Noir City 2015

17th Annual Film Noir Festival

April 3-19, 2015

Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood

Presented by the American Cinémathèque in collaboration with the Film Noir Foundation. Sponsored by Bogart’s Real English Gin.

Friday April 3 - 7:30 PM - Opening Night Double Feature!

WOMAN ON THE RUN     

1950, Fidelity Pictures, 77 min, USA, Dir: Norman Foster

Witness the resurrection of one of the great forgotten noir films! San Franciscan Frank Johnson disappears after witnessing a gangland killing. Police think his wife (Ann Sheridan) will lead them to her husband, but she never wants to see him again. Enter newspaperman Danny Leggett (Dennis O’Keefe), who charms Mrs. Johnson with stunning and poignant results.

 

THE UNFAITHFUL     

1947, Warner Bros., 109 min, USA, Dir: Vincent Sherman

Ann Sheridan plays a woman whose sexual indiscretion leads to murder and a tangled web of deceit. Isn’t that always the way? Legendary noir scribe David Goodis applies his typically thorny plotting to this reimagining of W. Somerset Maugham’s The Letter, transposed to post-WWII Los Angeles. Featuring Zachary Scott, Lew Ayres and Eve Arden.

 

Saturday April 4 - 5:00 PM - Humphrey Bogart Double Feature!

Introduction by Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation. Discussion between films with Stephen Bogart and This Last Lonely Place director Steve Anderson. Evening concludes with a cocktail reception courtesy of Bogart’s Real English Gin.

DARK PASSAGE

1947, Warner Bros., 106 min, USA, Dir: Delmer Daves

In this third collaboration between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Bogie plays Vincent Parry, a man wrongly accused of murdering his wife, who breaks out of jail to find the killer; Bacall is the woman who helps him hide out and solve the mystery. Working from David Goodis' bleak crime novel, director Delmer Daves employs an innovative subjective camera to adopt Bogart's point of view and creates a minor noir classic.

THIS LAST LONELY PLACE

2014, Santana Productions, 85 min, USA, Dir: Steve Anderson

A twisted, noir-drenched drive through the dark streets and back alleys of Los Angeles. Cabbie Sam Taylor is an Iraq war vet who picks up a shady Beverly Hills investment banker who is obviously running from something. When they pick up Frank's mistress at the Chateau Marmont, things spiral from bad to worse, and quickly. As the long night progresses, deceits come to light… and blood is spilled.

 

Sunday April 5 - 7:30 PM - British Noir Double Feature!

 

  

 

THE HIDDEN ROOM

(OBSESSION)

1949, Eagle-Lion Films, 96 min, UK, Dir: Edward Dmytryk

British psychologist Clive Riordan (Robert Newton), fed up with his wife’s philandering, makes her latest lover disappear in a deviously devised “perfect crime.” Made in England by the blacklisted Edward Dmytryk, THE HIDDEN ROOM is an unjustly neglected masterpiece, packed with wit and suspense, anchored by Robert Newton’s brilliant and subtle performance as the vengeful cuckold. Costarring Sally Gray and Phil Brown.

 

 

 

THE SLEEPING TIGER

1954, Astor Pictures, 89 min, UK, Dir: Joseph Losey

Psychologist Clive Esmond (Alexander Knox) boards a criminal youth (Dirk Bogarde) in his home, in order to test his methods of behavior modification through psychoanalysis. Just wait until the doctor’s wife (Alexis Smith) gets her hands on the young stud. Losey’s first British-made film is an early example of what would become his métier - characters engaged in wicked sex and class warfare.

 

Thursday April 9 - 7:30 PM

 

THE SUSPECT
1944, Universal, 85 min, USA, Dir: Robert Siodmak                 

Timid tobacconist Philip Marshall (Charles Laughton) develops a friendship with a poor young woman (Ella Raines), igniting his wife’s shrewish jealousy. Despite the Edwardian-era decorum, THE SUSPECT is a classic noir - one of Siodmak’s best - featuring Laughton’s memorable portrait of a repressed and lonely man who will do anything to protect the unexpected joy he’s found too late in his life. Costarring Stanley Ridges and Rosalind Ivins.

 

LADIES IN RETIREMENT

1941, Sony Repertory, 91 min, USA, Dir: Charles Vidor

Ida Lupino scores as a timid housekeeper who becomes enmeshed in murder and madness. Ida tends to an aged actress (Isobel Elsom) and persuades her to take in her two eccentric sisters (Elsa Lanchester and Edith Barrett). All bets are off when a mysterious stranger (future Lupino spouse Louis Hayward) arrives to stir the pot further. There is nothing retiring about this suspenseful Victorian noir, which has been unjustly overlooked and underappreciated.

 

Friday April 10 - 7:30 PM - Cornell Woolrich Double Feature!

  

 

THE CHASE

1946, 86 min, USA, Dir: Arthur Ripley

Scripted by Philip Yordan, from the novel The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich. In this hallucinatory adaptation, Robert Cummings plays a drifter hired as a chauffeur by two Florida crooks (Steve Cochran and Peter Lorre). He falls for Cochran’s dishy wife (Michelle Morgan) with dire, unpredictable results. As close to Lynch-ian as movies got in the 1940s.

THE LEOPARD MAN

1943, Warner Bros., 66 min, USA, Dir: Jacques Tourneur

This seminal adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s novel Black Alibi is brilliantly realized by Tourneur and legendary producer Val Lewton. Dennis O'Keefe hires a supposedly tame leopard to hype his girlfriend's nightclub act. The felonious feline escapes as a wave of murderous terror envelops a small New Mexico town. A groundbreaking visualization of dark suspense that remains one of the earliest and finest screen adaptations of Woolrich’s work.

 

Saturday April 11 - 7:30 PM

 

 

THE UNDERWORLD STORY

1950, Warner Bros., 90 min, USA, Dir: Cy Enfield

Another unjustly neglected noir by director Cy Enfield, in which the always entertaining Dan Duryea plays a cynical reporter who digs dangerously close to a corrupt publisher’s family secrets. Costarring Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm and Howard da Silva, and featuring dazzling cinematography by the great Stanley Cortez (NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS).

ABANDONED

1949, Universal, 78 min, USA, Dir: Joseph M. Newman

Gale Storm plays a naive young woman who’s come to Los Angeles in search of her missing sister. Shunned by the police, she’s assisted by an intrepid reporter (Dennis O’Keefe), who smells a story when he gets wind of an underground racket in black-market babies. Featuring film noir favorites Raymond Burr and Mike Mazurki, and the screen debut of future star Jeff Chandler. NOT ON DVD.

 

Sunday April 12 - 7:30 PM - Barbara Stanwyck Double Feature!

 

 

WITNESS TO MURDER

1954, Park Circus/UA, 83 min, USA, Dir: Roy Rowland

This distaff version of REAR WINDOW (released before the Hitchcock classic) stars Barbara Stanwyck as an independent career woman who watches neighbor George Sanders strangle a victim in his swanky digs. It's the word of a single woman against that of a renowned author (and closet Nazi) - so guess who the LAPD believes? Featuring the chiaroscuro camerawork of noir shadow-meister John Alton.

JEOPARDY

1953, Warner Bros., 69 min, USA, Dir: John Sturges

Barbara Stanwyck and Barry Sullivan play a vacationing couple whose fishing trip to Baja turns into a nightmare when the husband is trapped under a rotting pier with the tide rising. Their only hope is a fugitive killer (Ralph Meeker), whose aid comes at a high cost for the terrified, if resourceful, wife. A suspense gem directed and played with all the stops out, especially when Stanwyck and Meeker go toe-to-toe!

 

Wednesday April 15 - 7:30 PM - Jacques Tourneur Double Feature!

 

 

CIRCLE OF DANGER

1951, Warner Bros., 86 min, UK, Dir: Jacques Tourneur

Ray Milland journeys to Scotland to unravel the truth of his brother's strange death as a commando during World War II. This suspenseful British-made adaptation of Philip MacDonald’s novel is expertly helmed by Tourneur and produced with Hitchcockian aplomb by Joan Harrison. Also starring the alluring Patricia Roc, Hugh Sinclair and Naunton Wayne.

BERLIN EXPRESS

1948, Warner Bros., 87 min, USA, Dir: Jacques Tourneur

Robert Ryan, Merle Oberon and Paul Lukas head an international cast in the first Hollywood film shot on location in Allied-occupied postwar Germany. An ad-hoc cadre of allied officials, headed by train to a peace conference, suddenly become detectives when Germany’s most outspoken peace activist goes missing. A solid thriller, and a remarkable historical document of its time.

 

Thursday April 16 - 7:30 PM

 

RIDE THE PINK HORSE     

1947, Universal, 101 min, USA, Dir: Robert Montgomery

In this adaptation of the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, a surly vet (director/actor Robert Montgomery) ventures into a New Mexico resort town during fiesta to settle a score with a vacationing mobster. A strange, oddly paced film that plays as much like a Japanese samurai movie as film noir. With Thomas Gomez, Wanda Hendrix and Andrea King.

THE FALLEN SPARROW

1943, Warner Bros., 94 min, USA, Dir: Richard Wallace

Scripted by Warren Duff, from the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. This convoluted but compelling story, told in creepy Val Lewton style, stars John Garfield as a Spanish Civil War veteran being driven crazy by stateside fascists. Is porcelain-gorgeous Maureen O’Hara his only ally … or his enemy? Stunning photography by RKO’s in-house noir master, Nicholas Musuraca. With Walter Slezak, Patricia Morison and Martha O’Driscoll.

 

Friday April 17 - 7:30 PM - Argentine Noir Triple Feature!

 

 

EL VAMPIRO NEGRO

THE BLACK VAMPIRE

1953, Argentine Sono Films, 90 min, Argentina, Dir: Román Viñoly

This stunning reimagining of Fritz Lang’s classic M has been rediscovered by the Film Noir Foundation and subtitled in English for the first time. Olga Zubarry, Argentina’s answer to Marilyn Monroe, plays a chanteuse and single mother who is the sole eyewitness to the child killer stalking the streets of Buenos Aires. Will her daughter be the next victim? Featuring stunning cinematography by Anibal González Paz. A major cinema discovery! In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT ON DVD.

 

NO ABRAS NUNCA ESA PUERTA and SI MUERO ANTES DE DESPERTAR

NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR and IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE

1952, Argentine Estudios San Miguel, 151 min, Argentina, Dir: Carlos Hugo Christensen

Be here for the U.S. premiere of this stunning anthology film adapted from the short stories of noir master Cornell Woolrich. Originally conceived by its makers as a single film, the titles were released separately. Tonight marks the first time they have been screened in a single, unified presentation, in newly struck prints funded by the Film Noir Foundation, complete with - for the first time ever - English subtitles. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT ON DVD.

 

Saturday April 18 - 7:00 PM - Closing Weekend Party! 

 

 

THE GUILTY

1947, Monogram Pictures, 71 min, USA, Dir: John Reinhardt

Two war buddies (Don Castle and Wally Cassel) fall for twin sisters (both played by Bonita Granville). When one sister turns up dead, the boys are dogged by a suspicious police inspector (Regis Toomey). Working with only three sets and virtually no budget, director Reinhardt and DP Henry Sharp evoke the dreadful, dead-of-night ambiance that was the domain of prolific noir scribe Cornell Woolrich. NOT ON DVD.

 

Sunday April 19 - 5:00 PM - Proto-Noir Marathon!

 

 

 

THE NINTH GUEST
1934, Sony Repertory, 65 min. Dir. Roy William Neill
A spine-tingling “locked-room” mystery about eight guests invited to spend a night in a penthouse apartment. The trapped ensemble is compelled by a disembodied host to deduce the identity of the ninth guest by morning … or else! Stylishly directed by the underrated Roy Neill (THE BLACK ROOM, THE SCARLET CLAW), this rare horror-mystery stars Donald Cook, Genevieve Tobin, Vince Barnett and Samuel S. Hinds. NOT ON DVD.

 

LET US LIVE
1939, Sony Repertory, 68 min. Dir. John Brahm
Compelling proto-noir concerning a pair of innocent taxi drivers (Henry Fonda and Alan Baxter) railroaded to the death house for a robbery-homicide. An early standout performance by Fonda receives stellar support from co-star Maureen O’Sullivan, along with a well-crafted script (by Anthony Veiller and Allen Rivkin), photography (Lucien Ballard) and superior direction by noir maestro John Brahm.

 

HEAT LIGHTNING
1934, Warner Bros., 63 min. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy
A startling, existential pre-Code gem with a feminist slant, about two sisters (the brilliant Ann Dvorak and Aline MacMahon) who run a Mojave Desert filling station/tourist stop and become trapped by their past and a pair of gunmen (Preston Foster and Lyle Talbot) on the lam. This fast-paced, noir-stained predecessor to THE PETRIFIED FOREST was adapted from a George Abbott play and still packs a wallop. With Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh and Ruth Donnelly.

 

SAFE IN HELL
1931, Warner Bros., 73 min. Dir. William A. Wellman
Only Darryl F. Zanuck and Wild Bill Wellman could have conjured up this lurid pre-Code thriller. New Orleans prostitute Dorothy MacKaill is accused of murdering the pimp who turned her out. To avoid extradition, she is smuggled to a wayward Caribbean isle by her boyfriend (Donald Cook) and ends up being targeted as the singular object of lust by a group of international criminals and assorted lowlifes inhabiting a sleazy seaside hotel.