Noir City 2010

San Francisco’s NOIR CITY 8 film noir series returns to San Francisco’s Castro Theatre January 22-31 2010. The full program is here.

Movies not on DVD on the program:

• FLY BY NIGHT (1942) Dir. Robert Siodmak
• DEPORTED (1950) Dir. Robert Siodmak
• CRY DANGER (1951) Dir. Robert Parrish, newly restored
• THE MOB (1951) Dir. Robert Parish
• THE GANGSTER (1947) Dir. Gordon Wiles
• HE RAN ALL THE WAY (1951) Dir. John Berry
• ONE GIRLS’ CONFESSION (1953) Dir. Hugo Haas
• WOMEN’S PRISON (1955) Lewis Seiler
• RED LIGHT (1949) Dir. Roy Del Ruth
• WALK A CROOKED MILE (1948) Dir. Gordon Douglas
• SLATTERY’S HURRICANE (1949) Dir. Andr? de Toth
• INSIDE JOB (1946) Dir. Jean Yarbrough
• HUMAN DESIRE (1954) Dir. Fritz Lang
• ESCAPE IN THE FOG (1945) Dir. Budd Boetticher

Columbia Noir DVD Set

Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 a new noir collectors DVD set has just been released. The films in the set:

• The Big Heat
• 5 Against the House
• The Lineup
• Murder by Contract
• The Sniper

The special features include commentaries by Michael Man, Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Eddie Muller, and James Ellroy.

The Film Noir Fndation is presenting the NOIR CITY DC: The 2009 Film Noir Festival  over October 24 – November 4.

The program features new 35mm prints of these classic noirs:

• SLIGHTLY SCARLET (1956)
• ACE IN THE HOLE (1951)
• GUN CRAZY (1950)
• WICKED AS THEY COME (UK, 1956)
• ALIAS NICK BEAL (1949)
• THE BIG COMBO (1955)
• SHAKEDOWN (1950)
• BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT (1956)
• OUT OF THE PAST (1947)
• THE KILLERS (1946)
• HOLLOW TRIUMPH (1948)

Full details here.

Thanks again to Dark City Dame for this news.  The 2009 Palm Springs Film Noir Festival will run from May 28-31.

The following movies are screening:

ARMORED CAR ROBBERY (1950)
THE BAD SEED (1956)
THE BREAKING POINT (1950)
BRUTE FORCE (1947)
CRISS CROSS (1949)
DESERT FURY (1947)
FEMALE ON THE BEACH(1955)
THE GARMENT JUNGLE (1957)
RIFFRAFF (1947)
THIEF (1981)

Full details.

Thanks to Dark City Dame for this news.  San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre is screening a whole swag of  b-noirs in May under the banner: I WAKE UP DREAMING: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir.

Friday May 15:
THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (1947)
THE GUILTY (1947)

Saturday May 16:
RAW DEAL (1948)
RAILROADED (1947)

Sunday May 17:
CANON CITY (1948)
FRAMED (1947)

Monday May 18:
THE SPECTER OF THE ROSE (1946)
THE MADONNA’S SECRET (1946)

Tuesday May 19:
THE STORY OF MOLLY X (1949)
PORT OF FORTY THIEVES (1944)

Wednesday May 20:
THE LAST CROOKED MILE (1946)
VIOLENCE (1947)

Thursday May 21:
PRIVATE HELL 36 (1954)
NO MAN’S WOMAN (1955)

Friday May 22:
NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL (1955)
THE HOODLUM (1951)

Saturday May 23:
THE BURGLAR (1957)
WITNESS TO MURDER (1954)

Sunday May 24:
REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1946)
HOLLOW TRIUMPH (1948)

Monday May 25:
WOMEN IN THE NIGHT (1948)
UNDER AGE (1941)

Tuesday May 26:
SUSPENSE (1946)
THE PRETENDER (1947)

Wednesday, May 27:
ALLOTMENT WIVES (1945)
WIFE WANTED (1946)

Thursday May 28:
CITY OF FEAR (1959)
SHACK OUT ON 101 (1955)

Full details here.

The American Cinematheque Noir City Film Noir Festival 2009 will run from April 2-19, 2009 at LA’s famous Egyptian Theatre.

The Series will feature many rare noirs and a number of newly restored prints. Hosted by co-programmers Eddie Muller, Alan K. Rode and Chris D, who on the last day of the Series, Sunday, April 19, will present a special afternoon memorial tribute to actress Ann Savage with testimonial panels and screenings.

The festival will feature:

• A Jane Greer double bill: the classic OUT OF THE PAST co-starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, and the rare THE COMPANY SHE KEEPS
• Robert Siodmak’s rarely screened FLY-BY-NIGHT, Fritz Lang’s WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS
• An Anthony Mann double feature, the rare TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE and DESPERATE
• A Newspaper Noir double bill of DEADLINE U.S.A. and the ultra-rare CHICAGO DEADLINE, plus THE RACKET, THE ENFORCER,  AND WALK SOFTLY STRANGER
• Joseph Losey’s rare CHANCE MEETING, NOCTURNE
• Rare and forgotten B Noirs SMOOTH AS SILK and ROSES ARE RED

There are also new prints of rarities like John Farrow’s ALIAS NICK BEAL, Joseph Losey’s THE PROWLER, SIX BRIDGES TO CROSS, WOMAN ON PIER 13, and THE OCTOBER MAN.

Full details at the Egyptian Theatre.

Jules Dassin: 1911-2008

Rififi (1955)

The New York Film Forum from March 27 to April 12 will host a Jules Dassin retrospective over 12 days.  March 31 mark the anniversary of Dassin’s passing. All of Dassin’s major features will be screened, including:

• Brute Force (1947)
  
• The Naked City (1948)
• Thieves’ Highway (1949)
• Night And the City (1950)
• Rififi (1955)

Full program

Masculine Impairment in Film Noir

Double Indemnity (1944)

An interesting article, Masculine Impairment in Double Indemnity and The Last Seduction, by Kerry E Bogert has been posted at Red Room, an on-line writer’s collective.

The British Film Institute will screen 19 classic noirs and neo-noirs from February 27 to March 25 at its Southbank London cinema during its The Femme Fatale series.  The 1950 cult pulp noir from Joseph H. Lewis, Gun Crazy, will headline the series, screening daily, and will also also receive a limited national release.

Movies to be screened are:

Body Heat
Chinatown
Criss Cross
Detour
Devil in a Blue Dress
Double Indemnity
The File on Thelma Jordon
Gilda
Gun Crazy
The Killers
The Lady From Shanghai
The Last Seduction
The Long Goodbye
The Maltese Falcon
Niagara
Out of the Past
Scarlet Street
Vertigo
Where Danger Lives

Noir City 7: Best Essay

San Francisco Bay Guardian critic Max Goldberg has written what I think is the best essay to come out of Noir City 7 -  Late Edition posted on his text of light blog:

“… The newsroom is as much a part of noir’s topography as the police station, boxing ring or nightclub. Deadline-U.S.A. (1952), Scandal Sheet (1952), The Big Clock (1948), While the City Sleeps (1956):  the titles bow to the newspaper’s ubiquitous pulse by slinging shop-talk into nighthawk poetry. The press curries a surplus of centralized power in this cycle of films, exerting a primary influence over the whole urban mechanism…”

Noir City 7: Reports from Alexander Coleman

Noir fan and erudite film blogger Alexander Coleman has posted at Coleman’s Corner in Cinema some outstanding reports from and reviews of noirs screened at Frisco’s Castro Theatre at Noir City 7, including:

• Shakedown (1950)
• Night Editor (1946)
• Slightly Scarlet (1956)
• Dispatches from Noir City 7
• Deadline-USA (1952)

These posts and other noir reviews are also hosted at Dark City Dame’s Noirish City.

Noir City 7: Report by Hell on Frisco Bay

Brian from Hell on Frisco Bay in his report on Noir City has a lot of interesting news on upcoming noir-related events and impressions of some of the noirs screened this year.   Particularly exciting news is his report that Eddie Muller is working on an international noir series, and that while Muller was in Buenos Aires to meet the archivists who made last summer’s announcement of rediscovered footage lost from Fritz  Lang’s Metropolis, he came across a trove of  Argentine films from the 1930s made by the great noir cinematographer John Alton.

From The Vaults of Universal: Seven Classic Films Noir

Starting Monday February 16, the Heights Theatre in Minneapolis is screening a short series of classic films noir:

February 16 7:30pm This Gun For Hire (1942)
February 23 7:30pm Criss Cross (1949) | 9:15pm The Killers (1946)
March 2 7:30pm The Big Clock (1948)
March 9 7:30pm The Blue Dahlia (1946) | 9:15pm The Glass Key (1942)
March 16 7:30pm The Phantom Lady (1944)

Jean-Pierre Melville, Director: Notes on the French Auteur’s Career

This month’s edition of  Bright Lights Film Journal features an article by Garry Morris on Melville, whose noirs include Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos, Le Samourai, & The Red Circle .

Robert Ryan: A Moon for the Misbegotten

This month’s edition of  Bright Lights also  features an article by Dan Callahan on noir icon Robert Ryan.

Lost Anthony Manne B-Noir to be Restored

Eddie Muller announced at Noir City 7  that  The Film Noir Foundation together with the UCLA Film and Television Archive will restore Anthony Mann’s lost 1944 b-noir Strangers in the Night.  When I read this I was thunderstruck -  I have this movie recorded from somewhere and have never watched it!  You now know which movie I have lined up next for viewing…