The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, opens this weekend in San Francisco. Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD or streaming. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace (San Francisco’s Castro Theatre) with a thousand other film fans.
Eddie Muller, whom you should recognize as the host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley series, has programmed this year’s version as Noir City: International II, with vintage film noir from Argentina, France, Germany, Korea, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Italy, England, West Germany, Sweden and Poland. Noir City’s first intentional foray, six years ago, was one of my favorites, highlighted by the Argentine Bitter Stems and the Swedish Girl with Hyacinths.
The Film Noir Foundation restored the Argentine films The Beast Must Die and The Black Vampire, which open the fest on Friday night. This is your only chance to see these and sixteen other Noir City films, which cannot be streamed.
My personal favorites on the program:
Pale Flower: Writer-director Masahiro Shinoda’s masterpiece is a slow burn that erupts into breathtaking set pieces. This is pioneering neo-noir; its look and feel is as different from classic noir as are Elevator to the Gallows and Blast of Silence. I predict that the Thursday night Castro Theatre audience will be THRILLED.
Any Number Can Win: In this Perfect Crime flick, Jean Gabin plays a veteran crook who plans One Last Big Job – the heist of a Cannes casino. He trains a raw former cell-mate (Alain Delon) to perform the key role. There’s incredible suspense in the heist, the getaway and the recovery of the loot, with an ending worthy of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
The Long Haul: This British noir was a vehicle for the 25-year-old curvy blonde Diana Dors, who could Wear A Dress (and look up her real life!). Victor Mature stars as a GI who stayed in Britain after WW II because his English wife doesn’t want to emigrate; he is stuck in a job as a truck driver and becomes entangled in a hijacking ring. Mature, whose best work was in film noir, was an underrated actor; if acting is reacting, Mature does it all here – his eyes and face reflect his weariness, disgust, desperation and adherence to a code. The snarling villain (Patrick Allen) meets a uniquely fitting fate.
Ashes and Diamonds: Auteur Andrzej Wajda ‘s filmmaking gifts are on display in this Hit Man Finds Love tale, set as the Polish Resistance battles for a place in post-war Poland. As kinetic and unpredictable as James Dean, Zbigniew Cybulski makes for an irresistibly charismatic leading man.
Trench coats and fedoras are not required (and no smoking, please), but, other than that, you’ll get the full retro experience in the period-appropriate Castro. Noir City runs from Friday, January 24 through Sunday, February 2. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here. I’ll be there myself on both weekends.
Here’s a once-in-a-lifetime film noir experience, the opportunity to be a part of an audience to see films that haven’t been projected in a theater in over sixty years. Make plans to attend the Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, in San Francisco January 24-February 2. Noir City has become an irreplaceable Bay Area cultural treasure like Alcatraz or John’s Grill.
Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president, the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD or streaming. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace, San Francisco’s Castro Theatre, with a thousand other film fans.
The 2020 Noir City will focus on international film noir, as it did so successfully six years ago. Then I was enthralled by the Argentine Bitter Stems and the Swedish Girl with Hyacinths, and must admit that I had never even imagined that vintage film noir from those nations existed. This year’s fest brings us titles from Argentina, France, Germany, Korea, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Italy, England, West Germany, Sweden and Poland.
One of best things about Noir City is the opportunity to see a few films that are not available to stream. This year Noir CIty is outdoing itself by presenting EIGHTEEN films that can’t found on a streaming platform, most of them impossible to see outside of Noir City in any format.
The Beast Must Die (Argentina 1952)
The Black Vampire (Argentina 1953)
Panique (France 1947)
Razzia (France 1955)
Any Number Can Win (France 1963),
Black Hair (South Korea 1964)
The Facts of Murder (Italy 1959)
…And the Fifth Horseman Is Fear (Czechoslovakia 1965)
90 Degrees In the Shade (Czechoslovakia 1965)
The Long Haul (England 1957)
Never Let Go (England 1965)
The Devil Strikes at Night (West Germany 1957)
Black Gravel (West Germany 1961)
Another Dawn (Mexico 1943)
Twilight (Mexico 1945)
Night Falls (1952)
Salon Mexico (Mexico 1949)
Ashes and Diamonds (Poland 1958)
The films on this year’s program are SO difficult to find that only one of them (Pale Flower) is even on The Movie Gourmet’s list of Overlooked Noir.
“Difficult to find” doesn’t mean “obscure”. The program includes films directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Pierre Melville and Roebert Siodmak and starring Ingrid Bergman, Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Peter Sellers, Emilio Fernandez, Victor Mature and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
The Film Noir Foundation has restored the Argentine films The Beast Must Die and The Black Vampire, and the opening night will feature these films. (These are coincidentally the most lurid titles on this year’s program.) Think about it – you can be in the first movie theater audience to see these films in over sixty years – and perhaps the first US movie audience ever.
This year, I predict that the Thursday night Castro Theatre audience will be THRILLED by the Japanese neo-noir Pale Flower. Writer-director Masahiro Shinoda’s masterpiece is a slow burn that erupts into breathtaking set pieces. This is pioneering neo-noir; its look and feel is as different from classic noir as are Elevator to the Gallows and Blast of Silence.
Noir City runs from Friday, January 24 through Sunday, February 2. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here. Incidentally, the woman escaping with the loot on this year’s Noir City poster is Victoria Mature, daughter of movie star Victor Mature, whose best work was in film noir.
I’ll be posting a comprehensive Noir City preview on January 20. And you may run into me at Noir City as I cover both weekends.
Peter Bogdanovich with Jesse Hawthorne Ficks at the Roxie screenings of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and SAINT JACK
I’ve probably never had as many unforgettable cinematic experiences in one year before. The highlights of 2019:
In September, I was privileged to attend one of the year’s most stirring experiences of Bay Area cinema culture. The Roxie Theater screened the The Last Picture Show– with the legendary Peter Bogdanovich himself in attendance for two Q&A sessions, plus a screening of his hard-to-find Saint Jack (1979).
The thrill of discovering the neo-noir Pale Flower, thanks to Turner Classic Movies.
Noir City – special thanks to the team at the Film Noir Foundation, who went out of their way to help me with lodging. My favorite was the bracingly topical The Well, an unusual combination of a rescue procedural and a race riot noir. I was joined for my weekend at Noir City by The Wife despite her battling excruciating back pain.
Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) with three films on my top ten list –Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit, 63 Up – plus Frankie. Michael Apted himself appeared at the 63 Up screening.
As usual, I screened over thirty films atCinequest. This year, my friend Keith visited from LA and joined me for five features in three days; our binge included including the Buster Keaton short The “High Sign” and Cinequest’s best film Buy Me a Gun.
San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), the highlight being the documentary Midnight Family.
Getting to see the virtually lost film Mr. Klein, thanks to the Rialto Pictures re-issue and the Roxie.
Linda Cardinelli as Dolores Vallelonga in GREEN BOOK – the year’s second best wife
Happy Anniversary to The Wife, also known as Lisa, The Love of My Life!
Once again, she tolerated my spending huge chunks of time at Cinequest, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Noir City, the SF Jewish Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival.
As usual, she joined me for many of my favorite cinema experiences, including driving to Marin and the Mill Valley Film Festival to a screening of 63 Up with Michael Apted in person. We relished seeing Green Book, Her Smell, Booksmart, Knives Out and Silicon Valley’s first screening of The Irishman. And we finished the year with the Christmas Eve screening of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Stanford Theatre.
But most impressively, battling back pain, she got off a hellish transcontinental airline flight to join me for a weekend of Noir City. That’s taking one for Team Movie Gourmet.
I got to introduce her to All That Jazz, Double Indemnity and 99 River Street. (We have the steamy 99 River Street poster in our living room, complete with Evelyn Keyes’ fingernails scratching tracks across John Payne’s beefy back.)
This year we binged more episodic television together than ever: True Detective, Victoria, Tales of the City, Fosse/Verdon, One Mississippi, Modern Love, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and The Crown.
She’s the biggest fan and supporter of this blog, and I appreciate her and love her. Happy Anniversary, Honey!
Luke Lorentzen’s MIDNIGHT FAMILY. Courtesy of SFFILM
I posted my traditional Top Ten list – Best Movies of 2019. Now here are some gems that you probably haven’t heard of.
Midnight Family. This gripping documentary takes us on ridealongs with an all-night ambulance crew in Mexico City. It’s even wilder than you may expect. Midnight Family is just finishing a brief theatrical release, and I expect it will be available to stream soon.
Light from Light. Three portraits of personal awakening are ingeniously embedded into what looks like a familiar haunted house movie. I’ll let you know when it’s streamable.
Sword of Trust. This is a wickedly funny comedy with an emotionally powerful personal story underneath it all. Great performances by Marc Maron and the film’s director Lynn Shelton. You can buy, but not yet rent, Sword of Trust. I’ll let you know when it’s available.
Auggie. In this superb indie, augmented reality glasses fulfill every need and insidiously trigger even more inner desires. Stream from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
The Sound of Silence. Peter Sarsgaard stars in this novel and engrossing character study about obsession. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Rojo. Set just before Argentina’s bloody coup in the 1970s, this moody, atmospheric film works as a slow-burn thriller. Stream from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
Mine 9. This race-against-the-clock rescue thriller is both a mine safety exposé and a mining procedural. I’ll let you know when it’s available to stream.
Jirga. A man goes on a quest in this parable of atonement. The film was shot guerilla-style, under cover in wartorn, terrorist infested Afghanistan. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Redbox.
Making Montgomery Clift. This biodoc is an unexpectedly insightful and nuanced probe into the life of Montgomery Clift, and it explodes some of the lore that has shaped popular understanding of the movie star. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Redbox.
Long Day’s Journey into Night. This brilliantly original film explores memory – a man obsessed with a doomed romance from twenty years ago plunges into a neo-noir underworld. After a slow burn beginning, his search reaches its climax in a spectacular ONE-HOUR single shot. It can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
Mr. Klein. This is actually a reissue of a 1976 film that almost nobody has seen in 43 years. Joseph Losey’s slowburn thriller is a searing critique of French collaboration with the Nazis. Mr. Klein stars Alain Delon as a predator trapped by his own obsession. It is not currently available on the major streaming platforms, nor can it be found on DVD, except for some bootlegs from Asia.
Yes, two of my Overlooked movies are also on my Best of 2019 list. I’ll let you know when you can stream the ones that aren’t yet available.
Albert Finney in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD
Albert Finney burst into movie stardom as the face of young Brit alienation in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and the strapping sex symbol in the bawdy Tom Jones (1963). I think that one of his later performances was his best, in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).
Verna Bloom in THE HIRED HAND
Actress Verna Bloom didn’t make a lot of movies, but she starred in some of the most memorable movies of the 1970s. Her run began with Haskell Wexler’s groundbreaking Medium Cool , traveled through Clint Eastwood’s mysterious High Plains Drifter and was capped as Mrs. Dean Wormer in Animal House. My favorite Verna Bloom movie was also her favorite – Peter Fonda’s grievously underrated The Hired Hand.
Richard Erdman (right) in CRY DANGER
Prolific character actor Richard Erdman (175 screen credits) is best known for playing Sgt. Hoffy Hoffman in Billy Wilder’s great Stalag 17. But Erdman’s best role (and my favorite Erdman performance) was as Dick Powell’s dipsomaniac wingman Delong in Cry Danger: “Sometimes I always drink too much“.
Julie Adams in THE LAST MOVIE
Julie Adams‘ 60-year career included many, many Westerns and lots and lots of TV. She co-starred with James Stewart in Anthony Mann’s Bend of the River, with Elvis Presley and with Rock Hudson, five times. Her fate was to be most remembered for Creature from the Black Lagoon. My favorite Julie Adams performance was as the sexually rapacious trophy wife of an entitle American tourist in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie.
Bruno Ganz in THE AMERICAN FRIEND
Swiss actor Bruno Ganz is most remembered for playing Adolf Hitler in Downfall, the first post-war German film to portray the Führer (it only took 59 years); Ganz was the best movie Hitler, even better than Anthony Hopkins in The Bunker with its Hitler learns … YouTube memes. Ganz became well-known when Wings of Desire became a US art house hit in 1987. My favorite Bruno Ganz movie, however was the earlier Wim Wenders The American Friend, where he was matched with Dennis Hopper.
Seymour Cassel in MINNIE AND MOSCOWITZ
Seymour Cassel’s singular performances were often eccentric and exuberant – and always no bullshit. The most recent of Cassel’s 213 screen credits was in 2015, but he is best remembered for his association with writer-director John Cassavetes. Two of my favorite Cassel performances are in Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moscowitz (1971) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976).
Bibi Andersson‘s performances were at the core of the Ingmar Bergman canon. My favorite Andersson film is one of her very first, that most accessible Bergman movie, Wild Strawberries, in which she plays both the young woman an old man encounters and, in flashback, the young love she reminds him of.
Anna Karina, the Danish-born model who became a primary leading lady of the French New Wave, made films for iconic European directors like Godard, Rivette, Visconti and Fassbinder. She was married to Godard when he was still making good movies in the early 1960s.
Rip Torn will be remembered for playing Garry Shandling’s colorful producer Artie in 89 episodes of The Larry Sanders Show; as Artie, and in so many of his roles, Torn was able to illustrate the joy that can come from misbehavior. Torn was an accomplished character actor whose career encompassed scads of television, and movie roles ranging from his Oscar-nominated turn in Cross Creek to Judas Iscariot in the Biblical epic King of Kings. My favorite Rip Torn screen performance was in The Seduction of Joe Tynan; Torn played the good-timin’ junior Senator from Louisiana covering for the impending senility of the revered senior Senator (Melvyn Douglas). Torn also guided his much younger cousin Sissy Spacek as she broke into acting. His birth name (Elmore Rual) doesn’t matter because he followed his father in taking the family nickname of Rip.
Robert Forsterwas a stalwart of 70s and 80s TV, starring in his owned short-lived period detective series Banyon and then Twin Peaks. But thank God for Quentin Tarantino, who revived Forster’s career with the character of Max Cherry in Jackie Brown; Max’s streetwise strength and basic Midwestern decency was a perfect fit for Forster.
Peter Fonda, well-known as a son and brother of film mega-stars, had a prolific career (116 screen credits) dotted with some spectacular successes. Fonda’s most eternal legacy will be Easy Rider, a film he wrote and starred in, which was the seminal film of the Counter-culture. Most importantly, Easy Rider propelled the staggering movie studios into empowering a new generation of auteur filmmakers.
Danny Aiello started acting when he was forty, with the fine TV movie Bang the Drum Slowly and as one of the Rosato brothers in The Godfather II. Aiello worked for directors as varied as Woody Allen, Sergio Leone, Norman Jewison and James Toback. He was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Sal the pizzeria owner in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
7’3″ tall actor Peter Mayhew’s screen career centered around one unforgettable role, under a mask and bushel of fur as Chewbacca in the Stars Wars franchise.
Actor Jan Michael-Vincent could have had more of a career. In 1970, at age 25, he starred in the fine TV movie drama Tribes, and his performance as a hippie going into the Vietnam Era US Army was memorable. His looks, of the hunky/dreamy variety, got him less challenging and more forgettable work in the 1970s. His alcoholism and drug abuse killed his career, and he suffered permanent injuries from three vehicular accidents in the 1990s. He appeared in only five more movies after his third accident and none after 2002.
At age 22, actress Edith Scob was haunting in 1960’s Eyes Without a Face, and, 52 years later, helped Leos Carax pay homage to that performance in his unhinged Holy Motors.
Michael J. Pollard appeared 116 times on screen, but will always be remembered for his scene-stealing as C.W. Moss in Bonnie and Clyde.
Rene Auberjonois started his career in the iconoclastic Robert Altman films MASH (where he originated the role of Father Mulcahy), Brewster McCloud and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Then he went on to rack up 227 screen credits, mostly on TV.
Sid Haig in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES
Sid Haig began his horror picture career in 1968 with Spider Baby. He finished with over 130 screen credits, including character roles in Emperor of the North and Jackie Brown and lots of TV work. But Haig is most well-known for his horror, and it’s hard to top his portrayal of Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses.
D.A. Pennebaker invents the music video in BOB DYAN: DON’T LOOK BACK
The filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker made the best ever and most influential concert film (Monterey Pop) and the best political campaign documentary (The War Room). And he invented the music video at the opening of his Don’t Look Back, as Bob as Dylan holds up cards with the lyrics for Subterranean Homesick Blues. The pump don’t work ‘Cause the vandals took the handles
Has there been a greater director of movie musicals than Stanley Donen, the director of Singin’ in the Rain? I’m generally not a fan of musicals, but I love his first film; in the 1949 On the Town (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin are sailors dancing away their shore leave through NYC) and his 1958 Damn Yankees (the Gwen Verdon version). Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954 wasn’t bad, either.
Writer-director John Singleton was the youngest person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar (for Boyz in the Hood) and the first African-American.
Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian writer-director was most renowned for The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and the 9-Oscar winner The Last Emperor (1987). I actually prefer Bertolucci’s more recent work, beginning with the underrated The Sheltering Sky (1990) with John Malkovich and Debra Winger. I thought that his The Dreamers was the best film of 2003.
Director Franco Zeffirelli is best known for his Shakespearean adaptions, especially the lushly romantic 1968 hit Romeo and Juliet, in which he cast actual teenagers in this story of impulsive teen love. I think his most everlasting achievement should be the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, which remains the screen narrative that is closest to Biblical accounts of the life of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth may be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
The composer Michael Legrand, who won three Oscars, should be best remembered for his work in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a film where every line was sung. Legrand wrote the music for Umbrella’s iconic song I Will Wait for You.
Robert Evans began his Hollywood career as an actor in pretty boy roles, but was astute enough to see his future as a Suit. He was the studio exec who greenlighted The Godfather and produced Chinatown. He even narrated an irresistible documentary about his career, The Kid Stays in the Picture, which can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Mark Urman, a publicist and the executive producer of Monster’s Ball, founded the indie distributors ThinkFilm and Paladin. Urman gave mainstream audiences the chance to see the Oscar-winning documentaries Born into Brothels and Taxi to the Dark Side.
Musician Dick Dale, known as the King of the Surf Guitar and the Father of Heavy Metal, contributed his Misirlou to one of the most iconic opening sequences in cinema: Pulp Fiction. His music also underscored the crazy surf scene with Kurt Russell, Peter Fonda and Steve Buscemi in Escape from L.A.
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD
It’s time for my Top Ten list.
To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later. I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list. This year, I’m still waiting to see Uncut Gems and Little Women.
It was difficult for me to rank the top three films, very different from each other as they are. Here goes:
Three of my top eight are from Asia; two of my top four are from Netflix. You can read more about these films, including how to stream most of them at Best Movies of 2020.
Anna Karina, the Danish-born model who became a primary leading lady of the French New Wave, has died at age 79. She was married to Jean-Luc Godard, her first director, when he was still making good movies in the early 1960s. Later, she made films for iconic European directors like Rivette, Visconti and Fassbinder.
I love her in the dance scene in Band of Outsiders (Bande à part), especially at the very end, when she suddenly veers from frivolity to confusion. Here it is, and, just for fun, here also is the band Nouvelle Vague’s video of their song Dance with Me, set to the images of Band of Outsiders.
The actor Robert Forster has died at 78. Amassing 186 screen credits, Forster was a stalwart of 70s and 80s TV, starring in his owned short-lived period detective series Banyon and then Twin Peaks. But thank God for Quentin Tarantino, who revived Forster’s career with the character of Max Cherry in Jackie Brown; Max’s streetwise strength and basic Midwestern decency was a perfect fit for Forster. Forster went on to close his career with excellent material, worthy of his talent, including The Descendants and last year’s What We Had.
