The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, returns January 24 and runs through February 2 at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. This year’s program showcases the women of film noir – which femme is the most fatale?
Come to think about it, noir is the only movie genre that practically REQUIRES a pivotal female character. You can make a western, a comedy, a sci fi, a war movie or even, these days, a romance without any women on the screen. But not a noir.
Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and hard-to-find movies. You know Eddie Muller from TCM’s Noir Alley, and he hosts Noir City in person, this year with his TCM colleague Alicia Malone.
Recent Noir City fests have introduced us to film noir from other countries and have sampled neo-noir. This year’s Noir City program goes back to the basics of American movies from the classic film noir period of the 1940s and 1950s. The program spans the genre, highlighting essential female performances, both famous and overlooked:
- Out of the Past with Jane Greer manipulating Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in her most celebrated Good Girl/Bad Girl role.
- The Narrow Margin: Charles McGraw might be film noir’s toughest Tough Guy, but Marie Windsor gives him all the tough he can handle, and matches him snarl for snarl.
- Murder, My Sweet, featuring the Queen of Noir, Claire Trevor.
- Raw Deal, where Trevor and the underused Marcia Hunt form a ménage a noir with poor Dennis O’Keefe. Two for the price of one.
- 99 River Street: Nobody could keep the guys guessing more than the alluring Evelyn Keyes.
- Tension with Audrey Totter as the most dismissive, humiliating, cuckolding wife in film noir.
- Cry Danger and the ultra rare Inferno, with Rhonda Fleming, arguably the most beautiful American movie star of all time. When Rhonda goes bad, it’s a real gut punch for the sap.
- Caged, the prototype for Orange Is the New Black. Eleanor Parker was the one nominated for an Oscar, but Hope Emerson, in an obviously LGBTQ role, steals the movie.
- Detour: Ann Savage as perhaps the most rapaciously predatory and unhinged of femme fatales. One of the few Hollywood films where the leading lady was intentionally de-glamorized with oily, stringy hair.
Thirteen films on the program will be projected in 35mm.
These titles from this year’s Noir City program are NOT available to stream, so Noir City is your best chance to see them:
- Hell’s Half Acre
- The Sleeping City
- Tension
- Alias Nick Beale
- The Long Wait
- Raw Deal
- Mary Ryan, Detective
- My True Story
- The Reckless Moment
- Tomorrow Is Another Day
- Cry Danger
- Inferno
Next week, just as Noir City opens, I’ll be back to feature three Must See movies in the program. I’ve previously written about The Narrow Margin, 99 River Street, Raw Deal, Caged, Cry Danger, The Prowler and Murder, My Sweet in my Overlooked Noir feature. Check them out, along with my Overlooked Neo-noir.
Make your plans now. Review the program and buy tickets at Noir City. I’ll be there.
