More good news for my favorite film genre! Back in May, I attended and wrote about the great “I Wake Up Dreaming” noir film festival at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, hosted by Elliot Lavine. Showcasing old and rare B-movies from the 30s to the 50s, the festival was so successful that it was extended for another week.
Consider this a further extension two changing seasons later, as starting this Thursday Mr. Lavine will once again bring 22 rare noir gems to the Roxie for two weeks of betrayals, knife-sharp suspense and treacherous women.
This time around, the films are newly restored 35mm archive prints from Columbia Pictures—directed by acclaimed directors like Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, Don Siegel, and king of gimmicks William Castle. As with “I Wake Up Dreaming,” the films are shown as double features: two films for $11.
This collection offers a couple of noir-horror hybrid, including one of Castle’s earliest films, The Whistler, based on 1940’s radio drama’s highly popular mystery series of the same name. In this first adaptation, Richard Dix stars as a grieving widower who hires an assassin to kill him at a time and place known only to the killer. Castle later went on to direct three more entries in the Whistler film series. Coupled with this film is the supernatural Soul of a Monster, a strikingly odd religious tale of Faustian barter, about a woman who prays to the devil to heal her dying spouse. George Macready plays the husband, who fully recovers from his terminal illness, but not in the way she remembers him. In fact, he might not even be human anymore.
Knock on Any Door, showing on Saturday the 19th, is the great Nicholas Ray’s second feature, made six years before he helped James Dean define teen angst forever with Rebel Without a Cause. Knock on Any Door’s mix of courtroom drama and film noir stars Humphrey Bogart as a lawyer defending a young hood who’s charged with killing a cop. To my knowledge, this film is also the origin of the phrase “Live fast, die young, and leave behind a good-looking corpse”—uttered by John Derek in his role as the punk on trial.
Not to be missed is Human Desire, one of Fritz Lang’s last films that will be showing on Tuesday alongside Richard Wallace’s Framed. Made right after The Big Heat, that movie’s stars Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame teamed up with Lang again to tell this wicked story of adultery and jealous rage. It’s not one of Lang’s most noteworthy films, but I can’t believe that it’s still not available on DVD (at least in America). Someone’s been slacking.
Oh yeah, did I mention that none of the other films are available on DVD either? Here’s a chance to see some rare choices if you’re a fan of the nitty-gritty.
Tickets are available to purchase at the box office. Alternatively, you can also get the Noir Pass for $85, which would admit you to every program. Schedule follows below.
Thursday, September 17:
JOHNNY O’CLOCK (1947)
BLIND SPOT (1947)
Friday, Sept, 18:
THE WHISTLER (1944)
THE SOUL OF A MONSTER (1944)
Saturday, Sept 19:
KNOCK ON ANY DOOR (1949)
CONVICTED (1950)
Sunday, Sept. 20:
PUSHOVER (1954)
DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD (1954)
Monday, Sept 21:
SO DARK THE NIGHT (1946)
MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (1945)
Tuesday, Sept 22:
HUMAN DESIRE (1954)
FRAMED (1947)
Thursday, Sept 24:
THE LINE UP (1958)
THE SNIPER (1952)
Friday, Sept 25:
BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN (1950)
THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK (1950)
Saturday, Sept 26:
THE CRIMSON KIMONO (1959)
SCREAMING MIMI (1958)
Sunday & Monday, Sept 27 & 28:
THE BURGLAR (1957)
NIGHTFALL (1957)
Tuesday & Wednesday, Sept 29 & 30:
MURDER BY CONTRACT (1958)
CITY OF FEAR (1959)
