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Fabian has a dalliance with a good girl named Mary, who would be better off with her neighbor, but she's too easily charmed by Fabian's initial slyness. But he's also fooling around with the wife of the man who employs him and is first willing to get involved in promoting wrestling. Oh, and Fabian's decided to ensnare Kristo's father, an ex-wrestler, into his scheme, all to make sure he becomes the biggest, most feared man in all of London. And at all times, Fabian is born to fail. The dialogue often references his impending doom, which would be surprising if we weren't all imagining exactly how Fabian will end up six feet under. Though Night and the City isn't the most well-known film noir, there's no question that Harry Fabian is a perfect protagonist: hapless, hopeless, and done for.

Joseph Cotten in The Third Man

If there is a better, more atmospheric, darker film noir, I have not seen it. Yes, by the way, you've begun to sense a pattern. Though, as evidenced by Bogart, not all great film losers are in film noir, it's hard to avoid the fact that the best ones are, by and large, in this genre of film. As the lead of The Third Man, though not the title character, Joseph Cotten is one of the more hopeless, yet well-intentioned, losers. He plays Holly Martins, a pulp novelist from America who travels to Vienna when encouraged to do so by his dear friend, Harry Lime. Once he arrives, though, Holly finds out that Harry has died. What's more, as he decides to investigate the mysterious death of his friend, Holly becomes aware that Harry was not so nice a guy, hoarding precious medicine for the Viennese black market.

So, how is Holly such a loser? Well, as I mentioned, his heart is in the right place. Unfortunately, nobody he encounters in The Third Man is in the same place as him, nor do they want to go to said place. Holly wants to do the right thing, but no one, not even the officious policeman who tries to warn him away constantly, is excited to join him. As you probably know, however, Holly's investigation into Harry's death turns down one more surprise: Harry's not dead, having faked his death so he may continue his black-market trade. Though Holly turns Harry over, he does so at his own expense, having lost Harry's woman and his self-respect. What cost pride, then? Holly starts out a nobody, and ends up worse.

William Holden in Sunset Boulevard

Is there a more baffling protagonist in film noir than Joe Gillis, the lead of Sunset Boulevard? Here is a man who has a future, but throws it away, all for the hypnotic snare a strange and lost woman has on him. Joe is a washed-up screenwriter who ends up tying himself to ex-star Norma Desmond. Gillis, as played by the sardonic William Holden, is often hateful to Norma, professing to despise her and her quirky, off-putting ways. Norma, as I'm sure you know, tries as hard as she can to live in the past. In the past, she was famous. In the past, there was no one more famous, more powerful in Hollywood, than her. Now, she's old (though, in this film, old equals 50-years-old) and forgotten. She lives with a former lover and director, played by Erich von Stroheim, and uses younger men like Joe to remind herself of her fame.

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