From Friday 23 May to Monday 26 May, the Harvard Film Archive will host at the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA, the Unseen Noir series of ten lesser known films noir:

While the selected films display film noir’s signature chiaroscuro style and explore classic noir themes—cruel fatalism, the femme fatale, brutal violence—they also offer some of the more unexpected and inventive variations on noir concepts, revealing subtleties and complexity of the genre and leading us down dark, lonely streets where we’ve never been before.

The featured movies are:

Double Feature Friday May 23 at 7pm:

He Ran All the Way
Directed by John Berry.
With John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford
US 1951, 35mm, b/w, 77 min.

Try and Get Me (aka The Sound of Fury)
Directed by Cy Endfield.
With Frank Lovejoy, Lloyd Bridges, Kathleen Ryan
US 1950, 35mm, b/w, 92 min.

Double Feature Saturday May 24 at 7pm:

My Name Is Julia Ross
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis.
With Nina Foch, Dame May Witty, George Macready
US 1945, 35mm, b/w, 65 min.

Nightfall
Directed by Jacques Tourneur.
With Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith
US 1957, 35mm, b/w, 78 min.

Double Feature Sunday May 25 at 3pm:

Stranger on the Third Floor
Directed by Boris Ingster.
With Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet
US 1940, 35mm, b/w, 64 min.

Crack-Up
Directed by Irving Reis.
With Pat O’Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall
US 1946, 35mm, b/w, 93 min.

Double Feature Sunday May 25 at 7pm:

Pitfall
Directed by André de Toth.
With Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt
US 1948, 35mm, b/w, 87 min.

Tomorrow Is Another Day
Directed by Felix Feist.
With Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Lurene Tuttle
US 1951, 35mm, b/w, 90 min.

Double Feature Monday May 26 at 7pm:

99 River Street
Directed by Phil Karlson.
With John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter
US 1953, 35mm, b/w, 83 min.

The Brothers Rico
Directed by Phil Karlson.
With Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Kathryn Grant
US 1957, 35mm, b/w, 92 min.

Get full program details from the Harvard Film Archive site.

There also two excellent preview articles in the local press:

• Series shines light on hoods, dames, and dark deeds of film noir by Leighton W. Klein of The Boston Globe
• Darkness visible: The HFA’s ‘Unseen Noir’ unveils America’s post-war gloom by Michael Atkinson of the Pheonix

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