Femme fatales, jailbreaks, and Bogart: Highlights from The Cinematheque's summer Film Noir series, to August 26
Classics like In a Lonely Place meet a vivid new restoration of Raw Deal
In a Lonely Place
The Cinematheque presents Film Noir 2021 to August 26.
WHAT IS IT about summertime that makes it so perfectly suited to a film-noir binge?
There’s something about the shadows, the pessimism, and the menace that serves as a darkly enjoyable foil to sunshine, barbecues, and beach days.
Whatever the reason, The Cinematheque has some of the greatest works in the genre on view in all their black-and-white glory, including a few stunning new restorations and some unsung sordid gems.
Amid the highlights, don’t miss Anthony Mann’s just-restored B-thriller Raw Deal, from 1948. Set to his moll’s fatalistic narration, a convict (Dennis O'Keefe) plans a jailbreak that we know will go awry. Cinematographer John Alton’s camera builds a visually tense and claustrophobic world of telephone wires, windowpane shadows, Venetian blinds, clocks, and watches, shooting in a high contrast that really puts the “noir” into film noir.
Take a trip to the dark side of Hollywood in Nicholas Ray’s seminal In a Lonely Place, in which Humphrey Bogart puts in one of his most deliciously jaded performances as Dix Steele, a screenwriter suspected of murder. Gloria Grahame plays Laurel Gray, the lonely neighbour drawn into his world.
And fall under the spell of Otto Preminger’s 1944 Laura, in which Gene Tierney puts her own twist on the femme fatale. The insanely stylish film follows a hardboiled detective obsessed with solving her murder (we meet her in flashbacks), and trying to discover who she really was.
There's more—the brawling, frenzied Burt Lancaster-starring Criss Cross and the wonderfully strange Kiss Me Deadly—with 10 in all; find the full list and showtimes here.
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