Noir City - 7
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Moraldo Rubini
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Noir City - 7
Anyone planning on attending the 7th Noir City Festival in San Francisco? Here's the schedule: http://www.noircity.com/ I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the titles (which excites me!). Do you experts any tips or recommendations? What are the must-see movies in the series?
"Ace in the Hole" is the movie that nearly sank Billy wilder's career. It isn't my favorite Wilder, but it is worth a look.
"The Big Clock" has a good Charles Laughton performance. (It was remade as "No Way Out" in the Eighties.)
"While the City Sleeps" is an interesting Fritz Lang film from the Fifties. It is one of the first movies to show how TV news can affect people's lives. It is also based (very loosely) on a real murder case in Chicago in the Forties. I think in some ways, Lang intended this film to be an American version of "M".
"The Big Clock" has a good Charles Laughton performance. (It was remade as "No Way Out" in the Eighties.)
"While the City Sleeps" is an interesting Fritz Lang film from the Fifties. It is one of the first movies to show how TV news can affect people's lives. It is also based (very loosely) on a real murder case in Chicago in the Forties. I think in some ways, Lang intended this film to be an American version of "M".
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Ann Harding
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A lot of interesting stuff there! 
Among these, I also recommend strongly Ace in a Hole, an amazingly dark Wilder with Douglas at his best. (on Criterion DVD)
Slightly Scarlet by Allan Dwan offers a somptuous Technicolor cinematography and two gorgeous red-heads: Ronda Fleming & Arlene Dahl.
Deadline USA is an excellent 'newspaper pic' written by Brooks with Bogart and Ethel Barrymore.
The Killers is magical with a wonderful Miklos Rozsa score and so is Sweet Smell of Success. But they are available on DVD.
I have seen Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It's interesting, but I remained a bit unconvinced.
All the other lesser known B pictures look really worth a try!
Among these, I also recommend strongly Ace in a Hole, an amazingly dark Wilder with Douglas at his best. (on Criterion DVD)
Slightly Scarlet by Allan Dwan offers a somptuous Technicolor cinematography and two gorgeous red-heads: Ronda Fleming & Arlene Dahl.
Deadline USA is an excellent 'newspaper pic' written by Brooks with Bogart and Ethel Barrymore.
The Killers is magical with a wonderful Miklos Rozsa score and so is Sweet Smell of Success. But they are available on DVD.
I have seen Lang's Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. It's interesting, but I remained a bit unconvinced.
All the other lesser known B pictures look really worth a try!
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myrnaloyisdope
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Just cut and pasted what I'd seen from the website, here's my thoughts:
ACE IN THE HOLE - Indispensable in my books, unrelentingly bleak portrayal of the media circus, with Douglas at his smarmy, intense, charismatic best. Great great stuff
THE HARDER THEY FALL - I watched this maybe 10 years ago, when I was going through a fix for boxing films. It may be the first Bogart film I ever saw. I remember it being pretty watchable, and if you have an interest in boxing it's certainly a must see. It reminds me a bit of Requiem For A Heavyweight, as it deals with similar issues of exploitation.
WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS - A solid Lang entry, with Dana Andrews his usual steady self. It's one of those films that I thought was kind of hamstrung by the ending, with the final 5 minutes or so undermining what the film was building towards.
BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT - A thoroughly engrossing film, with Andrews as a journalist trying to prove how easy it would be to get framed for a murder. It's great up until the final minutes when perhaps moreso than any other film I've seen (maybe Michael Curtiz's Female is worse), the film provides an appallingly bad ending. So bad that it made me angry. It seems like most of the American Lang films I've seen have weak endings, but this one takes the cake. It's worth watching though, if only so you understand what I'm talking about.
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - Phenomenal stuff, with James Wong Howe's glorious black & white photography leaving you feeling like you are in New York. Burt Lancaster makes a great heavy, and Tony Curtis is at his scheming best.
ACE IN THE HOLE - Indispensable in my books, unrelentingly bleak portrayal of the media circus, with Douglas at his smarmy, intense, charismatic best. Great great stuff
THE HARDER THEY FALL - I watched this maybe 10 years ago, when I was going through a fix for boxing films. It may be the first Bogart film I ever saw. I remember it being pretty watchable, and if you have an interest in boxing it's certainly a must see. It reminds me a bit of Requiem For A Heavyweight, as it deals with similar issues of exploitation.
WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS - A solid Lang entry, with Dana Andrews his usual steady self. It's one of those films that I thought was kind of hamstrung by the ending, with the final 5 minutes or so undermining what the film was building towards.
BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT - A thoroughly engrossing film, with Andrews as a journalist trying to prove how easy it would be to get framed for a murder. It's great up until the final minutes when perhaps moreso than any other film I've seen (maybe Michael Curtiz's Female is worse), the film provides an appallingly bad ending. So bad that it made me angry. It seems like most of the American Lang films I've seen have weak endings, but this one takes the cake. It's worth watching though, if only so you understand what I'm talking about.
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - Phenomenal stuff, with James Wong Howe's glorious black & white photography leaving you feeling like you are in New York. Burt Lancaster makes a great heavy, and Tony Curtis is at his scheming best.
"Do you think it's dangerous to have Busby Berkeley dreams?" - The Magnetic Fields
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Moraldo Rubini
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I attended the screenings of Wicked As They Come and Slightly Scarlet last night. The latter was something of a mess. With credentials like Allan Dwan, John Alton, Van Nest Polglase, my expectations were high. Rhonda Fleming's character was supposed to be the "good girl", yet didn't seem very scrupulous; motivations didn't seem to make sense. A fellow audience member asked me if he'd fallen asleep and missed something, as Fleming's character despised John Payne's Ben Grace in one scene and loved him in the next. It just didn't make sense. John Alton's colors were lurid fun however. Arlene Dahl had a sleepwear company at the time, so both she and Fleming were seen in countless peignoir sets as a 1950's example of product placement. Wicked was far more fun. Arlene Dahl leaving a wake of ruined men as she climbs her way to the top. Miss Dahl was in attendence (and I sat near her son, Lorenzo Lamas). She looks great today, a vision of a movie star dripping in diamonds; her red hair piled into a Gibson.