Film Festival Shows That Noir is More Than Black and White

In a year where "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" have been nominated for eight Academy Awards apiece (including Best Picture), it's clear that the public appetite for the dark and the bleak onscreen hasn't dissipated in the slightest. Although neither of the aforementioned movies are film noir per se, those who want to dig deeper into the history of grim, pitch-black cinema would do well to check out the Noir City Film Festival, a San Francisco event that's already quite beloved locally despite its relative newness. Now in its sixth year, Noir City welcomes back to San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre a 10-day series of noir nuggets, many of which have been lost or rarely screened in the 60-odd years since their release.

Noir City scratches a particular moviegoer's itch to which the contemporary film market rarely caters. With a few recent exceptions, including the 2001 Joel Coen-directed "The Man Who Wasn't There" and a brand-new short by festival curator Eddie "Czar of Noir" Muller, "The Grand Inquisitor," the festival primarily presents black-and-white features from the late 1940s to early 1950s. What's especially neat about the festival is that "noir" is something of a flexible designation-it's not all rainy weather, dark alleys and fedora-sporting gangsters (although there's certainly nothing wrong with any of that). You can generally count on a life-threatening situation and a cynical sense of humor, but otherwise it's pretty open game: Anybody with an even slightly morbid outlook will find something to enjoy here, whether it be cops stalking housewives (as in Joseph Losey's "The Prowler" from 1951), Edwardian murder-drama (1944's "The Suspect"), or just a good old-fashioned decline into madness (this applies to several, but perhaps most poignantly Jules Dassin's "Night and the City" from 1950).

As part of a tribute to noir tough-dude actor Charles McGraw, they will be screening "Reign of Terror" a.k.a. "The Black Book," a bloody, shadowy drama from 1949 that's set in tumultuous 1794 France. The despicable, power-hungry Robespierre (Richard Basehart) aims at complete dictatorship over France, keeping even his own men in constant fear of facing the guillotine so as to prevent unified insurrection. Charles D'Aubigny (Robert Cummings) makes an effort at undermining Robespierre's ambitions, but subversion is contingent on the acquisition of Robespierre's "black book" of names, which is nigh on impossible to obtain. In addition to being a swift, brilliantly paced drama, it's a stunning picture to look at: smoke, shifting mirrors and shadows, and unsettling close-up shots add to the tension and mystique of this film, much of which takes place on horse-drawn carriages at full gallop. McGraw, who plays Robespierre's rather bad-ass lead henchman, will be signing copies of his book, "Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy," earlier that evening at the theater.

Another gem comes in the form of "Jeopardy," a bizarrely funny suspense from 1953 starring Barbara Stanwyck as Helen Stilwin, who goes with her husband, Doug (Barry Sullivan), and her son, Bobby, on a fishing trip to Mexico. Things go awry when Doug gets his leg stuck beneath a pillar from a "peligro" jetty that collapses and pins him down as the tide is coming in. There are only a few hours to save him, but rescuing her husband proves more difficult than might first appear. Helen's nervous, overly excitable manner and her poor grasp of Spanish eventually force her into seeking help from a fugitive American who wants more from her than she's prepared to give. At only slightly over an hour, it's a fast-paced, thriller that'll make you appreciate a sturdy boardwalk and a good cup of coffee-better than Bobby can fix, anyway.

Noir City runs from Jan. 25 through Feb. 3, and should be well worth your time, even if you're not an avid movie-goer-the Castro is about as stunning a theater as you can find today, and the itinerary for the black cab into deceit and darkness is a promising and multifarious one.

Tags: FILM NOIR, FILM FESTIVALS