Phantom Lady (1944)

Thanks to Dark City Dame for this news.

The University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMP/PFA) will from February 13, 2009 to February 28, 2009  screen a series of movies adapted from the works of four great pulp writers: Fredric Brown, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, and Cornell Woolrich

Friday, February 13, 2009
6:30 pm Crack-Up
In this hallucinatory noir based on a Fredric Brown story, Pat O’Brien is an expert in forged paintings with a tenuous grasp on the boundary between real and fake—in art and in life.

8:30 pm The Kill-Off
Maggie Greenwald captures Jim Thompson’s dismal vision of an off-season resort. “A nasty, claustrophobic little gem.”—Paper

Thursday, February 19, 2009
6:30 pm Miami Blues
Introduced by Don Herron. Fred Ward plays Charles Willeford’s detective Hoke Moseley, in pursuit of sociopath Alec Baldwin and collegiate call girl Jennifer Jason Leigh. “A pungent, blithely violent thriller.”—New Yorker

8:45 pm Black Angel
Introduced by Elliot Lavine. Dan Duryea and June Vincent in a booze-drenched B-movie version of the Cornell Woolrich novel.

Saturday, February 21, 2009
6:30 pm Phantom Lady
Robert Siodmak swathes a Cornell Woolrich mystery in Expressionist shadow.

8:30 pm Série noire
Introduced by Dennis Harvey. Patrick Dewaere is the perfect fall guy in “the darkest, daffiest, and downright dazzlingest adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel ever.”—S.F. Bay Guardian

Saturday, February 28, 2009
6:30 pm Screaming Mimi
Anita Ekberg goes from the madhouse to El Madhouse, a nightclub run by Gypsy Rose Lee, in this lusciously lurid psychodrama based on a novel by Fredric Brown.

8:15 pm The Woman Chaser
Introduced by Don Herron. A conniving used-car salesman turns his talents to the movie biz in this neon-drenched neo-noir, adapted from Charles Willeford’s novel.

Full details from BAMP/PFA

This January will be the Darkest Month in Coleman’s Corner.

For the month of January,  Alexander Coleman, from Coleman’s Corner in Cinema will be the guest of  Dark City Dame at  Noirish City, where he will be talking noir and selecting noirs for review on his blog.

This event will be a fitting lead-up to the Noir City 7 Film Noir Series in San Francisco from January 23 to February 1, which will have a newspaper theme -  visit the Noir City site for full details.  Alexander will don fedora and trench-coat to report direct from Noir City for Dark City Dame.

Thanks to Dark Cty Dame for advance details of the program for NOIR CITY 7, the 2009 San Francisco Film Noir Festival, to be held January 23–February 1, 2009, at the Castro Theatre, and which will have a newspaper theme:

Friday, January 23
Deadline USA (1952)
Scandal Sheet (1952)

Saturday, January 24
Matinee:
Chicago Deadline (1949)
Blind Spot (1947)
Evening show (with Arlene Dahl):
Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Wicked as They Come (1956)

Sunday, January 25
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Cry of the Hunted (1953)

Monday, January 26
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
Night Editor (1946)

Tuesday, January 27
The Harder They Fall (1956)
Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)

Wednesday, January 28
While the City Sleeps (1956)
Shakedown (1950)

Thursday, January 29
The Big Clock (1948)
Strange Triangle (1946)

Friday, January 30
The Unsuspected (1947)
Desperate (1947)

Saturday, January 31
Matinee:
Two O’Clock Courage (1945)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
Evening show:
One False Move (1992)

Sunday, February 1
Shock Corridor (1963)
The Killers (1946) (newly restored)

Full details to be announced.

The 3rd Voice (1960)

The Noir City DC Series at the AFI Silver City Theatre in Silver Spring, MD presented in association with the Film Noir Foundation will screen 12 films noir from October 17 to November 5:

Strangers on a Train (1951)
They Live by Night (1948)
Side Street (1950)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Detour (1945)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The 3rd Voice (1960)
Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)
The Prowler (1951)
Raw Deal (1948)
Kiss of Death (1947)
Night and the City (1950)

Full details

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.

Click on a thumbnail to zoom a poster

[Show as slideshow]

Late-night ad-free movies programming over the next seven days on ABC-TV is a block-buster for film noir aficionados:

Wednesday, 10 Sep 2008 - Val Lewton Triple Feature

The Leopard Man (1943) 12:30am
A leopard, rented by a P.R. man for a stunt, escapes and kills a child. Further murders are then attributed to the animal, but the PR man believes the murderer to be human. CAST: Dennis O’Keefe, Jean Brooks DIR: Jacques Tourneur

The Ghost Ship (1943) 1:40am
The captain of a ship is driven insane from his isolation, and takes it out on his third mate. CAST: Richard Dix, Russell Wade, Edith Barrett, Ben Bard, Edmund Glover DIR: Mark Robson

The Seventh Victim (1943) 2:55am
While searching for her missing sister, a woman discovers links to devil worship. CAST: Kim Hunter, Jean Brooks, Hugh Beaumont DIR: Mark Robson

Thursday, 11 Sep 2008

They Won’t Believe Me (1947) 12:30am
A playboy is accused of his wife’s murder. CAST: Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer DIR: Irving Pichel

Gambling House (1950) 2:05am
An immigrant gambler is threatened with deportation after becoming involved with a murder. CAST: Victor Mature, Terry Moore, William Bendix, Zachary A. Charles, Basil Rusydale DIR: Ted Tetzlaff

Monday, 15 Sep 2008

Out Of The Past (1947) 1:30am
A detective is hired to find a crook’s girlfriend. From the novel ‘Build My Gallows High’ by Geoffrey Homes. CAST: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming DIR: Jacques Tourneur

Stranger On The Third Floor (1940) 3:20am
A newspaper reporter’s testimony helps convict an innocent man. CAST: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Talichet, Charles Waldron DIR: Boris Ingster

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.

Dark Passage (1947)

In his The Evening Class blog, Michael Guillen, has posted a series of reports and interviews from The Dark Cinema of David Goodis series, including introductory remarks to each screening from Eddie Muller and Pacific Fim Archives director Steve Seid:

• The Burglar
• Shoot the Piano Player
• The Unfaithful
• Dark Passage
• Interview With Series Director