The Fourth Annual Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival returns to Lenfest Center for the Arts, located at New York's Columbia University of the Arts, March 1-5. This year's 10 film series, "Beyond the Femme Fatale: The Women Who Made Noir", will examine women's contributions to noir as film producers, screenwriters, novelists, and one as a director—Ida Lupino was the only woman director to make a noir in the classic era. Two of Lupino's films, both from 1953, will be featured, The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker.
Screenings will be accompanied by discussions with film scholars Julie Grossman, Dana Polan, and Shelley Stamp, as well as a panel featuring crime writers Megan Abbott and Sarah Weinman.
Prior to the festival, February 25-26, there will be a free virtual screening of The Deep End (2001). This adaptation of Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's novel The Blank Wall stars Tilda Swinton in the role played by Joan Bennett in the first adaptation of the book, 1949's The Reckless Moment. Tickets are available here.
Excellent program notes, packages for four or all of the films, tickets for individual screenings and schedule are available here.
UPCOMING 2023 NOIR CITY DATES
NOIR CITY: Chicago: Aug 25-31
NOIR CITY: D.C.: Oct 13-26
*Other U.S. cities will be added as festival dates are confirmed.
Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto's El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is available from Flicker Alley in a deluxe Blu‑ray/DVD edition. A virtually unknown remake of Fritz Lang's seminal 1931 thriller M, this 1953 Argentine noir is a female-centered take on the tale. Olga Zubarry stars as a cabaret performer trying to protect her young daughter (Gogó) from a mysterious murderer while parrying the advances of the prosecutor (Roberto Escalada) pursuing the killer. Nathán Pinzón, who also appeared in Viñoly Barreto's The Beast Must Die (La bestia debe morir) a year earlier, gives an impressive against-type performance as the disturbed pedophile hiding in plain sight.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Film Noir Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Charitable Trust, a stunning restoration of the film was created by UCLA Film & Television Archive and is being presented in its first-ever U.S. home-video release – with special thanks to Fernando Martín Peña and Argentina Sono Film.
✽ Introduction to El vampiro negro – by author, film historian and "noirchaeologist" Eddie Muller
✽ The 3 Faces of "M" – a critical comparison of the three versions of M, produced by Steven C. Smith and writer/film historian Alan K. Rode, and featuring interviews with writer/film historian Imogen Sara Smith, biographer Patrick McGilligan, biographer Stephen Youngkin, film critic Beth Accomando, Eddie Muller, and Alan K. Rode
✽ Art in the Blood – an interview with visual artist Daniel Viñoly, son of visionary director Román Viñoly Barreto
✽ Audio Commentary – by Argentina's leading film archivist and cinema historian Fernando Martín Peña
✽ Souvenir Booklet – featuring an essay by Imogen Sara Smith, with rare original photographs, posters, and ephemera
The FNF funded restorations of two 1947 film noirs, The Guilty and High Tide are now available for pre-order in a beautiful Blu‑ray/DVD combo set that includes extensive special features from Flicker Alley. John Reinhardt's The Guilty centers on war veterans Mike Carr (Don Castle) and Johnny Dixon (Wally Cassell), roommates in a low-rent tenement. They are romantically entangled with twin sisters Estelle and Linda Mitchell (Bonita Granville, in a dual role). When one sister turns up dead, the boys are hounded by a suspicious police inspector (Regis Toomey). Working on only three sets, with a shoestring budget, Reinhardt and director of photography Henry Sharp evoke the dreadful, dead-of-night ambiance that was the domain of the era's most prolific noir scribe, Cornell Woolrich. The rarely seen noir has been restored from a 35mm nitrate composite fine-grain master by UCLA Film & Television Archive and is now presented in this world-premiere edition. + READ MORE
The FNF's restoration of Repeat Performance (1947) has been released in a beautiful Blu‑ray/DVD combo set that includes extensive special features. Order your copy now from Flicker Alley. An amazingly original hybrid of film noir, supernatural fantasy, and backstage melodrama, the film stars Joan Leslie as a Broadway actress who magically relives the previous year of her life, but can she alter the fateful mistakes and misjudgments that led to a New Year's Eve tragedy? Think of it as film noir's answer to It's a Wonderful Life or a full-length precursor to The Twilight Zone. + READ MORE
We are proud to announce the release of two FNF restorations as Blu‑ray/DVD combos from Flicker Alley: The Bitter Stems and The Beast Must Die, two classics of Argentine noir.. → READ MORE
Yoram Kahana was one of the Film Noir Foundation's greatest allies. His association with us even pre-dates the FNF's creation. Our first meeting was at one of the earliest noir festivals at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, presented in conjunction with the American Cinematheque. At the end of the evening Yoram approached me, the first time I'd ever seen what would become a familiar visage: the wil d tangle of white hair, the light-colored, lightweight, lived-in outfit (complete with photojourvalist vest) suggesting a war correspondent in some humid, hostile outpost (nah, just Hollywood). The bemused, crooked smile—and, of course, the gruff, almost indecipherable accent that prevented me from really knowing his name until I looked it up online. → READ MORE
The revised and expanded edition of FNF prez and Noir Alley host Eddie Muller's Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir is now available for purchase from the TCM Shop or your favorite bookseller.
Presented by Turner Classic Movies, Muller's film noir lover's bible takes readers on a tour of the urban landscape of the grim and gritty genre in a definitive, highly illustrated volume. Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen characters to whom they gave life.
Muller guides fans on a spellbinding trip through treacherous terrain: Hollywood in the post-WWII years, where art, politics, scandal, style—and brilliant craftsmanship—produced a new approach to moviemaking, and a new type of cultural lore. This journey hits all the finer neighborhoods: Shamus Flats, Vixenville, Blind Alley, Losers' Lane—with stops at The Precinct, The Psych Ward, The Big House, and other dank corners, with shady protagonists ready to spill their bitter life story before retreating to the shadows.
Gun Crazy caused barely a ripple in public consciousness when it hit movie
screens in 1950. Yet over time it would prove to be the most
innovative and provocative motion picture of its era—a simple genre
film, but packed with so much cinematic bravura and timeless
symbolism, its power has spanned decades, crossed oceans, and
influenced countless filmmakers.
+ READ MORE
Come follow us on Tumblr to indulge your passion for noir! We'll be posting daily, celebrating all things noir with exclusive stills and images you won't see anywhere else, as well as trailers, film clips, and more.
Share our posts with your friends; your love of the art form is the Foundation's biggest asset in its mission to preserve and restore classics of the genre. We are also fully committed to present our rescued films in the way they were meant to be seen: in 35mm at our NOIR CITY festivals around the country.
Did you know that The Film Noir Foundation livestreams every two weeks on our Facebook page in which Eddie Muller answers questions submitted by our e‑mail subscribers? All previous broadcasts are available on our YouTube broadcast archives page.
→ Subscribe to our mailing list, so you can get your question answered.
BROADCAST SCHEDULE
The latest ASK EDDIE premiered on Facebook on February 16 and on YouTube the following day.
Gabrielle "Gabz" Norte is a Cahuilla and Cupeño filmmaker, photographer, and MLIS graduate student at UCLA. She is an enrolled tribal member of the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians in Warner Springs, CA. Her work focuses on Native culture, identity, and creating and preserving legacy for underrepresented people. Her short films have been the selections of various film festivals, winning awards such as Best Cinematography, Best Student Film, and the Summerhawk Native Film Award. Norte is a part of the 400 Years Project and Indigenous Photograph databases. She currently works as an AV preservation assistant with UCLA's Preservation and Conservation Department.
As a media archivist student and passionate film fan, she hopes to also do work in film restoration and preservation, creating access for future generations to classic, foreign, and independent cinema, and to rediscover, reimagine, and reframe history through a Native lens.
Our 2022 Grant recipient, Katie Higley, wrote A Year in Review detailing her work as an intern last year. We were honored that the grant afforded her the financial support that she needed to take the internship. READ MORE
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