The UCLA Film & Televsion Archive in LA is screening a number of films noir over the next three months.

The movies will be screened in the Archive’s new ’state-of-the-art’ Billy Wilder Theater, funded by a donation from Billy Wilder’s widow, Audrey L. Wilder.  The theater can screen all major film and video formats - from variable speed silent films and nitrate prints to the latest digital cinema, and is located on the courtyard level of the Hammer Museum in the Westwood area of Los Angeles.

Screenings of interest to film noir aficionados are spread over three series:

COOL DRINKS OF WATER: COLUMBIA’S NOIR GIRLS OF THE ‘40S AND ‘50S (’NG’)
TALES FROM THE VAULT: CLASSIC HORROR OF THE ‘30S AND ‘40S (’TFTV’)
POSSESSED: THE FILMS OF JOAN CRAWFORD (’JCR’)

Sunday October 12 2008, 7:00PM (NG)

ONE GIRL’S CONFESSION (1953) 35mm, 73 min.
Directed by Hugo Haas
Cast: Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, Glenn Langan, Ellen Stansbury, Anthony Jochim.

OVER-EXPOSED (1956) 35mm, 79 min.
Directed by Lewis Seiler
Cast: Cleo Moore, Richard Crenna, Isobel Elsom, Raymond Greenleaf, Shirley Thomas.

Friday October 17 2008, 7:30PM (NG)

DANGEROUS BLONDES (1943) 35mm, 81 min.
Directed by Leigh Jason
Cast: Allyn Joslyn, Evelyn Keyes, Edmund Lowe, John Hubbard, Anita Louise.

THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK (1950) 35mm, 79 min.
Directed by Earl McEvoy
Cast: Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright.

Saturday October 18 2008, 7:30PM (NG)

GIRLS UNDER 21 (1940) 35mm, 64 min.
Directed by Max Nosseck
Cast: Bruce Cabot, Rochelle Hudson, Paul Kelly, Tina Thayer, Roberta Smith.

ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN (1940) 35mm, 68 min.
Directed by Charles Barton
Cast: Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone.

Saturday November 1 2008, 7:30PM (TFTV)

THE BLACK CAT (1934) 35mm, 65 min.
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Jacqueline Wells.

THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943) 35mm, 71 min.
Directed by Mark Robson
Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, Evelyn Brent.

Sunday November 2 2008, 7:00PM (TFTV)

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946)  35mm, 83 min. (2nd of double feature)
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Cast: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore.

Saturday December 6 2008, 7:30PM (’JCR’)

SUDDEN FEAR (1952) 35mm, 110 min.
Directed by David Miller
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett, Virginia Huston.

Friday December 12 2008, 7:30PM (’JCR’)

MILDRED PIERCE (1945) 35mm, 111 min.
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth.

POSSESSED (1947) 16mm, 108 min.
Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey.

Saturday December 13 2008, 7:30PM (’JCR’)

JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) 35mm, 110 min.
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Cast: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady, Ward Bond.

FLAMINGO ROAD (1949) 35mm, 94 min.
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet.

Kino has released a 4-DVD box set titled German Expressionism Collection, which includes four silent classics from the period of German expressionism, which some film scholars consider is the genesis of the dark shadowy look of film noir.

The four titles are:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) Directed by Robert Wiene
Warning Shadows (1923) Directed by Arthur Robison
The Hands of Orlac (1924) Directed by Robert Wiene
Secrets of a Soul (1926) Directed by G.W. Pabst

The release is reviewed here by Justin DeFreitas of The Berkely Daily Planet

Another big noir month on TCM (USA). Highlights are a Billy Wilder documentary and moive marathon on October 28, and a feast of Val Lewton productions and the Martin Sorcese doco, Val Lewton: The Man In The Shadows (2007), on October 20, 22,30 & 31.

TCM Schedule for October 2008 All Times US Eastern:

2 Thursday

3:30 PM Vertigo (1958)
8:00 PM Boomerang (1947)
9:45 PM He Walked By Night (1948)
11:15 PM Naked City (1948)
1:00 AM Brute Force (1947)
2:45 AM Captive City, The (1952)
4:30 AM Down Three Dark Streets (1954)

3 Friday

4:45 PM Force of Evil (1948)
6:15 PM File On Thelma Jordon, The (1950)

4 Saturday

6:00 AM White Heat (1949)
8:00 AM Touch Of Evil (1958)
2:00 AM Hollow Triumph (1948)

5 Sunday

10:00 AM Spiral Staircase, The (1945)

7 Tuesday

10:00 AM Ace In the Hole (1951)
2:00 PM Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
6:00 PM Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
10:00 PM Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
12:00 AM In The Heat Of The Night (1967)

11 Saturday

7:30 AM Journey Into Fear (1942)
9:00 AM Shockproof (1949)
2:00 PM Spellbound (1945)

13 Monday

2:30 PM Sniper, The (1952)

14 Tuesday

4:00 PM Big Steal, The (1950)
8:00 PM High School Confidential (1958)

16 Thursday

6:00 PM Gaslight (1944)

17 Friday

1:30 PM Gilda (1946)
4:00 AM Frenzy (1972)

19 Sunday

6:00 AM Algiers (1938)

20 Monday

7:45 AM Ghost Ship, The (1943)
9:00 AM Seventh Victim, The (1943)

21 Tuesday

4:00 AM White Heat (1949)

22 Wednesday

10:00 PM Citizen Kane (1941)
12:15 AM Martin Scorsese Presents, Val Lewton: The Man In The Shadows (2007)
1:45 AM Cat People (1942)
3:00 AM I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
4:15 AM Isle Of The Dead (1945)
5:30 AM Body Snatcher, The (1945)

23 Thursday

8:30 AM My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)
11:30 AM Big Sleep, The (1946)
3:15 PM D.O.A. (1950)
10:45 PM Touch Of Evil (1958)
3:00 AM Lady Vanishes, The (1938)

25 Saturday

10:00 AM Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
8:00 PM Psycho (1960)

28 Tuesday

6:45 PM Billy Wilder Speaks (2006)
8:00 PM Sunset Boulevard (1950)
10:00 PM Ace In the Hole (1951)
2:00 AM Witness For The Prosecution (1957)

29 Wednesday

6:00 AM Spiral Staircase, The (1945)
7:45 AM Notorious (1946)
9:30 AM Cornered (1946)
6:30 PM Macao (1952)
8:00 PM Murder, My Sweet (1944)
11:45 PM Out of the Past (1947)
1:30 AM They Live by Night (1949)
3:15 AM On Dangerous Ground (1951)

30 Thursday

9:00 AM I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
10:15 AM Curse of the Demon (1958)

31 Friday

7:30 AM Cat People (1942)
3:30 PM Body Snatcher, The (1945)
5:00 PM Bedlam (1946)

Sony has launched a new DVD line with the lame name of Martini Movies. In the words of Chris Ball at Cleveland.com: “It’s a slick attempt to stir up interest, but they really just are dusting off some older films that never made it onto DVD”.

There are two noir-ish movies in the first batch of releases:

Affair in Trinidad (1952) - 2½ out of 4 stars in Steven H. Scheuer’s Movies on  TV

A vain attempt to revive Rita Hayworth’s career by pairing her with Glenn Ford to “resuscitate the magic of Gilda” (Border and Chaumeton, 1955). DVD Talk review

The Garment Jungle (1957) - 3 out of 4 stars in Steven H. Scheuer’s Movies on  TV

The rackets fight over control of New York’s unionised garment district. Stars Lee J. Cobb. Vincent Sherman replaced Robert Aldrich as director just before the end of shooting.  “Made near the end of the noir cycle, The Garment Jungle combines the traditional character of the weary [Korean War] vetreran with Robrt Aldrich’s precise visualisation of the noir view point.” (Alain Silver, 1979)

Glenn Erickson has posted on Film.com a review on the 50th Anniversary DVD Edition of Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil (1958).

Erickson provides some fascinating background on the film’s production and its restoration 40 year later.

Thanks to the mysterious Dark City Dame for a heads up on these screenings.

The American Cinematheque will this weekend (Sept 6-7) at The Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, screen four films starring French screen legend, Jean Gabin, under the banner Jean Gabin: The World’s Coolest Movie Star:

The Sicilian Clan (Le Clan Des Siciliens), 1969, 20th Century Fox, 118 Min
Moontide¸ 1942, 20th Century Fox, 94 Min
House On The Waterfront (Port Du Désir), 1955, 94 Min. Dir. Edmund T. Gréville
Grisbi (Touchez Pas Au Grisbi), 1954, Rialto Pictures, 88 Min. Dir. Jacques Becker

The full schedule and trailers are available here.

Apropos Jean Gabin - my favorite French tough guy - he starred in most of the poetic-realist French movies of the 30s, which were really the pre-cursors of Hollywood noir.  As Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell say in their book, Encyclopedia of Film Noir (Greenwood Press 2007): “in these movies an ironical poetry was found in the everyday: hence the term poetic realism. The iconography of the cycle included the shiny cobblestones of nighttime Parisian streets (the faubourgs), the shadowy interiors of neon-lit nightclubs, and the moody, haunted, doom-laden faces of actors such as Jean Gabin. As well as inspiring Hollywood film-makers, who viewed them admiringly, some of these French films were actually remade as American noirs, for example, Le Chienne (1931) was remade as Scarlet Street (1945), La bête humaine (1938) as Human Desire (1954), Pépé Le Moko (1937) as Algiers (1938), Le Jour se lève as The Long Night (1947), and Le Corbeau (1943) as The Thirteenth Letter (1951).”

I saw La bête humaine a few years back and it is everything we would expect in a film noir of the 40s with a really downbeat ending.

Kiss of Death (1948)

September 5
Fox Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
Fox Road House (1948)
Fox Kiss of Death (1947)

September 6
TCM The Night of the Hunter (1955)

September 7
TCM Thunder Road (1958)
TCM Out of the Past (1947)

September 8
Fox Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

September 10
TCM Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

September 12
TCM Journey into Fear(1943)

September 13
Fox Road House (1948)
Fox Kiss of Death (1947)
Fox Moontide (1942)

September 14
TCM The Blue Gardenia (1953)
TCM The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
TCM Force of Evil (1948)

September 14
TCM Johnny Allegro (1949)

September 17
Fox Kiss of Death (1947)

September 23
TCM He Walked By Night (1948)
TCM 711 Ocean Drive (1950)

September 24
TCM The Glass Key (1942)

September 25
TCM Nightfall (1956)

September 27
TCM Gilda (1946)
TCM The Maltese Falcon (1941)
TCM Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Ida Lupino - Road House (1948)

Fox Home Entertainment has today released the DVD set of three restored and remastered “film noir” titles: Boomerang! (1947), Moontide (1942), and Road House (1948). Bomerang! directed by Elia Kazan, and Moontide starring Jean Gabin in his first US film, are peripheral noir titles, while Road House has stronger noir credentials.

NY Times film critic, Dave Kehr, has published a balanced review of the release: On the Margins of Noir.

Kehr’s review raises the issue of how you classify a movie as a film noir:

Film noir is a notoriously difficult concept to define, and after years of futile attempts I’ve come to rely on the time-honored method of the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: I know it when I see it, as he so succinctly observed in regard to pornography.

I would agree with Kehr here, but he seems to undercut his statement later in his article when he says: “all three titles… exist on the margins of noir, sharing some of its characteristics but not quite meeting all the requirements”.

My feeling is that it is sufficient to label a film as noir if it is informed by a ‘noir sensibility’.  Again I suppose talking about a ‘noir sensibility’ opens yet another can of worms. In my essay, What is film noir?, I take a stab at a definition: ” a profoundly and deeply human response to the chaos and random contingency at the edge of existence“. I am sure not everyone will agree, and invite comment.