Noir Talk

The slang and street talk in noir films is familiar to us. You know chump, stoolie, scram - this is 1930s/40s "Runyonesque" dialect that went mainstream and is now regarded as campy vernacular. But some of the language is more esoteric and can be confusing. Here is a glossary to help.

Bangtails: racing horses

B-girl: Literally, “bar girl.” B-girls were young women paid to converse and dance with male patrons. It ranged from selected “nice” ladies entertaining GIs at the USO to legitimate “taxi dancing” ballrooms to simple fronts for prostitution. To call someone a “B-girl” insinuates she is cheap, common, with lose morals.

Belly gun: a type of handgun, also known as a snub-nosed or pocket revolver, with a short barrel designed for close-range use and easy concealment. Holsters are seldom used. The name comes from the way it is carried in a waistband or used by placing the muzzle against the victim’s body. Messy but deadly.

Bone house: morgue

Booster bloomers: specialized baggy undergarments or skirts used by female shoplifters

Booster suits/coats: garments specially altered with concealed, oversized pockets and, in some cases, slits in the lining, enabling a shoplifter to nick a piece without removing his hands from his pockets.

C-Note: $100 (equivalent to $1500 today)

Cannon. A pickpocket skillful enough to work solo, part of American underworld slang since the early 1900s. Film noir’s most memorable cannon is Skip McCoy, played by Richard Widmark in Pickup on South Street (1953).

Douser: a silencer for a gun

Dutch uncle: stern, no nonsense figure

Fish: the target of a scam

Four-flusher: A cheat, a dishonest person. The term originally referred to a poker player who bluffs a flush while holding only four cards in the suit. In noir slang, a person who makes empty boasts, a welsher, not to be trusted.

Gumshoe: Shoes or boots with gum-rubber soles had been around since the mid-19th century. Because they allow the wearer to walk quietly (or stealthily), detectives became known as "gumshoes."

Gunsel: Sam Spade uses “gunsel” three times for Wilmer (Elisha Cook Jr.), the Fat Man’s inept enforcer in The Maltese Falcon. Film censors okayed the word, thinking it meant “gunman.” In Yiddish, a gunsel - literally “little goose” - can mean a young man used for pleasure by an older man; in general, a weak simpleton. In a spoof of hard-boiled detective movies, Bob Hope as a would-be private eye uses the word in My Favorite Brunette.

Heist box: a wrapped gift box with no bottom, designed to place over an item to be shoplifted

Horse office: bookie joint

Licorice stick: clarinet

Longarm: police officer

Meat wagon: coroner’s ambulance

Mouse: an attractive young lady

Jive men: jazz musicians

Mink: a kept woman

Mouthpiece: lawyer for an accused criminal or a general in-house lawyer for powerful people who have something to hide

Pollywog: literally a tadpole, meaning a weak or useless young man

Push (noun): Importation or delivery of drugs

Queer (verb): to mess up, to ruin

Rumble (noun): the low-down, the gossip

Salt (verb): to make matters worse for someone, rubbing salt in the wounds

Sawbuck: $10 (equivalent to $150 today)

Screw: prison guard

Slammer: in addition to a prison, a profession: a thug who beats up people up for hire; mob muscle

Soup: the chemical nitroglycerin mix used to blow a safe

Shamus: In the United States, the word "Shamus" is a misspelling of Séamus and slang for the Irish American cop stereotype. Used in noir films to describe detectives and private investigators.

Squeal (noun): news, information, update

Tumble (verb): to understand, to grasp a situation

Whistlestop: a dame for a one-night or short stand.

Yard: $100 (equivalent to $1500 today)

What am I missing?