There are few film genres that I love more than noir, which was all the rage in Hollywood throughout the ’40s and ’50s. The films are usually shot in black and white, and often contain flashbacks, voiceovers, cynical men and dangerous femme fatales. As much as I love the noir style, it can often be a disaster when television shows adopt it for very special episodes. Smallville and Charmed both tried to pull off the hardboiled dialogue and beautiful black and white cinematography, but the less mentioned about those episodes the better.
While being interviewed by The CW Source at the Teen Choice Awards, Chad Michael Murray revealed that the episode of One Tree Hill he’s scripting will be noir-themed. Will it be an interesting departure for the show or an absolute train wreck?
“We actually have a really great season this year,” Murray said when asked about what’s coming up for the One Tree Hill gang. “Things have been heating up, we’ve killed a couple people, and I wrote an episode this year, actually. I wrote a black and white ’30s film noir piece. It’s kind of Casablanca meets Dick Tracy, and Mark [Schwahn] really loved it. I took all six years [of the show] and kind of incorporated different aspects of it, then set it in the ’30s.”
Murray also revealed that his episode, which starts shooting in October, will likely be the thirteenth of the season. The actor is also hoping to step behind the camera to direct an installment sometime this year.
Before I start to ponder what a ’30s-style One Tree Hill episode will be like, I have to wonder whether Murray was serious when mentioning the deaths of a couple characters. It’s the type of comment that could have been a throwaway joke, or he could have been completely serious. If he in fact wasn’t being facetious, then which members of the OTH gang will be meeting their ends? Dan better not be included, or else I’ll be protesting in the streets.
As for the noir-themed OTH episode, I honestly don’t know what to think about it. Murray has never written an episode before, so it’s impossible to predict how the installment will turn out. I can certainly picture Peyton (Hilarie Burton) and Brooke (Sophia Bush) in vintage ’30s garb, and it’s not difficult to think of Mouth (Lee Norris) as a nosy reporter, but what will the plot consist of? Will the whole thing be a dream sequence? Will it be an excerpt from Lucas’s next novel? We’ll have to wait and see.
One Tree Hill season 6 premieres on the CW on September 1.
– Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Writer
Source: The CW Source
(Image courtesy of the CW)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
