There is winter in San Francisco. It’s not the science fiction nightmare of winter that is happening in the East or Midwest this winter, but the Pacific storms can be nasty. We just have to stay out of the rain here. It’s late January. It must be time for the Noir City Film Festival at the Castro Theater! This will be Noir City 17.
It’s a Noir cliche, but it usually does rain during Noir City. The weather may hurt attendance, but it adds to the Film Noir atmosphere. It certainly doesn’t stop the hard core. I hated to miss Opening night. The first chance I had to attend was night three. This year’s theme is “Film Noir in the 1950s.” Each night is a different year, so this is 1953.
The old theater is buzzing tonight. Many are dressed up in the fashion of the Fifties. Especially the women. Matt Hagerty plays Noir standards on the mighty Castro Wurlitzer organ.
The house lights dim and the disembodied voice of Noir City announcer Bill Arney begins: It’s 1953. The McCarthy hearings are in full swing. “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg have been convicted and executed for COLLABORATING WITH THE RUSSIANS!” This draws a laugh from the crowd. “Let’s hope old Sparky is still working.” The “always well dressed” Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, takes the stage.
This has been a great year for Muller and so it was a great year for Film Noir. His show on Turner Classic Movies: Noir At Night has been popular. The show started in an early Saturday morning time slot. That is a tough time for Film Noir night owls. It’s been moved to a more appropriate Saturday night broadcast time. Maybe the time slot doesn’t matter in this era of streaming and taping. The show is presenting Film Noir to a larger audience.
Muller says that it’s a sign of the strange and dark times we live in... “The execution of the Rosenbergs draws a laugh!” Muller sends out a round of thanks, including some TCM executives. The Film Noir Foundation continues to restore and save Noir for future generations.
TCM and Criterion were going to stream Noir and other cinema classics, but when AT&T bought Time Warner executive John Stankey pulled the plug on the ambitious project. Muller says it bodes very ill for the future. There are plans to roll out cinema classics, but it’s going to cost us. Muller thinks corporate distributors like AT&T, Viacom and Netflix will have too much control of content. It’s a subject he’s obviously passionate about.
Muller warns us that the first film tonight borders on the bizarre. The poster for The City That Never Sleeps brags that it is “Actually filmed in Chicago!” The film’s narrator is the city of Chicago. Chill Wills is the voice of “the city itself.” While running through some of the cast Muller mentions that William Talman, the bad guy in tonight’s film would go on to play Hamilton Berger on the Perry Mason series. “He’s the worst district attorney ever! He never won a case!” There is a mechanical man. “Yes,. This is how strange this film is. There is a Mechanical Man.”
The City That Never Sleeps opens with a panoramic shot of Chicago. We pan across gritty warehouses and abandoned looking factories. I couldn’t spot the Board of Trade building. The city is unrecognizable to me until the camera stops on the Wrigley Building. It’s the Chicago of the Fifties. A very dark and dangerous looking city. There is a shot of the stairs coming down from Michigan Avenue into the sinister underworld below the street.
Gig Young is a young disenchanted Chicago policeman, Johnny Kelly. He’s followed the family tradition and joined his father, John Kelly Sr. on the Chicago Police force, but now he’s seen so much evil that he just wants to get out of Chicago. Kelly is married, but he wants to resign from the force and run away with his stripper girl friend. It makes sense. Don’t most Chicago policemen have a beautiful stripper girl friend?
A very strange film. The stripper girl friend performs at a burlesque club with a sleazy looking exterior. Inside it’s a posh nightclub with huge dance numbers. The dancers parade across the stage in Carmen Miranda outfits.
A “Mechanical Man” poses in the window of the club. A sign challenges those who walk by: “Is it human? Or a machine?” People in the Fifties can’t figure it out! They stop and stare.
Kelly is not the only one who has been disappointed by life. Bad guy William Talman is a frustrated magician. Kelly’s mistress wanted to be a ballet dancer, but has to settle for starring in burlesque. The Mechanical Man is a former actor who is in love with the cop’s stripper girlfriend. Marie Windsor has a cameo as the ambitious, scheming wife of an attorney criminal mastermind.
Chill Wills is the mysterious “Joe.” Muller says, “He’s like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life.” Kelly shows up for a night on the beat. Joe comes out of the shadows to replace Kelly’s mysteriously absent partner. “Sergeant Joe” is full of sage advice for John Kelly. Does he really want to leave the Chicago police force?
There’s all kinds of sleazy Chicago political stuff, but the police working on the street are heroic. They break up a crooked craps game to protect the marks and deliver a baby. We’re treated to authentic police calls. “This film could not have been made without the cooperation of the Chicago Police Department.”
Mechanical Man is the only witness to a murder. He tries to go back to his window like nothing happened. I won’t spoil the rest for you. (It is on Youtube.com.) There is a dramatic chase scene on and under the El trains.
I went upstairs for the intermission. Half the fun is seeing the vendors on the mezzanine. The wonderful people from Green Apple Books. A large collection of posters are for sale, including both of tonight’s films. It’s a Film Noir fan’s dream.
The new alcohol sponsor is “Altered States.” Film Noir is like the Blues. You have to be a little buzzed to really understand or enjoy them. It also helps with the suspension of disbelief. I don’t have crafted cocktails often, but I did get some kind of cinnamon concoction. The bar tender used some kind of blow torch to light a cinnamon stick in the drink. “I didn’t know a bong was involved.” It was still smoking when I walked away.
There were familiar faces from the San Francisco Film Festival. It’s easy to spot Jason of Jason Goes to the Movies in his top hat. He usually sits in the first row. He says Noir City is his favorite festival.
There’s a great short on Peggy Cummings the star of the iconic Noir: Gun Crazy. Muller says meeting her changed his life. They traveled together promoting Film Noir. He said that Cummings was friendly to everyone. From Hollywood moguls to cab drivers and doormen, she treated everyone the same. How does she get along with everyone? “I’m Irish!” Cummings recently passed away. The short has been shown on Turner Classic Movies.
Muller is still buzzing from the strangeness of the first film. He says that a line about the Mechanical Man could be his epitaph: “He doesn’t deserve to die like a freak in a window.”
You’ve got to love the nightclub where Kelly’s girl friend dances. “It’s the kind of place where a Noir City audience wants to go.”
Muller has high praise for the director of the second film tonight. Pickup on South Street. Muller says that not only is he one of the greatest American directors, he’s one of the greatest Americans! Ever!
“Fuller pushes all of my buttons... He was “the youngest crime reporter ever” at the age of seventeen. He was a reporter, “When that was the thing to do.” Fuller survived two beach landings on D-Day. He landed on the beach and then went back to get some equipment on another landing craft. So he landed on the beach twice. He got some of the first footage of liberated concentration camps. Fuller directed some movie hits, but was known more for being a screenwriter. He became a long time Hollywood mentor. Muller wonders, “What we would have lost,” if a stray bullet had found Fuller on D-Day.
Pickup on South Street opens with Richard Widmark stealing Jean Peters purse on the subway. It turns out that she’s a spy and he’s stolen a microfilm that the U.S. government and evil foreign spies want.
The authorities are desperate to get the microfilm back, and when they figure out it was taken by a pickpocket they consult “Moe” who is played by recognizable character actress Thelma Ritter. The “stoolie” knows the modus operandi of all pickpockets. For fifty dollars she will set them on the right track. Not a bad fee for 1953.
“Did he carry a newspaper? Was it in his right hand or his left hand?” Moe’s questions are exasperating for the detectives. What does it matter? But Moe does figure out exactly who they’re looking for. Thelma Ritter was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role.
Richard Widmark is Skip McCoy. He and the “streetwalker” figure out they’ve found something. It’s real Fifties Cold War meets Noir stuff.
Noir City isn’t exactly spring training, but it is a sign that winter is ending.
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