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In 1984, filmmaker Sydney Pollack returned to Los Angeles from an inspiring trip to the Cinémathèque Française in Paris determined to create an American corollary, a place where film lovers could watch movies, talk about them, and meet the artists who made them. He founded the American Cinematheque with Filmex programmers Gary Abrahams and Gary Essert, and 40 years later, the organization is flourishing, with nearly a thousand screenings a year spread across three L.A. venues.

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies will celebrate the Cinematheque’s anniversary with a trio of films programmed by the organization’s artistic director Grant Moninger, senior Film programmer Chris LeMaire, film programmer Imani Davis, and chief projectionist Benjamin Tucker. Moninger will also appear in conversation with TCM host Eddie Muller to discuss the films and the Cinematheque’s legacy and history.

In keeping with the Cinematheque’s eclectic programming, the three films are as different from...

Is that the smell of cigarette smoke filling the room? Did a thick layer of fog just descend on the city skyline? Has your inner voice started monologuing more than usual and with an air of suspicion? That’s right folks, Noir City Film Festival at Detroit’s Redford Theatre is set to return this month for it’s seventh annual showcase of murder, intrigue, trenched coats, and brimmed hats. As with every year, the festivities will be hosted by Eddie Muller of Turner Classic Movies‘ “Noir Alley” and will feature an international theme this year with foreign selections, as well as Hollywood films directed by non-American filmmakers like Otto Preminger and Hugo Fregonese.

2024’s Noir City: Detroit begins on Friday, September 20 with a double feature of “Victims of Sin” (1951) and “Night Editor” (1946). Directed by Emilio Fernández, one of the most prolific filmmakers from Mexican cinema’s Golden Age during the ’40s and ’50s,...

Chicago – The Czar of Noir is coming to town, bringing his “Noir City Chicago” back to the Music Box Theatre, September 6-12, 2024. Eddie Muller, the host of Turner Classic Movies “Noir Alley,” will host the first weekend of the series, entitled “Darkness Has No Borders.” For more information, full schedule and tickets, click Noir City.

“Noir City: Chicago” is a week-long celebration of “film noir” … the dark category of film drama that usually takes place at night, and features a rogues gallery of dames, gumshoes, coppers and crooks … and will be hosted by Muller from Friday to Sunday, and Film Noir Foundation’s Alan K. Rode the rest of the way. In “Darkness Has No Borders” an international noir film will be paired with its more familiar American and British counterparts, for a unique perspective on the larceny of the soul … in any language.

For the kickoff night on September 6th,...

Phil Karlson’s 99 River Street is, along with Kansas City Confidential, an exemplar of the director’s brutal, cynical, economical approach to noir. We first meet boxer Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) in the middle of a heavyweight title fight, in which his potential victory is hijacked by a knockdown that leaves him bleeding from a huge cut above his eye. Only then is it slyly revealed that the fight is a replay on TV, which Driscoll has been poring over, as if trying to grasp the opportunity that escaped him four years earlier, while his bitter, disapproving wife, Pauline (Peggy Castle), snaps at him to finish his dinner.

It’s clear that Ernie hasn’t recovered from that career-ending knockout, but he still figures on getting himself a gas station one day, or maybe he’ll knock Pauline up, using a box of chocolates as bait—advice from his former...

The days are getting longer everywhere, except Palm Springs, where darkness is on the ascent each May. That’s when the city plays host to the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary May 9-12 with a program of a dozen classic films from the 1940s and ’50s. Great directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Rossen, Andre de Toth and Anthony Mann and stars like Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan will have desert dwellers and visitors alike eager to blot out the sun for four days, culminating in the festival’s customary Mother’s Day crime spree.

As always, the festival is curated and hosted by a face familiar to any serious modern-day noir aficionado, Alan K. Rode, one of the principals of the Film Noir Foundation and a co-host of the Noir City festival every April in Hollywood. Rode’s Noir City cohort,...

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including events for Poolman, A Man in Full and Hacks.

TCM Classic Film Festival

After kicking off with a Pulp Fiction reunion on April 18, the TCM Classic Film Festival continued through the weekend, as Jodie Foster had her handprints and footprints enshrined in concrete at the Tcl Chinese Theatre and then appeared at a screening of her film The Silence of the Lambs; Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins reunited for a screening of their film The Shawshank Redemption; and Mel Brooks introduced a closing night presentation of his film Spaceballs.

Jodie Foster signs her autograph in cement during the Handprint and Footprint Ceremony TCM Host Eddie Muller, Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins and TCM Host Dave Karger attend ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ screening Mel Brooks speaks onstage at the ‘Spaceballs’ screening

Poolman premiere...

For movie fans young and old, Turner Classic Movies, its hosts, and its expansive archive of iconic films are a beacon for the days of thoughtful well-made movies before everything became content and IP. To celebrate the channel’s 30th anniversary, TCM will host a 24-hour movie marathon featuring some of the greatest films of all time, including “North by Northwest,” “Gone with the Wind,” “An American in Paris,” and more. The festivities kick off at 12:15 a.m. Et on Sunday, April 14, and will feature insights and introductions from TCM’s late, great host Robert Osborne. You can watch TCM with a 5-Day Free Trial of Directv Stream. You can also watch with Sling TV, Hulu Live TV, or YouTube TV.

How to Watch Turner Classic Movies 24-Hour 30th Anniversary Special When: Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 12:15 Am Edt TV: TCM Stream: Watch with a 5-Day Free Trial of Directv Stream.

Turner Classic Movies, the leading authority and definitive home of classic film, will celebrate its 30th anniversary on April 14, 2024. To honor the milestone, TCM will present on-air programming salutes featuring TCM staff who were there from the very beginning, as well as a 24-hour marathon of films with historical introductions from TCM’s first host and champion, Robert Osborne.

“How many other channels on television celebrate their anniversary? How many other channels’ fans know where they were the day a network launched?” says TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz. “I’m not sure either of those things are true without Robert Osborne. He’s the Walter Cronkite of TCM. The Johnny Carson. The Alex Trebek. With these intros of Robert’s, we’re celebrating his impact and his continued influence. Plus, as we do with the movies we show, we’ll put Robert into context. Additionally, we’ll also look back...

Turner Classic Movies will turn 30 on April 14, 2024. That’s right: It’ll be 30 years since Ted Turner flipped the switch — flanked by Old Hollywood legends Arthur Hiller, Arlene Dahl, Jane Powell, Celeste Holm, and Van Johnson — right in the middle of Times Square to turn the network “on.”

Also with Turner that day was the man who’d become TCM’s longtime host, Robert Osborne, then just 61. A veteran columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, Osborne had become known as a close friend to many of the surviving stars of yesteryear ever since he was photographed kissing Bette Davis’s hand during a Golden Globes broadcast in the late ’70s. He’d go on to host the intros and outros for most of TCM’s primetime lineup for close to 23 years after that launch date, until he died in March 2017 at 84.

For so many TCM fans, Robert Osborne was the network.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, TCM on April 14 will present a 24-hour marathon of films with historical introductions from Robert Osborne and throughout the month feature programming with other staffers who started with the channel, it was announced Thursday.

For more than 22 years until his death in March 2017, the revered Osborne served as TCM’s primetime host, bringing millions of viewers into the world of classic cinema he knew as an actor mentored by Lucille Ball, as an Oscar historian and as a longtime The Hollywood Reporter reviewer and columnist.

“How many other channels on television celebrate their anniversary? How many other channels’ fans know where they were the day a network launched?” Ben Mankiewicz, who took over for Osborne, said in a statement. “I’m not sure either of those things are true without Robert Osborne.

“He’s the Walter Cronkite of TCM. The Johnny Carson. The Alex Trebek.

Here’s a look at this week’s biggest premieres, parties and openings in Los Angeles and New York, including events for Vanderpump Rules, Law & Order: Svu and Succession.

Law & Order: Svu 25th anniversary celebration

The Law & Order Svu crew celebrated the show’s 25th anniversary with a special event in New York on Tuesday.

Ice-t, Mariska Hargitay, Peter Scanavino and Octavio Pisano Christopher Meloni

Succession FYC event

Following their big drama series win at the 2023 Emmys, the Succession cast reunited for a FYC event on the Paramount lot on Tuesday.

Nicholas Braun, Matthew Macfayden, J. Smith-Cameron, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck, Brian Cox, Mark Mylod, Jesse Armstrong and moderator Seth Meyers

Vanderpump Rules premiere

Lisa Vanderpump, Ariana Madix, James Kennedy, Katie Maloney, Lala Kent, Scheana Shay, Tom Sandoval, Tom Schwartz, Ally Lewber and Brock Davies walked the carpet on Wednesday at the season 11 premiere of Vanderpump Rules, where Maloney and Lewber also celebrated their birthdays.

As Turner Classic Movies celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, the beloved cable channel is extending its partnership with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson.

The announcement was made Friday at a TCM 30th anniversary party at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, with Spielberg and Anderson in attendance. Warner Bros. co-film chief Pamela Abdy told guests the trio “will be extending their involvement with TCM for another year starting this month — several months earlier than their original agreement, which we started last May, so we can all look forward to this amazing collaboration.”

“It’s truly a dream to be in these conversations and really just listening to Paul and Steven and Marty just talk about film, it’s humbling, it’s awesome. It just reminds you how amazing it is to be part of this industry and part of this history,” she added.

The filmmakers have been...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has a full slate of programming set for this year, as the classic movie home celebrates its 30th anniversary.

The 15th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in April will honor film historian Jeanine Basinger with the Robert Osborne Award, and pay tribute to actor Billy Dee Williams and makeup artist Lois Burwell.

Additionally, The Plot Thickens, TCM’s official podcast about movies and the people who make them will debut later in the year following the release of Talking Pictures: A Movie Memories Podcast, TCM’s latest podcast in tandem with Max.

Extending beyond the screen, Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood will introduce a WB/TCM Classic Movie Tour in April.

“With the 30th year of TCM upon us, we both look back at all that’s been built over the last several decades and look ahead at what is undoubtedly one of the most exciting times in TCM’s history,...

Remember the Emmys? Due to Hollywood’s dual strikes, the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards were delayed from last fall. The telecast, fronted by Anthony Anderson, will take place at Downtown L.A.’s Peacock Theater on Monday, Jan. 15, at a time marked by an explosion of events and perhaps one of the most crowded corridors in awards season history. Get ready to pop some champagne!

Thursday, Jan. 11

Canada at the Emmys

Private location, 5:30 p.m.

Zaib Shaikh, Canada’s consul general in Los Angeles along with Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States will open the doors of Canada’s House for a private reception to honor this year’s Canadian Emmy nominees. Expected guests include Lamar Johnson, Luke Kirby, Susan Coyne, Devery Jacobs, Tantoo Cardinal, Sarah Levy, Shamier Anderson, Mae Martin, Sophie Nélisse, Jeremy Podeswa, Dustin Milligan, Michael Seater, Amanda Crew, Cassandra James, Bruce Greenwood, Enuka Okuma,...

Fifteen authors of books that were recently chosen for The Hollywood Reporter’s list of “The 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time” will convene on a panel — which is being advertised as “the greatest gathering of its kind ever” — this Saturday afternoon in Hollywood as part of AFI Fest.

The event, which will take place inside the historic Tcl Chinese Theater and will run from 4 p.m. -5:30p.m., is open to members of the public free of charge provided they reserve their tickets in advance via Fest.AFI.com/GreatestFilmBooks.

Participating in a discussion about the origins and impact of their books will be A. Scott Berg (Goldwyn: A Biography), Cameron Crowe (Conversations with Wilder), Nancy Griffin (Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood), Aljean Harmetz (The Making of The Wizard of Oz: Movie Magic and Studio Power...

Chicago – The Czar of Noir is coming to town, bringing his very popular “Noir City Chicago” back to the Music Box Theatre for 2023. Eddie Muller, the host of Turner Classic Movies “Noir Alley,” will appear on behalf of a specially curated series of noir genre classics. For more information, full schedule and tickets, click Noir City.

“Noir City: Chicago” is a week-long celebration of “film noir” … the dark category of film drama that usually takes place at night, and features a rogues gallery of dames, gumshoes, coppers and crooks … and will be hosted by Muller from Friday to Sunday, and Film Noir Foundation’s Alan K. Rode the rest of the way. For the kickoff night on August 25th, Muller will be sailing away with Bogie and Bacall on “Key Largo” (1948), followed by the Orson Welles essential “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) and wrapping up with John Garfield in “Force of Evil...

As TCM viewers and classic movie lovers mourned and hoped for the best following this week’s massive layoffs at the network, TCM host Dave Karger and other colleagues spoke out for the first time to express heartache and frustration over the losses in leadership.

“My goal (and I know the other hosts agree) is to try to be a stabilizing and familiar presence in the months ahead,” Karger tweeted Friday, noting the feeling of uncertainty following Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav‘s move to fire 25-year veteran Pola Changnon and others.

Karger wrote that he is “beyond heartbroken.”

“A note to our passionate TCM viewers: It’s been a tough week to say the least and I’m beyond heartbroken that we are losing so many brilliant colleagues who are also dear friends. I’ve seen all of your support online and it means so much to all of us,...

Clockwise from left: The Godfather (Paramount), Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Disney), Pulp Fiction (Lionsgate/Miramax) Graphic: AVClub If media mogul Ted Turner’s misbegotten plan to colorize beloved black-and-white movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age was a cinematic sin, his creation of Turner Classic Movies, that rich repository of historic films great and small,...

Clockwise from top left: Films available on TCM in July include Casablanca (Warner Bros.), The Music Man (Warner Bros.), Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (MGM), and Dog Day Afternoon (Warner Bros.)

If media mogul Ted Turner’s misbegotten plan to colorize beloved black-and-white movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age was a cinematic sin,...

Pola Changnon, who runs Turner Classic Movies (TCM), is the latest executive to leave as part of the Warner Bros. Discovery shakeup.

Changnon, who was EVP and Gm of the cable network, has been with the company for more than 25 years. She took over the new role in 2020.

Michael Ouweleen, the President of Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Discovery Family and Boomerang, who previously oversaw TCM, will once again take charge of the network.

Kathleen Finch, Chairman and Chief Content Officer, US Networks Group, revealed the news in a note to staff, see it below.

It comes after Deadline revealed that a number of executives across the cable networks group including Amy Introcaso-Davis, who was EVP, Development and Production, Factual Programming, Discovery. are leaving.

Here is Finch’s note to staff:

Dear TCM Team,

As you know, Pola has decided to step down after more than 15 years with the network and...

David Zaslav will be putting his bulldog approach to the bottom line to good use for Turner Classic Movies’ future, according to TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

One of the long-standing faces of the channel, Mankiewicz addressed how the Discovery buyout of TCM parent company Warner Bros. will change the brand with new CEO Zaslav at the helm.

“We’ve had a lot of changes in the last five years, one after another. New bosses,” Mankiewicz told Entertainment Weekly. “When [Zaslav] says that they value what we do and that we’re going to be continuing what we do in the foreseeable future, I believe him. And he’s ready.”

Mankiewicz added, “He is connected in this town, and he’s prepared to use that muscle to make sure this town turns out to support us.”

Since the merger, TCM has weathered company-wide layoffs and terminated its partnership with Fathom Events’ Big...

Paula Zahn isn’t known for her colorful analysis of America’s great films. And yet, on Monday night, she will appear on TCM with critic Eddie Muller, ready to hash over a series of noir delights such as “In Cold Blood” and “I Want To Live.”

Zahn may best be remembered for stints on CNN, CBS News and Fox News Channel and, more recently, a substantial decade-plus tenure on Investigation Discovery analyzing true crime stories. In a different era, she and Muller might not have occasion to meet.

In the current epoch, however, their fates are intertwined. Both personalities work for Warner Bros. Discovery, the media giant that has been forged out of TV portfolios previously owned by AT&T, Time Warner, Discovery Communications and Scripps Networks. Executives think TCM, a cable network with a rabid fanbase devoted to classic films, may just represent a sort of linchpin that helps...

The Black Vampire! The most impressive Spanish-language noir restoration yet, Román Viñoly Barreto’s superior serial murder thriller hails from 1953 Argentina. It re-interprets Fritz Lang’s “M” from a different, more emotionally engaging perspective: star Olga Zubarry’s nightclub singer hesitates to tell what she knows about a child-killer, because she might lose custody of her own young daughter. The expressionist noir owes little to Hollywood. Some find it more satisfying than Lang’s classic version. The Film Noir Foundation’s extras are excellent.

El vampiro negro

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1953 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Street Date November 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95

Starring: Olga Zubarry, Nathan Pinzón, Roberto Escalada, Nelly Panizza, Pascual Pelliciota, Georges Rivière, Mariano Vidal Molina, Gloria Castilla, Emma Bernal, Lucía Besse.

Cinematography: Anibal González Paz

Production Designer: Jorge Beghé

Film Editors: Jorge Gárate, Higinio Vecchione

Original Music: Juan Ehlert

Written by Román Viñoly Barreto, Alberto Etchebehere

Produced...

The death of actress-activist Marsha Hunt this week is a historical watershed and a personal loss. Marsha was one of the last living actors who began her movie career during the Great Depression in 1935. She became part of a now vanished Hollywood, initially at Paramount then at MGM, that bound contracted talent to studios with artists having little to no say over their choice of roles and careers. Nevertheless, she thrived in the studio system by becoming somewhat less than a genuine movie star and more of a consummate professional actress.

Marsha’s career was derailed by the Blacklist, a perfidious period of American history that has been endlessly chronicled and misunderstood. Never a Communist or radical, she was a forthright liberal who refused to accept her voice being marginalized by the endemic sexism and politics of the period. Marsha was the final survivor of the Committee of the First Amendment,...

Chicago – Eddie Muller, the film historian known as the “Czar of Noir,” is about to prove his point. In about 20 minutes of Part Two to an interview conducted a couple weeks ago, Muller shares his rich knowledge about all things shadowy in the 1940s/50s era of film noir. This coincides with the last two days of “Noir City: Chicago 2022, click Noir City for more info.

“Noir City: Chicago 2022” is a program of screenings, hosted by Muller last weekend, and through Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation for the rest of the event. This dark category of film drama are usually set at night, and features a rogues gallery of dames, gumshoes, coppers and crooks.

At the Music Box Theatre, with Eddie Muller (inset)

Photo credit: MusicBoxTheatre.com/Craig Merrill for EddieMuller.com

Eddie Muller is the recognized world expert on film noir, nicknamed the “Czar of Noir” by James McEllroy,...

Chicago – It’s always darkest before the dawn, and an entire genre of film is available for Chicago. The historic Music Box Theatre presents “Noir City: Chicago 2022” – August 26th-September 1st, 2022 – the celebration of “film noir,” the dark category of film drama that usually takes place at night, and features a rogues gallery of dames, gumshoes, coppers and crooks. Hosting again after the Covid hiatus is Eddie Muller, a recognized world expert on noir and also the host of Turner Classic Movie’s (TCM) “Noir Alley.” For more information, including tickets, click Noir City.

“Noir City: Chicago 2022” is a week long program of screenings, hosted by Muller from Friday to Sunday, and Film Noir Foundation’s Alan K. Rode the rest of the way. On the kickoff night on August 26th, Muller will be screening a double feature and tribute to James Caan. Throughout the rest of the festival, Noir City...

If Carl Franklin may not have many films in his oeuvre, what’s present has certainly made its mark. His 1992 neo-noir One False Move was originally set by the studio to go straight-to-video, only to be rescued by critics like Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, who caught it in advance and gave massive praise to its complex characters, rich world-building, and no-nonsense approach to the violence that American culture is steeped in. The film would go on to be Siskel’s number one of the year and receive the full theatrical release it deserved.

With a bump from One False Move’s critical cache, Franklin set about for his incredibly ambitious follow-up: Devil in a Blue Dress, an adaptation of the acclaimed Walter Mosley novel, with Denzel Washington to star in the role of Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. In Los Angeles during the summer of 1948, two weeks behind on his mortgage...

Kino reaches into the Universal Vault for vintage Paramount and Universal thrillers. This ‘noir’ collection surprises us — it contains one terrific example of the style, newly-hatched and looking very different for its year. The other two titles are in B&w (check), and revolve around murders (check). But if there were a TV quiz show called ‘Noir or Not Noir’ they’d shape up as third-tier also-rans. The talent on view is impressive, especially the leading ladies: Claire Trevor, Louise Platt, Merle Oberon, Ella Raines, and Gale Sondergaard. Kino appoints the film with good commentators: Jason A. Ney, Anthony Slide, Kelly Robinson.

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema VIII

Street of Chance, Enter Arsene Lupin, Temptation

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1942-1946 / 1:37 Academy / 266 minutes / Street Date July 19, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 49.95

Starring: Burgess Meredith, Claire Trevor; Charles Korvin, Ella Raines; Merle Oberon, George Brent.

Directed by Jack Hively, Ford Beebe,...

I’m going to start by setting a scene. The head of the Moving Image Section at the Library of Congress, Mike Mashon, takes the stage at the Castro Theater to introduce a screening of Erich Von Stroheim’s ambitious debut Blind Husbands (1919) at the 25th San Francisco Silent Film Festival. It’s a full house and that’s certainly not unusual for this event. “Recently, I was watching a conversation on the Criterion Channel,” Mashon tells the crowd. “Critic/curator Dave Kehr and historian Farran Smith Nehme were discussing Raoul Walsh and one of them said that Walsh was one of the least intellectual directors. He didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body; he was just a straight-ahead guy.” Mashon pauses, timing the silence for comic impact. “So… Erich Von Stroheim.” He need say nothing more. The entire audience erupts in laughter. Mashon smiles, saying, “You know,...

It’s back and Criterion’s got it, so be prepared for sharp-talking insights on Billy Wilder’s nearly flawless, cinema-changing ode to cold-blooded murder, Los Angeles style. Edward G. Robinson wants Fred MacMurray but Barbara Stanwyck has him wrapped around her trigger finger. James M. Cain tapped into our city’s domestic malaise — who doesn’t know somebody they’d like to trade in for some extra cash? What about the extras? The Big C has Noah Isenberg, Imogen Sara Smith, Eddie Muller, Angelica Jade Bastién. Plus, we get the legendary Wilder interviews with Volker Schlöndorff, uncut and völlig ungeklärt. Revolver under the sofa cushion, anyone?

Double Indemnity

4K Ultra-hd + Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1126

1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 31, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Tom Powers, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, Mona Freeman,...

The Palm Springs area will live up to its reputation for seediness under the cover of never-ending nights — irony intended — as the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival returns to town for its 22nd annual marathon of vintage crime dramas this weekend. Leonard Maltin and TCM “Noir Alley” host Eddie Muller will be among the guest hosts joining festival curator Alan K. Rode for a four-day deep dive into the dark that kicks off Thursday night with the 1949 Nicholas Ray film whose title pretty much says it all about the genre being celebrated: “They Live by Night.”

That opening night will be preceded Wednesday by a fundraising performance by frequent festival guest Victoria Mature, daughter of Hollywood golden-age icon Victor Mature, dubbed “Victoria/Victor Mature Cabaret, an Evening of Memories and Music,” to be held, as with the festival proper, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. Mature will also be on...

Sidney Poitier — film noir icon? That may not be one of the phrases that popped up most frequently in the recent obituaries and appreciations for the late actor, but Poitier did take his turn at noir. The movie with which he made his screen debut, “No Way Out,” will be featured at the upcoming resumption of the annual Noir City Hollywood Festival, which is devoting separate days to the treatment of race and women in the crime dramas of the ’40s and ’50s, along with a continued focus on presenting restorations in 35mm glory.

Noir City Hollywood has been a staple at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre each spring since the late ’90s, but with that theater closed for extensive Netflix-funded renovations, this year it will take place at the Hollywood Legion Theatre a few blocks up Highland Blvd. Hosted as always by Film Noir Foundation president (and...

Who Shot Barney? Or should we say, who is going to shoot Barney? Chalk up another excellent Noir Rescue by The Film Noir Foundation, the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Flicker Alley: Joan Leslie is a Broadway star in a group of ‘difficult’ actors, writers, lovers and cheats, trying to prevent a ‘repeat’ cycle of deception and murder. Richard Basehart makes a strong film debut as her confidante, a conflicted poet. The story twists tweak the noir format with supernatural content, almost like the ironic fantasies of The Twilight Zone. The choice extras double our interest in this very different noir.

Repeat Performance

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / Street Date February 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95

Starring: Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta, Ilka Grüning, Keefe Brasselle. John Ireland (narrator).

Cinematography: Lew W. O’Connell

Art Director: Edward C. Jewell...

If discovering brilliant filmmakers appeals, it’s difficult to to better than this five-disc, nine-feature labor of recovery and restoration from Lobster films. Julien Duvivier is well known for a couple of pictures, one of which screened not so long ago on Eddie Muller’s TCM film noir show. But seeing his silent masterpieces may change your thinking about real cinematic art: theory meets narrative effectiveness through both technical innovation and delicate direction of actors. One silent in this set, about the economic power of a department store (!) is so effective, at the finish you’ll be convinced that a sync sound version couldn’t possibly be better. The set is appointed with expert introductions and analysis . . . this is the real French cinema that no ‘New Wave’ can invalidate.

Cinema of Discovery Julien Duvivier in the 1920s

Blu-ray

Flicker Alley

1925 – 1930 / B&w

1:33 Silent Ap. / 14 hours, 17 min.

Street Date January...

Let’s shout our approval of this foursome of vintage noirs, all of which have been scarce since Eddie Muller was old enough to rob candy stores. Three Paramounts and one Universal give us four notable directors and a gallery of attractive stars, including a swoon-worthy array of actresses: Marta Toren, Loretta Young, Susan Hayward, Gail Russell, Frances Farmer and Marina Berti. The selection includes one of the key ‘just prior to the official style’ titles, a thriller with supernatural overtones, a ‘woman in jeopardy’ story and a gangster tale reportedly inspired by Lucky Luciano.

Kino Noir Times Four

Blu-ray

Among the Living, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Accused, Deported

Kl Studio Classics

1941-1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / Street Date November 16, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / Separate Purchases / 24.95 each

Starring: Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward; Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell; Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey; Jeff Chandler, Marta Toren.

Directed by Stuart Heisler,...

From beneath the Southern Cross come a pair of genuine noirs that happen to have been made in Argentina, where film art flourished in a system almost totally divorced from the American awareness. The Beast Must Die is a hardboiled tale of tragedy and murder told in an upside-down way that would make Orson Welles applaud; its star was called the Vincent Price of Argentina. In the visually bizarre The Bitter Stems a generous crook makes plans to murder his cheating partner in fraud, only to fall into a whirlpool of guilt. Expert testimony from Guido Segal, Fernando Martín Peña and Daniel Viñoly introduce us to an exotic film world almost unknown in the U.S.. Hear Eddie Muller try out his Spanish language pronunciation skills!

Argentine Film Noir

The Beast Must Die + The Bitter Stems

Two Argentine films noir

restored by the

Film Noir Foundation

and the

UCLA Film...

A dark desert highway isn’t just something in an Eagles song — it’s what some Angelenos will be taking to Palm Springs this weekend to experience the particular shade of nightfall that is film noir. The Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival is resuming at the Palm Springs Cultural Center after a pandemic-mandated time-out last year, offering a slate of a dozen familiar or obscure picks over the course of one concentrated weekend, some of them unspooling in rare 35mm prints.

Alan K. Rode, a familiar presence to L.A. repertory filmgoers, not to mention noir fans around the country, is returning as producer and host, joined as a presenter by cohort Eddie Muller, the host of TCM’s “Noir Alley.” TCM is signing onto the Palm Springs event as a presenting sponsor for the first time.

Films range from one of the quintessential noirs, “The Big Sleep,” on the...

Netflix released a trailer for “The Circle” Season 3, which premieres Sept. 8.

The four-week reality competition series will begin with eight new players as they compete to become a top social media influencer and win $100,000. Over the course of the season, as original players are eliminated from the titular circle, a few new ones will enter. Some, such as Calvin, who you meet in the trailer, are playing as themselves, but others are catfish.

The trailer, which you can watch below, also previews a couple of the big twists of this season. First, Ava secretly brings her sister, Chanel, into the game with her — with the two playing as one. Additionally, players begin to become wary of Michelle, a competitor who has two accounts; her peers do not know which one is her and which one is a catfish posing as her.

The reality competition features these individuals living and competing in isolated pods,...

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“The Devil Makes Him Do It”

By Raymond Benson

The actor Ray Milland always presented himself on screen with a serious intensity. His Oscar-winning turn as an alcoholic in The Lost Weekend (1945) catapulted him into the upper ranks of Hollywood stardom in those years. He didn’t always appear in A-list pictures, though. Film noir and thrillers like The Big Clock and So Evil My Love (both 1948) featured Milland in what might be perceived as moonlighting roles, but he is nonetheless effective.

Such is the case with Alias Nick Beal, directed by frequent Milland collaborator, John Farrow. This is not a film noir, per se, but rather a thriller-cum-supernatural tale that borrows heavily from the Faust myth. And while Milland is the fire that energizes Nick Beal, it is third-billing Thomas Mitchell who is the protagonist of the story.

Mitchell is Joseph Foster,...

Sunshine and noir are antithetical, as probably anyone who knows even a word of French could tell you. Sunshine and film noir, nearly as much so. Yet summer’s here and the time is right for skulking in the murderously foggy streets, thanks to a three-day festival of vintage ’40s and ’50s crime dramas being presented this weekend at the newly reopened Hollywood Legion Theater by the Film Noir Foundation.

In a year that hadn’t started off with a pandemic in full force, or wasn’t continuing with Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre being closed for renovations, noir fans would have already something close to their fill with the annual Noir City festival that’s usually co-sponsored by the American Cinematheque every March or April. But with the absence of that 22-year-old standby leaving a doom-shaped hole in L.A. repertory moviegoers’ hearts, the Noir Foundation has stepped in with a shorter,...

Vintage high-end Film Noir from the classic year 1947! Low Mileage too — this long cut hasn’t been seen since the early laserdisc days. I didn’t know it needed restoring until George Feltenstein talked about it a couple of years ago. It’s a domestic noir crossed with Double Indemnity with a little An American Tragedy thrown in for good measure. Normally squeaky-clean Robert Young throws his hat into the ring with the lowest of noir hero-villains: in this one he double-crosses three terrific noir leading ladies. We can now spell ‘Unspeakable Cad’ with the initial Ry. The most amazing thing about The Warner Film Archive’s new disc is that it restores a full fifteen minutes — Eddie Muller screened They Won’t on his Noir City show not long ago, with no mention that it was the short, edited version.

They Won’t Believe Me

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 95 min.

Bill Maher took aim at what he perceives to be the work of cancel culture during his usual Friday night “Real Time with Bill Maher” slot, sending up potentially problematic classic movies that could warrant a more contemporary content warning. Maher is riffing off Turner Classic Movies’ recent series “Reframed: Classic Films in the Rearview Mirror,” which reconsiders old movies due for a new cultural context.

“Of course in this new era, they had to reframe the classics. So they have to have a guy come on at the beginning, and give a little speech about why movies that you used to just enjoy because you understood, you understood the times change, people change and mores change it’s called evolution, but now it’s called problematic,” Maher said. Check out the clip below.

Among the films in TCM’s series are “My Fair Lady,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Searchers,...

In the fall of 1939, director Alfred Hitchcock stood before Columbia University to tell a story we can only hope he invented. With a ruthless, dry delivery, Hitch spoke of two Scotsmen on a train. One of these fellows carried with him a mysterious package he says is a “MacGuffin.” When the other man asks what exactly is a MacGuffin, the carrier responds, “It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.” What an odd response, the other guy thinks. After all, there is no such thing as highland lions! When he points this out though, the MacGuffin’s owner says, “Well then, that’s no MacGuffin!”

It’s an amusing anecdote which is as circuitous as it appears pointless. But that very pointlessness was always the appeal for Hitch, who four years earlier popularized the storytelling term of a “MacGuffin” with his film The 39 Steps. In that movie,...

MGM’s glamour factory hit heights of grandeur with this nostalgic disaster spectacle, which retains its power even as its pious sentimentality runs amuck. We don’t believe the characters but we believe the Stars: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy succeed with sheer personality. Best of all are the sensational special effects featuring the highly cinematic earthquake montage by Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman.

San Francisco

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1936 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 115 min. / Street Date February 16, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt, Jessie Ralph, Ted Healy, Shirley Ross, Edgar Kennedy, Warren Hymer, Gertrude Astor, Vince Barnett, Tom Dugan, D.W. Griffith, James Murray, Robert J. Wilke.

Montages: Slavko Vorkapich, John Hoffman

Special Effects: James Basevi, Russell A. Cully, A. Arnold Gillespie, Loyal Griggs

Film Editor: Tom Held

Songs: Bronislau Kaper & Walter Jurmann (music), Gus Kahn (lyrics), Nacio Herb Brown

Written...

Viavision’s first deluxe Film Noir boxed set gives us four titles that emphasize star power — Glenn Ford, Ray Milland, Kirk Douglas and Lee J. Cobb. The Australian release includes three Columbia titles and the home video premiere of a rare Paramount picture. Which ones are core Noir and which are merely ‘noir adjacent?’ The special extras invest in a quartet of audio commentaries from the top experts and Film Noir Foundation creators Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode. There’s nothing that pair doesn’t know about these pictures.

Essential Film Noir Collection 1

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 18, 19, 20, 21

1947-1957 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 366 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / 149.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan; Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell; Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant; Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Kerwin Mathews.

Directed by Richard Wallace, John Farrow, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman

The Australian disc boutique...

Noir Nirvana isn’t found amid literary swells and hoity-toity art connoisseurs — but in the trenches of humble Eagle-Lion Films, where Richard Fleischer, Lloyd Bridges and a hotter-than-hot Barbara Payton steamed up the streets of Los Angeles circa 1949. The Film Noir Foundation experts give us an expertly curated slice of hardboiled crime — Eddie Muller dubs it ‘To Live and Die in L.A.,’ but in the year that the Reds took over mainland China, and the Ussr exploded its first Atom bomb.

Trapped

Blu-ray + DVD

Flicker Alley

1949 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 78 min. / Street Date December 17, 2019 / 39.98

Starring: Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, John Hoyt, James Todd, Russ Conway, Robert Karnes, Stephen Chase, Tommy Noonan, Douglas Spencer.

Cinematography: Guy Roe

Film Editor: Alfred DeGaetano

Original Music: Sol Kaplan

Written by Earl Felton, George Zuckerman

Produced by Bryan Foy

Directed by Richard Fleischer

The Film Noir Foundation has done it again — the non-profit has...

David Crow Jun 26, 2019

The Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, walks us through the darkest shadows in Turner Classic Movies' Noir Alley. We also search for noir's future.

Eddie Muller is proud of his alias as the Czar of Noir. Being the founder of The Noir Foundation comes that kind of infamy, as does being the host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley every Saturday night. A scholar of the film movement that shot a bullet of cynicism right through the heart of post-World War II America, Muller has spent a lifetime as an author, conservationist, and simply a fan of the hardboiled form.

When we sit down for a lengthy phone conversation about Noir Alley’s continuing schedule this summer, he’s just returned to American crime fiction’s birthplace, at least in literary form, San Francisco. It was the Bay Area where Dashiell Hammett invented The Maltese Falcon’s Sam Spade,...

Two minutes. Two minutes is the magic number for Ben Mankiewicz.

The primetime host of TCM has recorded hundreds of introduction segments for movies that air on the film lover’s cable haven. After much experimentation and market research, the TCM team has concluded that two minutes is the ideal length for the amuse bouche delivered by the host before the feature entrée is served.

“After you get to about 2:15, people are saying, ‘Go ahead and start the movie now,’“ Mankiewicz quips. He credits original TCM host Robert Osborne for perfecting the timing and tone of the set-up segment. “It’s an art. Robert really found it,” he says of the late TCM host, who died in 2017 at the age of 84.

Within his 120 seconds, Mankiewicz tries to share enlightening, surprising, or amusing anecdotes connected to the movie that is more than a dry reading of credits.

“We are programming...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

American Cinematheque Head of Programming Gwen Deglise Moore became the latest to receive the distinguished Insignia of Chevalier (Knight) of the Order of Arts and Letters, an award established in 1957 to recognize eminent artists and writers as well as people who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts in France and throughout the world. The Hon. Christophe Lemoine, Consul General of France in Los Angeles, made the presentation Monday evening at the French Consulate home in Beverly Hills.

Deglise joins a list of past honorees that includes George Clooney, Sofia Coppola, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman and many others. “I’m so proud, very intimidated, and so grateful,” she told me before the ceremony. “To give me the opportunity to look back and to be mostly grateful for the American Cinematheque, and for the importance of our institution and to believe in what we do and to me it...