Noir City DC 2018, Part VII

This one’s got it all! Two movies that should be joined together as one, two film noir titles in 3D, Robert Ryan kicking butt with a broken leg in the Mojave Desert, Edmond O’Brien’s pompadour, and much more, all right here!

Noir City DC 2018 Part VI: A Lesson in “B” Movies

At Noir City DC last weekend, Eddie Muller gave the audience a lesson in “B” movies and stressed the importance of reaching younger viewers. You can read about it here.

Noir City DC 2018 Part V: The Killers Double Feature

Twice the killers! Twice the thrills! Twice the noir! And featuring introductions by Eddie Muller! Read on right here.

The Threat (1949) Felix E. Feist

(The Threat is the second in a series of four film noir titles I recently purchased from Warner Archive. Riffraff [1947] was the first in that series.)

The Threat (1949)
Directed by Felix E. Feist
Screenplay by High King
Cinematography by Harry J. Wild
RKO
Warner Archive DVD/MOD (1:07)

It’s been called “The poor man’s White Heat,” featuring a standout performance by film noir icon Charles McGraw, but are those reasons enough to recommend The Threat, a 67-minute B picture?

Noir City 16: Day 5, 1946 – The Blue Dahlia and Night Editor

Day 5 of Noir City 16 found Eddie Muller on fire. Not literally, of course, but with an introduction (paraphrased here) that brought the house down:

Noir City 16: Day 4, 1945 – Conflict and Jealousy

Jack Warner just didn’t get it. He couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about over Humphrey Bogart, despite the fact that the actor’s portrayal of Rick in Casablanca was one of the main reasons Warner was able to take home the Oscar for Best Picture. So what was Bogart’s reward for delivering such a performance? Eddie Muller provided the answer: playing a wife-killer who’s obsessed with his dead wife’s sister.

Noir City 16: Day 3, 1944 – Destiny and Flesh and Fantasy

The films on Sunday’s double feature share an odd history. Destiny was originally intended to be the first installment of an anthology film (also known as omnibus or package films) called For All We Know (eventually retitled Flesh and Fantasy), directed by Julien Duvivier. Duvivier, a major figure in French cinema, had previously made an anthology film in 1942 called Tales of Manhattan starring Charles Boyer. That film contained six episodes* involving a cursed black formal tailcoat and how it affects the people who wear it.

Noir City 16: Day 2 Part II, 1943/1944 – Shadow of a Doubt and Address Unknown

Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt is a film I’ve seen many times and have even screened at the library as part of our Great Movies series. While it’s a very familiar film, I’d never seen it with a crowd as large as the one at Noir City.

Noir City 16: Day 2 Part I, 1942 – This Gun for Hire and Quiet Please, Murder

I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be present at the start of a huge cultural moment, or at least a huge cinematic moment, such as the first pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. I got a taste of what it must’ve been like during Saturday’s “A” picture, This Gun for Hire. I wonder if Paramount had any inkling of just how popular this pairing would become. (Ladd and Lake made seven pictures together, appearing as themselves in three of them. See listing below.)

Noir City 16: Day 1, 1941 – I Wake Up Screaming and Among the Living

Noir City. You might expect darkened back alleys, shadowy figures moving furtively through rain-soaked city streets, the sounds of taxis blaring, police sirens, maybe even gunfire. Instead, on the mezzanine level of the Castro Theatre, you find well-dressed men and women sipping champagne, drinking highballs, talking about John Garfield, Gloria Grahame, Michael Curtiz, John Alton, Raymond Chandler. You also find another area filled with tables displaying hardboiled fiction, detective stories and neo-noir novels, as well as non-fiction works on everything from San Francisco movie locations to tomes on the history of film noir. Between these two areas stands a short man with a face showing the wear of three lifetimes; a bouncer, if you will, checking to make sure only passport-holders (Noir City’s ticket to all movies and festival events) cross from the book tables to the land of fedoras and padded shoulders. The bouncer must’ve recognized me from years past; he gives me a slight nod and I’m in.