It’s hot out there, and it’s only getting hotter. This past month, Death Valley reported the highest average temperatures in the documented history of Earth, while one day in July set a new global record that was unseated just the next day as thermometer mercury continued climbing. Dozens of cities have logged unprecedented warmness in a year that scientists are identifying as the most inarguably, oppressively sweltering the modern human race has ever faced. Soon, the concept of going on holiday as it’s understood at present – of taking the summer months to travel somewhere hotter and sunnier than your day-to-day home town so that you can, presumably, relax – will seem counterintuitive.
The climate crisis is far from mind in the 13 titles gathered under Criterion Channel’s new Vacation Noir streaming series: tanned and sweaty tales of crime and betrayal cherry-picked from 1945 to 1973. Even so, many of these films suffer from the maddening effects of extreme heat, following characters turned short-tempered, ragged and desperate as the unforgiving sun beats down on them. The moral corrosion essential to the film noir genre was more readily located among the rain-soaked back alleys and dingy dive bars of the big city, but that still left plenty of room for trouble in paradise. A person spends enough time roasting on the beach, and the rays start to cook their brain. They get to hatching schemes, and before they know it, they’re booking a first-class ticket to hell.
