Noir City, 2019

It’s January, the most terrible time of the year! But for Bay Area movie buffs that means another stroll down some of cinema’s meanest alleys, a concrete and steel universe of endless shadows and impenetrable smoke. 

Yes, it’s the 2019 edition of Noir City-San Francisco,the annual film festival founded and sponsored by the Film Noir Foundationand its founder, and master of ceremonies, Eddie Muller. It plays at gorgeous the Castro Theatre, San Francisco, starting Friday, January 25^th and closes Saturday, February 2^nd: twelve films over ten days.

This time, the festival fixes its gaze on noir films produced in the 1950s, when the genre was just at its peak before fading out of fashion. As in years past, it’s a jewel case of gems and oddities: a few premieres mixed with B-movie obscurities plus solid classics that bear repeated viewing.

Time and space allow me to see only a fraction of the program. Most of them I've seen before, some just recently, some not since I was a silver-faced tyke sitting cross-legged in front of the TV.

Of those unseen, I’d call the opening night feature, Trapped, starring Lloyd Bridges and directed by Richard Fleischer the most intriguing.  Its plot sounds a bit batshit (a convicted counterfeiter released from jail and sent undercover), but there are two good reasons to see it. 

One is Lloyd Bridges. You all know his sons Jeff and Beau, but their dad, your elders will also have you know, was a star back in Boomer days and a fine, well-respected actor who played mostly straight-arrow, second-tier leads, in the manner of other actors such as Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack. He’s well remembered for playing Deputy Harvey Pell in High Noon, a role, it’s said, originally marked for Lee Van Cleef.

Lloyd Bridges achieved his greatest success in television: Probably his most famous role was as Mike Nelson in the TV series Sea Hunt, an underwater crime show that helped popularize scuba diving in the 1960s. (It inspired one of my older brothers to purchase scuba gear, which he never got to work properly, causing our mom’s blood pressure to swell to high triple digits: “I had you on bottom of the Hudson River!”)

Bridges spent the latter part of his career in television. He sprung to the spotlight once again in the classic 1980 spoof Airplane! Here, I assert, the sight of straight-arrow Lloyd Bridges sniffing glue while hanging upside down remains an inspired gag and a highlight of my long life at the movies.

The other reason to see Trapped is the direction of Richard Fleischer, who helmed the wonderful noir classic The Narrow Margin. Boomers remember Fleischer for directing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for Disney and many other top Hollywood projects. (His best later film, to me, is the serial killer drama 10 Rillington Place, a superbly directed film.) Trapped is almost sure to feature some strong visuals from this master of noir.

As for the rest, I’d also like to see The Burglar, from a David Goodis novel, starring Dan Duryea. Goodis (author of Down There, aka Shoot the Piano Player) was a famously downbeat noir novelist and it would be interesting to see how closely the film captures his bleak view.

As for the known knowns, there’s a lot to see. Among them is one of three Sam Fuller films, Pickup on South Street. Here we’re graced with Richard Widmark as a Gotham pickpocket whose sticky fingers ensnare him in brutal Cold War intrigue. Widmark was a master at playing lowlifes—Night and the City, high among my favorite noirs, is great due partially to him. There’s also great work by Thelma Ritter as one of Widmark’s colleagues and, of course, director Fuller’s ultra-punchy style. (The festival also features Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono and Underworld U.S.A.)

I also recommend The Detective Story. From a play by Sidney Kingsley and directed by William Wyler, it’s social realism in the guise of noir. It follows a day in the life of a New York City precinct and its chief detective, Jim McLeod. It’s no Barney Miller, but a sad and distressing story of a veteran cop’s unravelling as the moral absolutes he lives by collapse in rubble.

William Wyler was not a noir director, but he was one of the master big studio directors of his time. His films are neglected, I think unfairly, by today’s critics for being “too establishment.”

Then there’s the performance of Kirk Douglas, an actor for whom, I’m sure, they coined the word “powerhouse.”  Douglas dominates the screen like no other star, but he has a way of making us squirm. Even his noblest heroes seem arrogant bastards, making McLeod the perfect role for him. Douglas was a great movie star who bravely embraced singularly unpleasant roles. As we reach the end of the “difficult men” era in prestige TV (The Sopranos, Mad Men, etc.), remember that Kirk Douglas was there before any of them.

You might get a kick out of Angel Face, a 1953 melodrama directed by Otto Preminger and featuring Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. Mitchum plays an ambulance driver who gets mixed up in Jean Simmons’ scheme to murder her wealthy husband. The story behind the film sounds more dramatic to me but stick around for a shocking fiery climax.

The festival also gets a revisit from that old 1950s noir warhorse, Kiss Me Deadly, up there with The Big Combo as one of the most florid, perverse and looniest noirs ever. Directed by Richard Aldrich, it stars Ralph Meeker (an underrated, underused actor) as Mickey Spillane’s brutal, granite-fisted hero, Mike Hammer. (Fun fact: Meeker replaced Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway and is said by some to have been the better Stanley.)

Also worth a ticket is Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) featuring terrific work from Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan and direction from Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Haunting). On the surface, it’s the story of a bank robbery gone wrong. Underneath there’s real drama in the racial conflict between the two leads, a misery still well with us. It’s a case where a film’s underlying themes actually are weaved within the drama rather than being forced upon it.

Of the two real classics that close the festival, it’s impossible to say which is “Best of the Fest”, but Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil is definitely one of them. So much has been written about this film, it’s hard to say anymore, but suffice it to say, if you haven’t seen it, see it now, and if you have seen it before, see it again!

One parlor game I never play is “What’s Your Favorite Alfred Hitchcock film?” because the Master made so many great films it’s impossible to decide. Psycho for one, stands among his greats not only for its direction, stark atmosphere, terrific score, editing, and acting, but also the underlying anguish in the colliding fates of Marion Crane and Norman Bates, which gives the film a hint of unexpected tragedy arising from pulp material. Knowing what’s to come, their final scene together is a sorrowful moment.

Everyone rightly mocks the penultimate scene (with poor Simon Oakland bravely wrestling through cornball Freudian speculations). It's my bet that if you cut that scene, you wouldn’t lose a thing and be left with a perfect movie in Psycho. The worst thing about it then becomes all the terrible imitations that have followed in its wake and still assault us sixty years on.

Thomas Burchfield is the author of Butchertown,a ripping, 1920s gangster thriller, which was praised as “incendiary” by David Corbett (The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday; The Art of Character)! His contemporary vampire novel Dragon's Arkwon the IPPY, NIEA, and Halloween Book Festival awards for horror in 2012. He’s also author of the original screenplays Whackers, The Uglies, Now Speaks the Devil andDracula: Endless Night (e-book editions only). Published by Ambler House Publishing, all are available at Amazon,Barnes and Noble, Powell's Books, and other retailers. His reviews have appeared in Bright Lights Film Journaland The Strand and he also published a two-part look at the life and career of the great film villain (and spaghetti western star) Lee Van Cleef in Filmfax. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Elizabeth.

Noir City 2018

This flu noir has kept me in the shadows so far this year, but there’s enough strength—not to mention gumption—left to urge you all to attend the 2018 Noir City Festival at San Francisco’s magnificent Castro Theatre. As always, it’s produced by the Film Noir Foundation (Eddie Muller, founder and president), and includes bar service in the upstairs lobby by Stookey’s Club Moderne.

As before, time and distance will also keep me from attending the entire event. But it won’t keep me from pointing you to some films I know are worth seeing and pointing you to others that might be worth our while (if I can get out of bed).

I haven’t seen This Gun for Hire (Saturday afternoon, January 27) for years, but my memory of it is a good one. Adapted (and softened up and Americanized) from Graham Greene’s novel by Albert Maltz and crime fiction pioneer W.R. Burnett (Little Caesar), it tells the story of hitman Philip Raven and how he winds up a target due to sinister double-crossing by, among others, the amazing Laird Cregar, an actor gone much too soon. It also features Veronica Lake as the love interest, which will be of interest to gentlemen who prefer blondes and dig the peekaboo hairstyle.

A genuine classic—one of two this year--is on tap for that same Saturday evening with Shadow of a Doubt, one in the long long line of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpieces. (Can any of you point to a single specific Hitchcock film as “his best?” Not me.) That Hitchcock considered this a personal favorite should be enough. I’ll add, in addition to mesmerizing work by Joseph Cotten as “Uncle Charley” (maybe his best role) and winsome Teresa Wright as his adoring niece (also named Charlie) there’s a bright seam of wit and humor revealed by the supporting cast featuring Hume Cronyn, Henry Travers, and an actress named Edna May Wonacott as Wright’s uproariously pedantic little sister. If you haven’t seen this . . . I mean really….

The following Monday January 29, features Conflict which I recall as a solid entertaining thriller with Bogart wearing the black hat as a wife murderer.

The following night, Tuesday, January 30) features The Blue Dahlia, the only feature penned first to last by Raymond Chandler. Once again, Alan Ladd and Veronica Ladd are teamed, accompanied by an excellent William Bendix and Howard daSilva. Censorship pressures at the time led to a fudged ending, but it’s still a good noir.

I Walk Alone (1948) will be shown Thursday night, February 1. Though declared a “lost” film, I recall it being broadcast on network television sometime during the 1970s and I caught up with during the 1990s, so how lost it was I can’t say. Lost or not, I recall it to be a pretty good noir thriller, with shades of Out of the Past. Burt Lancaster as an ex-con and Kirk Douglas, as his cheating ex-partner, face off over loot and Lizabeth Scott, as a torch singer. Lancaster vs Douglas? That’s two kegs of dynamite slammed together.

From there, there’s a big gap of unknowns until closing night with the other forty-carat classic, The Big Heat. Now, I am of the firm opinion that none of director Fritz Lang’s Hollywood films really hold a candle to his monumental German classics. But The Big Heat does stand among the finest of his later years.  Everything with Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin is terrific. You may squirm a little at the domestic moments, but once those are blasted out of the way, the film turns cruel and relentless, as does Glenn Ford, a fine actor in an excellent role. It may well be the cruelest and most savage of all noirs.

Among those I haven’t seen, but wish and hope I can is Among the Living, with its shades of Jane Eyre; Flesh and Fantasy and Destiny two films that were once portmanteaud together before being split in two; both are said to contain shades of the supernatural, always a draw for me.

And any movie where Charles McGraw gets to play a lead, which seldom happened, is a must for his fans, as will happen with The Threat, where he plays an escaped con out for revenge. No doubt his enemies will be very sorry by the time he’s done with ‘em—if they live long enough.

The Who Pulled a Knife on Jerry Seinfeld

And, finally, there are three reasons to see Bodyguard: one: it’s a very early screen story co-credited to Robert Altman; two, it’s directed by a most excellent craftsman, Richard Fleischer. And three: will the notorious, most unnerving Lawrence Tierney finally lose it and destroy everything in sight? I can see the klieg lights coming loose as the crew flees in screaming terror.

Have a great time! Maybe I’ll see some of you at Stookey’s upstairs!

[This one is dedicated to the late Carrie Galbraith, a friend when needed long ago.]

Copyright 2017 by Thomas Burchfield

Photo by author

Thomas Burchfield’s Butchertown, a ripping, 1920s gangster shoot-‘em-up  novel is now out! His contemporary Dracula novel Dragon's Ark won the IPPY, NIEA, and Halloween Book Festival awards for horror in 2012. He’s also author of the original screenplays Whackers, The Uglies, Now Speaks the Devil and Dracula: Endless Night (e-book editions only). Published by Ambler House Publishing, all are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,  Powell's Books, and other retailers. His reviews have appeared in Bright Lights Film Journal and The Strand and he recently published a two-part look at the life and career of the great film villain (and spaghetti western star) Lee Van Cleef in Filmfax. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Elizabeth.

Eye on Movies: Noir City 15: Ten-Day Crime Spree

Alright, I’ll talk! Stop! Don’t hit me no more! I’ll tell ya everythin’ I know. Get that light outta my eyes, will ya? I can’t think!

It was Eddie and his gang. The Film Noir Foundation. Yeah, you coppers know them heisters. Chumps like me are scrapin’ the gutter for peanuts, while Eddie and his FNF gang are breakin’ into film vaults all over the world and makin’ off with the crown jewels of sixty years of crime flicks. He’s made crime pay alright damn him while I’m stuck in the middle of Oaktown watchin’ reruns of Midway on AMC!

Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell ya where. Put my arm back in my socket first, will ya? And take that thumb outta my eye!

Eddie and his pals are showin’ off the goods at the fifteenth annual Film Noir Foundation’s Noir CityFilm Festival, held at San Francisco’s legendary Castro Theater and hosted byEddie. The fest is runnin’ from Friday January 20 thru January 29.

What’re the movies about!? What the hell d’ya think they’re about, flatfoot? Heists! Big heists! Big steals that wind up screwin’ the pooch . . . jus’ like they’re always goin’ wrong with me. Well, how the hell was I s’posed to know them rocks belonged to the Kardashians!?

No, I don’t know all the jewels, but I seen a whole bunch of ‘em, some of ‘em a long time ago. Yeah, they’re beautiful all right . . . lemme tell ya . . . .

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The first gem from the vault is the Robert Siodmak-directed Criss Cross from 1947, starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, both ashine with resplendent youth. Like many a noir, it’s about the things a guy will do for love. Lancaster is the love-befuddled sap to Gardner’s femme fatale, who’s attached to that perfectly slimy piece of toast Dan Duryea. You may find the ending a little weak as I did, but the build-up is terrific.

Better yet, the festival tops off its opening night with what some call the crown jewel of all heist films, The Asphalt Jungle (1951). From a W.R. Burnett novel, it’s true to its title as there’s not a whiff of nature to be seen anywhere until the unexpectedly moving ending in another of director John Huston’s many masterworks. I also like how it portrays the human violence unfolds in real life—randomly, stupidly.

The first Saturday matinee brings a little treat for fans of the character actors of the 1950s and 1960s in Kansas City Confidential (1953). Directed by Phil Karlson, it’s the story of a poor mug (John Payne) framed by criminal mastermind Preston Foster for a robbery he didn’t commit. Once out of the can, Payne tracks Foster down to a Mexican resort to get his justice.

The film’s best fun comes from the casting and performances by Foster’s gang of hapless miscreant mugs in the background: growling block-headed Neville Brand, sweaty, wall-eyed Jack Elam and, best of all to some, Lee Van Cleef, dispensing a bit with his great reptilian sneer to cheerfully play a self-styled Valentino named Tony Romano with humor, charm and skill. (You can read more about Van Cleef’s work in this film here and in my recent two-part profile of the actor in Filmfax magazine.) No doubt about it, it’s Bad Guy Heaven. Be seeing you there!

Winding up that Saturday afternoon is Violent Saturday, an offbeat thriller from 1955 about a gang of bank robbers (Lee Marvin, another angel from Bad Guy Heaven, of course; Stephen McNally; and J. Carroll Naish) attempting to rob a small-town bank while trying to avoid entanglements with its troubled residents—sort of Peyton Place meets Richard Stark. Directed by a master craftsman, Richard Fleischer (The Narrow Margin) the film’s violence is quite brutal for its era. And Ernest Borgnine as an Amish farmer seems some sort of peak in oddball casting.

While some pick The Asphalt Jungle as the best heist film ever, others will nominate Jules Dassin’s Rififi (1955) in that eternal debate. Dassin directed this after his exile from the United States during the Red Scare. French filmmaking benefitted thanks to the bringing of American skill and sensibilities to their genre movies. The heist sequence is the most exquisite ever as it unfolds without a word of dialogue, a perfect example of what Hitchcock called “pure cinema.” This or The Asphalt Jungle? It’s enough to split a guy’s heart in two.

The following Monday, January 23^rd, brings The Killing, directed by a young Stanley Kubrick, from a script he cowrote with Jim Thompson (The Grifters). In addition to the terrific cast (Sterling Hayden, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook, Jr., Timothy Carey, Vince Edwards et al), you can also get an early look at Kubrick’s unique sense of space in widescreen format. Bay Area horse racing fans will also enjoy the scenes of long-gone Bay Meadows racetrack.

Tuesday night, the 24^th, brings one of the best comedies in any genre The Ladykillers. (1955, which seems to be a peak year for the heist genre) Produced by Ealing Studios and directed by Alexander Mackendrick (A Fish Called Wanda), it concerns a band of thieves who rent a hideout in which to plan their next heist. Unfortunately, they fail to account for their exquisitely caring and very nosy landlady. There’s Alec Guinness (with the greatest set of bad teeth ever), Peter Sellers and the underrated Herbert Lom. But all of them crumble before the adorable force of nature that is Katie Johnson. You owe yourself this one.

I haven’t seen The Sicilian Clan (1969) in years and due to the late hour of the screening (late Wednesday, the 25^th), I’ll be missing it again. It’s a very good example of the crime thrillers Europeans started turning to as the spaghetti western craze played out its freaky string. This one features Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, and Jean Gabin and was directed by the Turkish-born Henri Verneuil, the director of another nifty Euro-thriller called The Burglars. At their best, these films are as sharp and entertaining as any B-crime picture from the 1940s and 1950s. And there’s Ennio Morricone’s score, one of the best of his huge catalogue. I may not have seen this one in a long time, but I know its music by heart (and good luck at finding the soundtrack).

For crowd-pleaser of the festival, I nominate 1974’s The Taking of Pelham 123, one of the best New York thrillers ever, filmed against the gloriously scuzzy backdrop of 1970s Gotham. It features hangdog Walter Matthau, chilly-eyed Robert Shaw, Jerry Stiller and a winsome Martin Balsam in a tale of a violent subway hijacking that comes down with a URI. It’s a perfect blend of laughs and thrills and is pure New York down to its bawdy bones. But hey . . . what d’ya want for twenty-five cents!? Take my word for it: see this with an audience!

Matthau returns yet again on the last Saturday matinee in Charley Varrick (1973), directed by genre legend Don Siegel (Dirty Harry, still a good movie even if you don’t like its politics). It’s a good two-fisted thriller: Matthau’s knockover of a small-town bank lands him in even deeper waters after he finds the bank was owned by the Mob. Good tough stuff as only directors like Siegel could pull off--the kind Hollywood studios cannot make anymore, even if they wanted to.

Immediately following Charley Varrick, comes Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, an offbeat tale of two crooks (Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges) and their lives on the lam. It's another I haven't seen in years, but it plays well in the memory. It’s one of the films credited with raising Eastwood’s profile among serious filmgoers, as well as Jeff Bridges' profile, who’s also terrific here. The film was directed by Michael Cimino, whose subsequent work (The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate) seems to provide weight to the adage that success can ruin a man.

If you’ve ever wondered about the secret face of Mahatma Ghandi, you may get a real clue with Sexy Beast (2000), featuring the film embodiment of Gandhi himself, Ben Kingsley, the soul of yin and yang. He plays Don Logan, a mob enforcer of rabid ferocity who barks his way into the sunbaked retirement of ex-thief Ray Winstone, dragging, pushing and shoving him into pulling one more heist. Tense, funny, disturbing, seedy and stylish to a fault it, it also features Ian McShane as the big boss, a few years before his triumphant turn as Al Swearengen in Deadwood.

The festival closes with the last film in the distinguished career of Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. It plays like a chamber piece, sort of The Asphalt Jungle meets Long Day’s Journey Into Night, as two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) concoct a harebrained scheme to rob their parents’ jewelry store. A genuine air of pathos and tragedy suffuses the film, making it a fine coda to Lumet’s career. And, of course, any excuse to see the much-missed Mr. Hoffman is a good one.

Copyright 2016 by Thomas Burchfield

Thomas Burchfield’s Butchertown, a ripping, 1920s gangster shoot-‘em-up  novel will appear this Spring 2017. His contemporary Dracula novel Dragon's Ark won the IPPY, NIEA, and Halloween Book Festival awards for horror in 2012. He’s also author of the original screenplays Whackers, The Uglies Now Speaks the Devil, and Dracula: Endless Night (e-book editions only). Published by Ambler House Publishing, all are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble,  Powell's Books, Scribed, and other retailers. His reviews have appeared in Bright Lights Film Journal, The Strand magazine and he recently published a two-part look at the life and career of the great film villain (and spaghetti western star) Lee Van Cleef in Filmfax. He lives in Northern California with his wife, Elizabeth.