The long-awaited Noir City 17 film festival hits the big screen at San Francisco's spectacular Castro Theatre on Friday evening.
The Noir City universe is invariably filled with grimy, pothole-filled and rain-soaked streets that invariably lead to nowhere. On said foreboding-filled avenues, strewn with bullet-riddled sedans: nervous cigarette smoking, bargain basement booze, double-crossing dames, sex-starved saps, thuggery, skullduggery, chicanery and misery, creepy alleyways smack dab in the middle of urban netherworlds without end.
The chiaroscuro film noir universe was stylishly presented with "high art on a low budget" characterized by innovative black and white cinematography.
Ace directors represented in the 2019 Noir City lineup include Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller, Stanley Kubrick, Robert Wise, Robert Aldrich, Otto Preminger, Richard Fleischer, Robert Siodmak, William Wyler, William Dieterle, Michael Curtiz and Jacques Tourneur. . . A.K.A. filmmaking heavyweights.
Writer G. Allen Johnson in the San Francisco Chronicle describes the Film Noir In The 1950's program as follows: "What happens when the usual grifters, femme fatales and psychopaths traveling the dark alleys are suddenly haunted by racial tensions, nuclear nightmares and commie agents? Film noir was always built on exploring what's simmering below society's glossy surface, but in the 1950s, with the collapsing Hollywood studio system and bold new visions from innovative filmmakers, the genre entered its most exciting era."
The "Czar Of Noir" and founder of the Film Noir Foundation, Eddie Muller, who shall host the 10-day film festival with aplomb and profound knowledge of classic movies, elaborates.
Who: Silver screen stars from iconic (Barbara Stanwyck) to tragic (Barbara Payton - who ended up in a real-life noir nightmare offscreen after her movie career ended)
What: Noir City 17 - Film Noir In The 1950's
When: January 25 to February 3
Where: Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street, between 17th and 18th streets.
Why: The movies, seen in big screen glory, are amazing, the proceeds benefit the splendid film preservation efforts of The Film Noir Foundation - and Noir City is by far Your Correspondent's favorite film festival that he doesn't personally provide footage for.
This year's festival includes THREE films by favorite director Samuel Fuller.
Tickets and festival passes are available from Brown Paper Tickets
1 comment:
I am Barbara Payton's biographer and I would have given up a lot to be there to see her on the big screen in TRAPPED. I hope the film was received well, and I also hope people there spoke about Barbara with some compassion, because she truly was emotionally ill (and her own worst enemy).
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