It is part of an American attitude which
:06:49. > :06:55.says that, if you want a safe, secure, comfortable life, live in
:06:56. > :07:00.somewhere like Brentwood. And that notion persists to this day, and it
:07:01. > :07:07.is one of the great ideas and fallacies behind Trump, that there
:07:08. > :07:14.is an America that is settled, rural, or semirural, provincial,
:07:15. > :07:20.let's say. Where life goes a long at a leisurely but acceptable, regular
:07:21. > :07:27.pace, and people are good to one another. It is a myth, but it is a
:07:28. > :07:32.very prevalent myth. And it was very prevalent than. But sometimes the
:07:33. > :07:38.man who runs to the small town is secretly the bad guy, like Joseph
:07:39. > :07:46.Cotton in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. Uncle Charlie appears
:07:47. > :07:55.quite briefly as an urban character, but then -- in wonderfully telling
:07:56. > :08:01.ways, you see him lying on his bed in a new room, in a mean building,
:08:02. > :08:06.you don't quite know where you are, but it is urban. And there is a
:08:07. > :08:12.sense, I think, of whatever damage he has done to others or to himself,
:08:13. > :08:17.that it has been an expression of that urban world. And he wants to
:08:18. > :08:25.get out, he wants to retreat. So he goes to Santa Rosa, in fact, and his
:08:26. > :08:30.niece, Charlie, lives there with her family. And it is another America
:08:31. > :08:38.from that city that uncle Charlie has come from. And it is in America
:08:39. > :08:42.that is really half asleep. It is not thinking about anything very
:08:43. > :08:48.much. It is a conflict between that darkness that uncle Charlie has seen
:08:49. > :08:54.in the brightness that Nice Charlie likes to believe is going to sustain
:08:55. > :09:00.America after the war -- niece. The Ariza right place a smalltown girl
:09:01. > :09:04.who is over the moon when her urbane uncle Charlie, who she reveres,
:09:05. > :09:09.comes to town -- Theresa Wright. Until, that is, she realises he is a
:09:10. > :09:13.serial killer. You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an
:09:14. > :09:16.ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life you know
:09:17. > :09:19.perfectly well there is nothing in the world to trouble you. You go
:09:20. > :09:24.through your ordinary little day, and that night you sleep your
:09:25. > :09:29.untroubled little sleep filled with peaceful, stupid dreams. And I
:09:30. > :09:35.brought you nightmares. And really what that seen in the diner is
:09:36. > :09:40.saying is, this girl has got to grow up. And probably her growing up
:09:41. > :09:47.could break down. And then you sort of save yourself, well, maybe uncle
:09:48. > :09:53.Charlie was a nice guy wants. Whether the invader was a villain or
:09:54. > :09:59.a victim, these movies portray the small town as a land of innocence.
:10:00. > :10:03.And here in Sierra Madre, near Los Angeles, this place still has a
:10:04. > :10:07.lovely smalltown feel. There is a wonderful old theatre over there,
:10:08. > :10:14.some great cafes. It is a very good pleasant, peaceful place. You can
:10:15. > :10:19.see why the smalltown a deal still has its appeal. But, even as it was
:10:20. > :10:25.becoming a symbol of nostalgia, these films were already unsettling
:10:26. > :10:32.division of the smalltown. For Hitchcock Tom I think, it is a way
:10:33. > :10:40.of saying to that very secure, settled American attitude to itself,
:10:41. > :10:43.don't trust it. Shadow of a Doubt. What does that title mean? It
:10:44. > :10:51.doesn't really seem to spring out of the film, but a shadow of a doubt is
:10:52. > :10:56.where -- what a smart viewer is going to feel about America when the
:10:57. > :11:05.film is over. In the Stranger, another charming outsider rings per
:11:06. > :11:08.share of evil to a small town. Orson Welles as a teacher in Harper,
:11:09. > :11:13.Connecticut, and is about to cement his position in the little town by
:11:14. > :11:18.marrying Loretta Young. But then Edward G Robinson tracks into the
:11:19. > :11:23.town, and makes her confront who her new husband really is.
:11:24. > :11:34.Surely you don't think... You might. They look like other people. The act
:11:35. > :11:43.like other people. When it is to their benefit. A gas chamber. But if
:11:44. > :11:51.nice Mr Rank and is really a Nazi, who can you trust, even in Harper
:11:52. > :11:54.Connecticut? When he is exposed, the desperate Kindler hides in the
:11:55. > :11:59.church bell tower and the people of the town come together to hunt him
:12:00. > :12:05.down. Citizens of Hopper have come after you. The ones who have been
:12:06. > :12:17.laughing at. You can't fall them any more. If the target is an escape
:12:18. > :12:22.Nazi, that is one kind of story. But the smalltown mobs in these movies
:12:23. > :12:27.were not always quite like that. Sometimes they went a big step
:12:28. > :12:32.further. Instead of casting the smalltown as an innocent place to
:12:33. > :12:37.show up the evils of the big city, they turned the American heartland
:12:38. > :12:46.of self into a nightmarish landscape.
:12:47. > :12:55.In some films, it is the smalltown itself which harbours corruption.
:12:56. > :13:00.And these films suggest the flipside to community come together is. The
:13:01. > :13:06.code of silence. The wall of hostility. I could punch him in the
:13:07. > :13:10.face, I tell you. You know what they used to do to guys like that in a
:13:11. > :13:15.place like this? They would be carried out on a stretcher. Perhaps
:13:16. > :13:20.that vision of the world also has something darker to tell us. About
:13:21. > :13:24.Trump's America. You see somebody getting ready to throw a potato.
:13:25. > :13:31.Knock the crap out of them, seriously. I promise you, I will pay
:13:32. > :13:36.for the legal fees, I promise. People coming together as a
:13:37. > :13:42.community can be a lovely thing. But not when they come together as a
:13:43. > :13:49.crowd against one outsider. Spreading the violent propaganda of
:13:50. > :13:52.race hatred. In the wake of World War Two, many on the left were
:13:53. > :13:59.worried about Aisea stick tendencies in America. Like Hitler's Yang, they
:14:00. > :14:04.thrive on persecution, hatred and violence. If that boy isn't alive
:14:05. > :14:08.when the troops get here, you are going to get hurt where it counts.
:14:09. > :14:12.Again and again, left-wing filmmakers express this through
:14:13. > :14:19.images of that most passionate version of a community coming
:14:20. > :14:25.together as one. The lynch mob. In trial, their target is a terrified
:14:26. > :14:34.his to meet -- Hispanic boy wrongly branded a sex attacker. In the sound
:14:35. > :14:42.of urea, the mob do managed to kill the murderers they are after. -- The
:14:43. > :14:47.Sound of Fury. If the media's job is to be honest and tell the truth,
:14:48. > :14:53.then I think we would all agree the media deserves a very, very big fat
:14:54. > :14:58.failing grade. Looking back at these films today, it is striking to find
:14:59. > :15:02.the mob focused on one of Donald Trump's favourite targets. Those
:15:03. > :15:12.interfering big-city outsiders, the media. Warner Brothers's Storm
:15:13. > :15:18.Warning was an attack on the Ku Klux Klan. As Ginger Rogers, a New York
:15:19. > :15:29.model visiting her sister in a small town, discovers.
:15:30. > :15:35.The victim we soon find out if an undercover reporter who had been
:15:36. > :15:47.investigating them. Many times today on the streets, in
:15:48. > :15:51.a restaurant in the hotel, people have come up to us and asked us not
:15:52. > :15:58.to judge the whole town by the brutal criminal action of Woodlands
:15:59. > :16:04.last night. Bob? Bob. These decent individuals sincerely upset...
:16:05. > :16:09.Astonishingly, the filmmakers decided not to mention the clan's
:16:10. > :16:13.racism, at instead, the film explicitly connects far right
:16:14. > :16:19.extremism with smalltown hostility to outsiders, protected by a wall of
:16:20. > :16:23.silence. Looking at the faces of the men and women this afternoon at the
:16:24. > :16:26.courthouse, it isn't always easy to tell on which side they stand. No
:16:27. > :16:30.wonder some people in small towns get fed up with the way Hollywood
:16:31. > :16:44.and the media represent them. Around this time,, in The Lawless, another
:16:45. > :16:49.boy was accused of a sex attack. The townsfolk turned on the newspaper
:16:50. > :16:55.which has defended the boy. It would be hard to find a more vivid image
:16:56. > :16:59.of mob hatred of the media. Where are you? What is most striking is
:17:00. > :17:03.that the newspaper that gets destroyed is trying to be honest.
:17:04. > :17:11.The situation has been whipped up by another paper, peddling what you
:17:12. > :17:16.might call fake news. Now, a big hit.
:17:17. > :17:26.Now, try and remember just what happened. We went to the bar and he
:17:27. > :17:39.jumped out of the dark. She was a very self-conscious, very... Very
:17:40. > :17:44.heart on his sleeve Liberal who saw not just the chance, but the needle
:17:45. > :17:50.to make a story about racism in a smalltown community, but also of
:17:51. > :17:56.about the general danger of vigilantes spirit taking law into
:17:57. > :18:01.its own hands. The Lawless was written by Daniel Mannering had also
:18:02. > :18:05.read the film who helped set the template for the smalltown love, out
:18:06. > :18:09.of the past. Mannering gripe in a small town in northern California
:18:10. > :18:12.and though he was brilliant at evoking their particular atmosphere,
:18:13. > :18:18.he wasn't particularly sentimental about it. If you have never been
:18:19. > :18:23.tempted to take part in a lynch mob, perhaps it can take these films in
:18:24. > :18:27.your stride. But another film script of the 1950s, also written by Daniel
:18:28. > :18:41.Mannering, shows the growth of the mob which is even more unsettling.
:18:42. > :18:45.In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the people of a small town in
:18:46. > :18:53.California are not scarily angry, but scarily blank. Gradually, the
:18:54. > :19:02.town's doctor and his girlfriend realise that the townsfolk have been
:19:03. > :19:08.taken over by alien pods. That idea that I can barely believe in is that
:19:09. > :19:18.the world is populated by hordes, those of vegetables and they have no
:19:19. > :19:26.emotions -- pods. They bathe, they eat, they go to work, they eat
:19:27. > :19:30.again, they go to sleep. They have no cultural aspirations. The local
:19:31. > :19:37.psychiatrist thinks the advent of total conformity is just what the
:19:38. > :19:41.town needs. Suddenly while you are a sleep they will absorb your minds.
:19:42. > :19:47.Your memories. And you are reborn into an untroubled world. Where
:19:48. > :19:52.everyone is the same? Exactly. I think what it is saying is the very
:19:53. > :20:01.things that we think of as precious in a free society, like education,
:20:02. > :20:06.like love, like differences of opinion, like sexual expression,
:20:07. > :20:13.they may be great threats to social control. So the conformist crowd
:20:14. > :20:18.turned on the two dissidents. It has the arrival of bank conformity come
:20:19. > :20:23.from out of town to ruin the innocent townspeople? Is it like
:20:24. > :20:28.communism or consumerism, or is it their own community spirit that has
:20:29. > :20:34.made them obedient and conformist? The invasion -- Invasion of the Body
:20:35. > :20:37.Snatchers gets under your skin, because the crowd is going to do the
:20:38. > :20:38.right thing. Even the town's well-meaning policeman joined the
:20:39. > :20:53.chase. They went this way! The film refuses to tell you who to
:20:54. > :21:00.blame. Are the townsfolk villains or victims? But today, the message
:21:01. > :21:06.coming out of the pass from those old film Nawaz is that there is no
:21:07. > :21:14.perfect place, not even in the would-be paradise of smalltown
:21:15. > :21:18.America. One way to keep America divided is for Trump's opponents in
:21:19. > :21:20.the big cities to sneer at his supporters as losers left behind in
:21:21. > :21:32.flyover country. And another is to look back to
:21:33. > :21:39.nostalgically at the smalltown life of the real America. Before the took
:21:40. > :21:45.over. This whole dream risks hardening the divide between the
:21:46. > :21:49.big-city and the smalltown. Exactly the division of these old movies
:21:50. > :21:51.more than 60 years ago tried to dissolve.