Two years ago, the 13th Noir City arrived just before Covid upended normal life in Seattle, shutting down public gatherings and shutting in citizens. In retrospect, it seems fitting that our last in-person film festival for nearly two years gave us a vision of life beset by corruption and desperation in a world of shadows closing in on its heroes and villains. Because in film noir universe, doom and desperations is just one bad decision, one piece of bad luck, one misplaced act of trust away.
After skipping a year for lockdown, Noir City is back at the Egyptian Theater with a program of 17 features in seven days, presented by Film Noir Foundation founder Eddie Muller (who hosts the weekend shows) and Seattle mystery authors and noir experts Rosemarie and Vince Keenan, whose snappy byplay will carry audiences through the final four days.
The 14th Noir City is billed as "a program of classics and rarities pulled from the pages of Eddie Muller's newly revised bestselling book, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir." In the words of Muller, "I wanted to create a cross-section of film noir." Films were drawn from each of the books' chapters (or "neighborhoods," as the book puts it) to represent the breadth of themes and approaches that make up film noir.
It opens with The Killers (1946), starring a very young Burt Lancaster played for a patsy by a scheming femme fatale (Ava Gardner). It's a heist picture, a mystery, and (for the opening 15 minutes at least) the most faithful screen adaptation of Ernest Hemingway. After that it's pure Hollywood. The Sunday evening feature Force of Evil (1948), starring John Garfield as a lawyer more interested in money than morality, is the most searing portrait of the corrosive culture of greed in American cinema of its era. In the words of Garfield's anti-hero, "I didn't have enough strength to resist corruption but I had enough strength to fight for my piece of it." On Saturday there's a matinee screening of the haunting Moonrise (1948), a beautiful and tender noir that seems to take place in a dreamscape.
These are a few of the essentials of the genre. If you're new to it, they are excellent entries to the shadowy world of crime, corruption, betrayal, and moral twilight, and the best way to see them on the big screen with a crowd. For me and many other veteran fans of the genre, however, the most exciting titles in the Noir City lineup are the B-movies, programmers, and low-budget pictures made outside of the major studios. The film noir sensibility thrived outside of the glamor of the Hollywood establishment, where filmmakers could sneak in more subversive ideas. And even within the studios, the B-movie units lacked the money and time of the major productions but also had less direct oversight from the studio executives, giving producers and directors more freedom to play with storytelling ideas or experiment with style. This festival puts a spotlight on some of these.
There's no better example than Try and Get Me! (1950), Cy Endfield's startling take on the lynch-mob dramas of the thirties, dosed with post-war anxiety and sociopathic anger. It's a riveting thriller and one of the most caustic social commentaries of anxiety and fear, and as an independent production it was never properly preserved. It was rescued and restored by The Film Noir Foundation (which produces Noir City) in 2012, and it was brought back this year as a companion piece to their new restoration of Endfield's The Argyle Secrets (1948), which makes its world premiere public screening in Seattle. It was Endfield's first independently made film, after cranking out B-movies for the studios, and he adapted his own radio script, which Muller says results in a sometimes weird dichotomy between the wordy dialogue and Endfield's creative visual technique, "which is pretty darn good. He has a lot of fun with it, and it's clearly a guy playing at making a movie." Both films play on Saturday and are shown in 35mm, just as they were originally released. That program is one of Vince Keenan's recommendations. "It's a rare opportunity to see Try and Get Me! and see that kind of craftsmanship."
Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954) is another film that grabs audiences with its bare-knuckle intensity and then slips social commentary under the incendiary action. Shot on location at Folsom Prison, it tackles the issue of prison conditions through the story of a prison block takeover on the verge of boiling over into uncontrolled violence. Director Don Siegel delivers a hard-edged portrait of men under pressure with nothing to lose and an intelligent engagement with the issues.
For pure escapist fun, check out Fly-By-Night (1942), a B-movie comic thriller about a wrongly-accused man on the run with a reluctant witness. It was a showpiece for director Robert Siodmak, who pulled out all stops to create a snappy, sexy, fast-paced little lark with limited time and money. It's a delightful audition piece and it got him promoted to the big time (for example, the above-mentioned The Killers).
And it's not just bad guys. "We have two really interesting female-centric movies," recommends Rosemarie Keenan, "Road House (1948), which has bad girl Ida Lupino and good girl Celeste Holm, and The Story of Molly X (1949), which has bad girl and worse girl."
The Argyle Secrets, Fly-By-Night, and The Story of Molly X are not on home video, which is another draw for cinephiles. Neither are High Tide (1947), a sardonic newspaper noir with Lee Tracy as a smart-talking reporter, or Shakedown (1950), starring Howard Duff as an opportunistic crime photographer in the Weegee manner, two of Muller's favorites. "I do think it's essential to show people the complete variety of noir," he explains. "People are unclear on what the breadth of the genre encompasses so I try to spread it around, with B-movies like High Tide and Shakedown to counterbalance The Killers and the A-list stuff."
And there is one title that is uneasily timely: The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), starring Evelyn Keyes as a jewel smuggler hunting her two-timing husband and unwittingly spreading smallpox along the way. The film spends more time with the dull authorities than the desperate crooks but it makes great use of NYC location shooting and packs a dynamic climax.
Says Eddie Muller, "The thing that I'm proudest of in the twenty-some years we've been doing this is that we've created this wonderful thing where the real fans will come out to see a film they've never even heard of. Where does that happen now?"
Noir City 2022 runs February 11-17 at SIFF Cinema Egyptian. Tickets are for individual screenings $15 for the general public and $10 for SIFF members. A full series pass is $150 ($100 for SIFF members). And remember: masks are required to help prevent the spread of Covid and you need to show proof of vaccination to attend screenings. You don't want to be the killer that stalked Noir City.
For a complete schedule and further information, find more here and here.
Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer who really, really loves film noir.
