Hailed for its dramatic expressionist visuals, film noir is one of the most prominent genres in Hollywood cinema. Yet, despite the "boom" in sound studies, the role of sonic effects and source music in classic American noir has not received the attention it deserves. Siren City engagingly illustrates how sound tracks in 1940s film noir are often just as compelling as the genre's vaunted graphics.

Focusing on a wide range of celebrated and less well known films and offering an introductory discussion of film sound, Robert Miklitsch mobilizes the notion of audiovisuality to investigate period sound technologies such as the radio and jukebox, phonograph and Dictaphone, popular American music such as "hot" black jazz, and "big numbers" featuring iconic performers such as Lauren Bacall, Veronica Lake, and Rita Hayworth. Siren City resonates with the sounds and source music of classic American noir-gunshots and sirens, swing riffs and canaries. Along with the proverbial private eye and femme fatale, these audiovisuals are central to the noir aesthetic and one important reason the genre reverberates with audiences around the world.

ROBERT MIKLITSCH is a professor in the English department at Ohio University where he teaches film and media studies. He is the editor of Psycho-Marxism and the author of From Hegel to Madonna: Towards a General Economy of "Commodity Fetishism" and Roll Over Adorno: Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audiovisual Media.

"In this masterful book, Miklitsch explores the narrative and dramatic roles of sound and source music in 1940s film noir. With its emphasis on performance, song texts, and 'points of audition' rather than technical features of melodies and harmonies, this accessible book provides a more effective model for studying sound and music and their relationship to film images than does Gregg Redner's Deleuze and Film Music. Highly recommended."

"Robert Miklitsch has convinced me. Sound and music in film noir are every bit as important as the visuals. Siren City drives home this argument with authority and elegance. Highly recommended."

"Siren City is the most extensive study of sound in film noir to date. This project is ideal scholarship; it is both groundbreaking work and has a wealth of prior work with which to engage. It is likely to attract readers interested in either film sound or the noir genre in addition to those drawn to their intersection."

"Amidst the sounds of echoing high heels, gunfire, and torch songs, Robert Miklitsch discovers the unheard rhythms of film noir. Siren City charts a new path through the genre to reveal how it was shaped equally by its audio aesthetics as by its visual tropes."

"Siren City succeeds because of its fine analyses. Miklitsch's work goes a long way in presenting us with equal measures of
variety, accessibility and entertainment."