The favorite film festival that the writer of this blog didn't personally schlep reels to is back. That would be Noir City, which shall bring big screen fun to Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre starting on Friday.
This will be the 23rd Noir City film festival.
Which has been the product of unending hard work from the preservationists, authors, historians and event maestros of the Film Noir Foundation.
The press release elaborates: The joint will be jumping when the venerable NOIR CITY film festival kicks out the jams at the Grand Lake Theatre, January 16–25, 2026, with an exciting 10-day program of crime and mystery films featuring . . . musicians!
From early examples of Hollywood noir like Blues in the Night (1941) to jazz-fueled sixties’ gems like All Night Long (1962) and A Man Called Adam (1966), the movies feature genuine musical legends performing alongside film noir favorites including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Kirk Douglas, Ann Sheridan, and Robert Mitchum.
Among the real-life musicians appearing onscreen at NOIR CITY 23: Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Keely Smith, Dexter Gordon, Ella Fitzgerald, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peggy Lee, Oscar Levant, Dave Brubeck, Charlie Mingus, and many more.
“Back in the 1940s, nightclubs and jazz played a significant role in creating the noir vibe,” explains festival founder and host Eddie Muller. “So, it was fun to craft a program in which music plays a role in every story, either through the setting or because the characters are musicians.” As he usually does, Muller balances the roster between established classics (To Have and Have Not (1944), Gilda (1946), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), and seldom-screened titles like The Strip (1951), The Crimson Canary (1945), and Face the Music (aka The Black Glove), a 1954 British rarity that provided the “kicker” for this year’s festival.
Muller acknowledges that some of this year’s offerings veer outside the proscribed boundaries of noir, but he offers no apologies: “Jazz is America’s greatest contribution to the twentieth century,” he declares, “and mixing it up with film noir is a perfect way to showcase the music for a younger generation. The stories may be dark and depressing, but the music always soars.”
Many of the films on the schedule are fictions in which music plays a major part; others are based on actual performers, like the 1955 Doris Day vehicle Love Me or Leave Me in which Day gives a scintillating performance as 1920s singing and dancing sensation Ruth Etting. Kirk Douglas’ Young Man with a Horn from 1950 (also starring Day) is based on the life of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke (with Harry James providing the actual horn work).
Similarly, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dexter Gordon give memorable portrayals in, respectively, A Man Called Adam and Round Midnight (1986), playing composites of real-life jazz artists.
“Jazz may dominate the program,” Muller notes, “but we’ve also got samplings of classical (1946’s Humoresque), country (1958’s Thunder Road), and rock ‘n’ roll (1958’s King Creole) — I finally hit on a theme that accommodates my favorite Elvis movie.”
The classic film and noir-lovin' gang here strongly recommend that all film buffs who can get their derrieres and popcorn to the Grand Lake Theatre do so.
This event will help get people together, have a chance to hang out, "face the music" and provide some entertainment during a year that thus far has been disgusting, horrific, grotesque and unrelentingly horrendous.
No doubt outraged texts from offended dumpster fires seeking an apology are forthcoming.
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