2010 Noir City

The Noir City Film Festival ran from January 22 to 31 at the Castro Theater.

I caught 18 of the 24 film which they screened.

Pitfall starring Dick Powell & Lizabeth Scott, directed by André De Toth; (1948)
Larceny starring John Payne & Dan Duryea; (1948)
Fly-By-Night directed by Robert Siodmak; (1942)
Cry Danger starring Dick Powell & Rhonda Fleming, directed by Robert Parrish; (1951)
The Mob starring Broderick Crawford, directed by Robert Parrish; (1951)
Niagara starring Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters & Marilyn Monroe; (1953)
The Asphalt Jungle starring Sterling Hayden, directed by John Huston; (1950)
The Gangster starring Barry Sullivan and Belita; (1947)
He Ran All The Way starring John Garfield and Shelley Winter; (1951)
One Girls' Confession starring Cleo Moore & Hugo Haas, directed by Hugo Haas; (1953)
Women's Prison starring Ida Lupino, Cleo Moore & Howard Duff; (1955)
Red Light starring George Raft, Virginia Mayo & Raymond Burr; (1949)
Walk A Crooked Mile starring Dennis O’Keefe & Louis Hayward; (1948)
Slattery's Hurricane starring Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell & Veronica Lake, directed by André De Toth; (1949)
Inside Job starring Preston Foster, Ann Rutherford & Alan Curtis; (1946)
Armored Car Robbery starring Charles McGraw & William Talman; (1950)
Escape In The Fog starring Nina Foch; (1945)
A Place In The Sun starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor & Shelley Winter; (1951)

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Of the six films I missed, I have seen five of them on the big screen in recent years. These films were Suspense, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Pickup On South Street, Human Desire and Odds Against Tomorrow.

In addition, I've seen Pitfall and Cry Danger at previous Noir City festivals.

The film I missed but have not previously seen is Deported - a thinly disguised story about Lucky Luciano directed by Richard Siodmak.

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They a short film several times. It's called The Endless Night: A Valentine to Film Noir. It is a montage of noir films set to music. It was created by Serena Bramble, a 20-year-old Santa Rose Junior College student. It was well received by all the audiences that I was part of and festival founder Eddie Muller praised it. It was fun to see how many films and actors I could identify. Actually, I was impressed with the editing and choice of music as well.

The film is on YouTube.


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On stage, Eddie said this year's festival was "special." He indicated there was a certain excitement in the air. Personally, with the number of repeat screenings, I was a little disappointed in the festival. Of the new films I did watch, there were any found treasures.

My favorite film of the festival was A Place In The Sun. It's hard not to like any film with Elizabeth Taylor in a swimsuit. Last year, I saw Josef von Sternberg's An American Tragedy (1931) at the PFA. I recall enjoying the film. A Place In The Sun is a remake of An American Tragedy. It's a little too slick to be noir but it definitely has elements of noir. Shelley Winters is tremendous as the mousy girlfriend of ambitious Montgomery Clift. Clift is the poor cousin of a wealthy family. They give him a job on the assembly line where he falls for Winters. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Clift meets and hits it off with beautiful socialite Elizabeth Taylor. A love triangle develops but when Winters gets pregnant and ultimately indignant, Clift has a solution which involves a rowboat and Winter's inability to swim. Clift turns in a fine performance as a man desperately in love with Taylor and equally desperate to rise above his circumstances. Taylor's performance was a less admirable. I couldn't quite see what she saw in Clift's character. Also, her character's maturity level was all over the place but she was radiantly beautiful.

Armored Car Robbery is a film I've heard about for awhile. It's a straight forward caper film that showcases Charles McGraw and William Talman as the no nonsense cop and as the cold-blooded criminal mastermind. Actually Adele Jergens as the cuckolding stripper filled out her part nicely.

Women's Prison is another film that delivered what I was expecting - women in prison and Ida Lupino setting her bitch dial to 11. No one ever played the conniving, vicious, insecure bitch better than Ms. Lupino. Unfortunately, there was no diesel dyke to prey on the fish; all the inmates in this women's prison got along surprisingly well.

The Mob was a vehicle for Broderick Crawford to play a tough guy cop that infiltrates the mob. I wish had Broderick Crawford's voice. It's entertaining enough with Ernest Borgnine playing one of the mobsters. It's also notable for a bit part by Charles Bronson.

Slattery's Hurricane merits attention for the performance by Widmark. He plays a selfish pilot that restarts an affair with his friend's wife (Linda Darnell). Throughout the film, Widmark is flying drugs into the country for his employer while his girlfriend (Lake) is hooked on blow. Widmark played morally bankrupt characters quite well - Night and the City, Pickup on South Street, etc.

Cry Danger feature Dick Powell as a one-man army looking to figure out who framed him for murder & robbery. Richard Erdman steals all his scenes as the drunken ex-Marine who provides Powell with a phony alibi in hopes of splitting the hidden loot. Dick Powell knew how to play the lone wolf, tough guy and snazzy dialogue by William Bowers carry the film.

Pregnant Teen, South African Rugby, Southern Fried Tramp, the Hermitage and Silent Era Porn

I'm in the middle of PFA's Tati and Capra series and 2010 Noir City just wrapped but I've several other films in January. The Tati series has been a pleasant surprise but I'll write about that a future date.

Five films/programs I've seen in January are:

Precious starring Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique; (2009) Official Site
Invictus starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon; directed by Clint Eastwood; (2009) - Official site
Shanty Tramp; (1967)
Russian Ark directed by Aleksandr Sokurov; (2002)
The Good Old Naughty Days; compilation of silent short films; (2002)

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Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire has been well reviewed and received. I was mightily impressed by the film. It was an emotional punch to the gut. The story is about an obese, illiterate, pregnant, teenager in 1980's Harlem. I'm not sure why they set the film in that time period except that the novel was set in that time period. Regardless, there wasn't much specific to the period which came into play during the film. The litany of misfortunes I described is not the end of Precious' troubles. Her mother is abusive, she is a runaway and she has HIV. Now that would destroy most people but Precious has a very dedicated teacher (Paula Patton in an excellent performance) and a very dedicated social worker (Mariah Carey who seems to have received more praise than I thought she deserved). The film follows Precious as she lurches from one calamity to another. At its core is the fractured and tortured relationship between Precious (Sidibe) and her mother (Mo'Nique). Although Sidibe has most of the screen time, it is Mo'Nique who commands attention portraying the abusive and ultimately pathetic mother.

This is the kind of film where I'm at a loss for words. Do people like Precious & her mother exist? It's hard for me to imagine much less empathize with their situation but I'm certain they exist due to the constant barrage of shocking stories in the news. Seeing it portrayed on the screen left me numb. Mo'Nique's character has not only rationalized her behavior (enabling her daughter's incest) but come to deeply resent her daughter (dating to the time she was an infant) for "stealing her man."

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Invictus is also a film that has been well reviewed if not quite as widely well received as Precious. Clint Eastwood has been a good director. "Good" maybe a mild compliment but by that term I mean that Eastwood makes enjoyable and well-crafted movies. I would classify his films as "high art" or brilliant but Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima and Gran Torino are solid films that I can watch repeatedly. Like a master carpenter making a functional and aesthetically-pleasing piece of furniture, Eastwood cranks out these films that entertain and manipulate your emotions (which is a compliment in my lexicon).

Morgan Freeman and Eastwood have now collaborated on at least three film -
Invictus, Million Dollar Baby and The Unforgiven (my favorite film of Eastwood's directorial efforts). Freeman as an actor is like Eastwood as a director. Freeman always gives solid performances; usually of men who have a quiet dignity despite their circumstances. That's exactly what is called for in portraying Nelson Mandela who instituted a policy of forgiveness and inclusion after spending more than 20 years in prison.

The interaction among Nelson's mixed race security detail were the scenes I enjoyed the most. Julian Lewis Jones as the menacing Afrikaaner was a delight to watch. With a crew cut, sharp angular facial features and vaguely racist demeanor, Jones brought out the most in his character's limited screen time. A thorough security professional, his Feyder looks on with caution as his President tries to heal a country and always stays one step away from insubordination while dealing with his boss, a black man (Adjoa Andoh who gives a fine performance in is own right).

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Shanty Tramp was a Thrillville production at the 4-Star. The film was preceded by a burlesque revue called the Hubba Hubba Revue. Three girls performed their routines. The emcee was a raspy voiced guy named Kingfish who sounded a lot like Penn Jillette. The opening act was a guy billed as the Vicar of Liquor who spoke with a Southern drawl and wore a Catholic priest's collar with a leather suit. He gave a sermon about how God returned on the 8th day to make women (i.e. Men 2.0). There was also some guy dressed up like Alice the Goon or something similar that walked around.

As for the film, Shanty Tramp looked like it had a budget of about $20. They even had a original song called "Shanty Tramp" but the music I remember was a sultry cover of "When the Saints Go Marching In." Actually, that was probably the best part of the film. Most of the film involves horse-face Lee Holland sashaying around town and the woods in a tight white evening dress. The plot can be summarized as The Downfall of the Shanty Tramp. She gets involved with an oily, tent-revival preacher, a biker who almost rapes her, a black man who saves her from being raped only to have her accuse him of rape when caught in flagrante delicto and eventually kills her drunkard father. Best scene - there is a dance scene in a dive bar/roadhouse where the man looks like he is having a seizure. Everyone in the film comes off looking sleazy except perhaps the black man. Even he could have avoided his fate if he had listened to his mother and stayed away from the Shanty Tramp. As it turned, he had sex with a white women, then falsely accused of rape and eventually dies in a car accident while fleeing the police. How is that for a moral? It's like the KKK After School Special.

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Russian Ark was quite an ambitious film. Screened at the Phyllis Wattis Theater in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the film is one continuous shot filmed at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. The film used a guide who spoke directly to the camera as if the audience was a part of the action. Much of the Russian history references were lost on me. My knowledge of Catherine the Great, Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible is limited. I only caught one reference to the Siege of Leningrad and another reference to Nicholas II and his daughter Anastasia.

The film was interesting as a curio piece but the Russian history references, constant camera movement, large cast and what I considered pretensions left me luke warm towards the film.

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The Good Old Naughty Days screened at the Red Vic. The program was a compilation of pornographic short films from the 1920s. Most of the films were French intertitled and according to the introduction, shown to customers at French bordellos while awaiting their service.

It was interesting how the pornographic tropes were present 90 years ago. My favorite was a cartoon featuring Eveready Harton, a well-endowed, mustachioed man whose penis not only had mind of its own but could also detach itself and had to be chased after. According to lore, Max Fleischer of Popeye fame was involved in the animation.

The live action films were interesting just to see the grooming practices of men and women back then. The women were rather flabby by today's standards; likewise the men did not measure up to their modern counterparts (Eveready Harton notwithstanding).

I honestly find pornography boring and even silent era porn became a little tedious. I will say that I was surprised by the presence of acts of homosexual and bisexual behavior. Obviously, that behavior has been going on since the beginning of mankind but I would have thought that it carried to great a stigma to get "actors" to perform. In hindsight, I guess the incremental shame between porn and gay porn was rather small during that time. These men and women were probably marginalized before they made porn or else they wouldn't have risked so much to make the films. Besides, they were French...

French Kisses: Nouvelle Vague and Reel Criminals: The Heist

In January, the Mechanics' Institute is screening a series call French Kisses: Nouvelle Vague as part of their CinemaLit program. Nouvelle Vague mean New Wave.

The series looks promising.

Friday, January 8
Les Bonnes Femmes (1960) 93 min.
Directed by Claude Chabrol; Starring Bernadette Lafonte, Stephane Audran
Four vibrant Parisian shop-girls harbor secret and not-too-secret dreams.

Friday, January 15
Paris Vu Par...(Six in Paris) (1965) 92 min.
Directed by Jean Rouch, Jean Douchet, Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, and Jean-Daniel Pollet; Starring Stephane Audran, Jean-Pierre Andreani
An eclectic anthology of short films by leading directors, each set in a different Paris neighborhood.

Friday, January 22
Lola (1962) 90 min.
Special guest: Anita Monga, artistic director of the Silent Film Festival
Directed by Jacques Demy; Starring Anouk Aimee, Marc Michel
This lovely, lyrical romantic tale, full of homages to America and American movies, centers on a caberet dancer in Nantes.

Friday, January 29
The Bride Wore Black (1968) 107 min.
Directed by Francois Truffaut; Starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet
A widow pursues revenge against her husband's murderers in this Hitchcock homage featuring a scene by Bernard Herrmann.

All the films start at 6 PM and are followed by "a salon style discussion."

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Anita Monga's presence on January 22 reminds me that the San Francisco Silent Film Festival has announced that its 2010 festival will be July 15—18, 2010. They have added a fourth day to the festival. The festival usually runs Friday to Sunday but this year will run Thursday to Sunday.

I was not able to attend the festival's winter event on December 12. I would have liked to have seen West of Zanzibar (1928) starring Lon Chaney and directed by Tod Browning. The rain and a program at PFA kept me away. I ended up watching The Man with the Golden Arm instead.

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The Mechanics' Institute's February CinemaLit series is called Reel Criminals: The Heist. The series also appeals to me. The Asphalt Jungle is screening in January at Noir City on January 24.

I recall seeing parts of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three on television. The original was R rated so I probably watched edited versions on television.

I can't recall the last time I saw The Great Train Robbery; it must have been as a child on television. I recall enjoying it.

I've never been a big fan of A Fish Called Wanda.

Friday, February 5
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) 112 min.
Directed by John Huston; Starring Sterling Hayden, James Whitmore
From assembling the gang through pulling the job, this hard-boiled flick laid the foundation for an entire genre.

Friday, February 12
The Great Train Robbery (1979) 111 min.
Directed by Michael Crichton; Starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland
A wily, witty threesome schemes to steal a gold shipment from a moving train in mid-Victorian England.

Friday, February 19
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) 104 min.
Directed by Joseph Sargent; Starring Robert Shaw, Walter Matthau
A ruthless gang hijacks a subway train in gritty '70s New York, and the tension just keeps building.

Friday, February 26
A Fish Called Wanda (1988) 108 min.
Directed by Charles Crichton; Starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis
Dishonor among thieves propels this London-set caper comedy co-starring Kevin Kline and Michael Palin.

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Noir City runs from January 22 to January 31 at the Castro Theater. By my count, I've seen 6 of the films in recent years on the big screen. I've also seen 4 of them on television years ago. So I've seen 10 of the 24 films they are screening. I may have to miss the matinee screening on January 23 due to other commitments.

Despite these impediments, I'll likely purchase a festival pass.

2010 Noir City Preview

Even though Noir City is two months away, they have posted their line-up. The schedule showtimes and descriptions are missing but the 24 films of the festival have been announced. The festival runs from January 22 to 31 at the Castro. They are screening a double feature everyday of the festival except Saturdays (January 23 & 30) when they are screening two double features (a different twin bill in the afternoon & at night).

Pitfall starring Dick Powell; (1948)
Larceny starring John Payne; (1948)
Fly by Night; directed by Robert Siodmak; (1942)
Deported; directed by Robert Siodmak; (1950)
Cry Danger starring Dick Powell & Rhonda Fleming; (1951)
The Mob starring Broderick Crawford; (1951)
Niagara starring Marilyn Monroe & Joseph Cotten; (1953)
The Asphalt Jungle starring Sterling Hayden; directed by John Huston; (1950)
Suspense starring Barry Sullivan; (1946)
The Gangster starring Barry Sullivan; (1947)
The Postman Always Rings Twice starring John Garfield & Lana Turner; (1946)
He Ran All the Way starring John Garfield & Shelley Winters; (1951)
One Girl's Confession; (1953)
Women's Prison starring Ida Lupino; (1955)
Red Light starring George Raft & Virginia Mayo; (1949)
Walk a Crooked Mile; (1948)
Slattery's Hurricane starring Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell & Veronica Lake; (1949)
Pickup on South Street starring Richard Widmark; directed by Sam Fuller; (1953)
Inside Job; (1946)
Human Desire starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame & Broderick Crawford; directed by Fritz Lang; (1954)
Odds Against Tomorrow starring Harry Belafonte & Robert Ryan; (1959)
Kansas City starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson & Harry Belafonte; directed by Robert Altman; (1996)
Escape in the Fog; (1945)
A Place in the Sun starring Montgomery Clift & Elizabeth Taylor; (1951)

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The first thing I notice is that the Roxie stole some of Eddie Muller's thunder. Human Desire was part of Best of Columbia Noir series at the Roxie in September and Suspense screened in May as part of I Wake Up Dreaming: The Haunted World of the B Film Noir (also at the Roxie).

A number of the films have previously been shown at Noir City (particularly in 2005). I saw Odds Against Tomorrow at the Balboa in 2005 as part of that year's Noir City. I also saw Pickup on South Street at the 2005 Noir City. He Ran All The Way and Pitfall were also on that year's program but I don't recall seeing either. I'll have to check my film list to see if I saw them that year.

Cry Danger screened at the 2007 Noir City.

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood which I have seen before although not on the big screen. The same can be said of The Asphalt Jungle (Marilyn Monroe has a supporting role in the film) although it has not acheived the iconic status of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Harry Belafonte is scheduled to be on stage on January 30 - the night they screen Odds Against Tomorrow & Kansas City.