NOIR TALK Film Noir Foundation

East Bay Express film reviewer Kelly Vance joins us to talk about the "Now Playing" feature on filmnoirfoundation.org, a newly added guide to noir-tinged movie and streaming news. We also round up a bunch of great classic noir releases on Blu-ray in the last few years from specialty outlets who've all been releasing terrific films mostly unavailable on home video before now:

-- KL Studio Classics: Pitfall, 99 River Street, Cry Of The City, Deadline USA. Hollow Triumph, Boomerang, The Woman In The Window, He Ran All The Way, Roadhouse, I Wake Up Screaming, The Chase, A Kiss Before Dying, I Walk Alone, The Taking of Pelham 123

-- Olive: Cry Danger, Try And Get Me, The Big Combo, Body And Soul, Plunder Road, Crashout, Odds Against Tomorrow

-- Flicker Alley: Too Late For Tears, Woman on the Run, The Man Who Cheated Himself

-- VCI: The Prowler, New York Confidential (DVD only)

-- ClassicFlix: T-Men, Raw Deal, He Walked By Night, You Only Live Once

-- Cohen Film Collection: Jamaica Inn, Sudden Fear

-- Twilight Time: Kiss Of Death, Inferno 3D

-- Warner Archive: Gun Crazy

Follow the FNF's Now Playing listings here: http://filmnoirfoundation.org/now-playing.html

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Themes from The Prowler, 99 River Street, Pitfall, Plunder Road, Deadline USA

Dialogue from New York Confidential, with Anne Bancroft, Richard Conte, and Broderick Crawford.

Brandeis professor Tom Doherty joins us to discuss his new book about the 1947 Congressional hearings that led directly to Hollywood's anti-Communist blacklist. We start by untangling a few terms often used to describe the events of the time--HUAC, McCarthyism, the Red Scare--and the overall timeline of events in and around the hearings (2:15).

Then we discuss the perspectives and strategies adopted by each of the main factions from Hollywood who were involved in the 1947 hearings: the studio bosses and their industry representatives from the MPAA (19:20), the staunch anti-Communist conservatives of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (34:55), the activist anti-HUAC liberals of the Committee for the First Amendment (44:45), and the Communist party members and sympathizers known as the Unfriendly Nineteen, whose ranks were randomly culled to the Hollywood Ten (51:30).

We finish with how the end of the hearings led rapidly to the blacklist (1:03:30), the role that film noir played in smuggling what may have been considered subversive content into movies of the time (1:10:00), and a story about one of the last surviving people who was directly involved in the hearings, Marsha Hunt (1:15:00).

Tom Doherty's book is available at: https://www.amazon.com/Show-Trial-Hollywood-Blacklist-Culture/dp/0231187785

Screenshots from several noir films where Diego Rivera's painting The Flower Carrier appears in the background, a possible sign of solidarity with victims of the blacklist: https://twitter.com/EddieMuller/status/934043742280884225

NOIR CITY Austin schedule and tickets: https://drafthouse.com/austin/program/noir-city-austin-2018

NOIR CITY Boston schedule and tickets: http://www.brattlefilm.org/category/noir-city-boston/

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Themes from I Walk Alone (by Victor Young), Crossfire (Roy Webb), and Dark Passage (Franz Waxman).

NOIR CITY Hollywood showrunner Brian Light joins us to discuss the festival's 20th edition, as well as some of his articles for the NOIR CITY e-magazine. We start with some behind-the-scenes details of how the festival is organized, and we delve into some of this year's screenings: James Ellroy appearing with LA Confidential to receive the FNF's "Modern Noir Master" award; a triple bill from director Joseph Losey; and a pair of 1950s rarities, The Turning Point and The Scarlet Hour, in newly restored presentations courtesy of Paramount Pictures (1:50).

Brian's numerous "Book vs Film" articles for NOIR CITY include "La Chienne vs Scarlet Street," a comparison of the 1920s French novel with two film versions, Jean Renoir's French adaptation and Fritz Lang's noir classic Scarlet Street. Brian details how hard it was to track down an English translation of the novel, as well as the differences between the two films in their overall tone and endings (17:30).

"Scoring Evil: The Henry Mancini Touch" dives into one of classic noir's best soundtracks. We discuss Orson Welles' unique concept for scoring the 1958 film Touch Of Evil, plus Henry Mancini assembling top jazz musicians to record his ground-breaking compositions. Naturally, we spin several great themes from the soundtrack along the way (35:30).

Schedule and tickets for NOIR CITY Hollywood: http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/noir-city-hollywood-the-20th-annual-los-angeles-festival-of-film-noir

"Book vs Film: La Chienne vs Scarlet Street" from NOIR CITY #17: http://www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_17.html

Also available to read at: http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/noircityemag.html

"Scoring Evil: The Henry Mancini Touch" from NOIR CITY #15: http://www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_15.html

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Themes from The Damned Don't Cry (by Daniele Amfitheatrof), The Scarlet Hour (Leith Stevens), and Scarlet Street (H.J. Salter).

Themes from Touch Of Evil, by Henry Mancini: Main Title, Strollin' Blues, Something For Susan, Background to Murder, Tana's Theme.

The co-managing editor of the FNF's NOIR CITY e-magazine joins us to discuss some of his wide-ranging articles from the past few years. We start with how Steve started writing for the FNF alongside his brother Michael after many years of working together on the classic horror magazine Monsters From The Vault (1:30), and we take a look at noir-themed lyrics in songs from the 1950s-70s era of classic rock (8:20).

We discuss the career of one of noir's most accomplished cinematographers, Nicholas Musuraca, best known for Out Of The Past. We start with his early years as one of the founding craftsmen of RKO, groundbreaking expressionism in Stranger On The Third Floor, darkness and light in Val Lewton-produced classics including Cat People and The Seventh Victim, voyeurism in The Spiral Staircase, and panic and dread in The Hitchhiker (21:50).

Then we delve into the wild history of EC Comics, whose horror-themed titles such as Tales From The Crypt led to industry-wide censorship under pressure from Congress in the mid-1950s. EC migrated their grisly tales into "adult-themed" magazines that paralleled 1950s noirs such as While The City Sleeps and Kiss Me Deadly, before ultimately shifting their focus to producing one of the most successful humor magazines of all time! (41:25)

“Dancing in the Dark: Rock, Roll, and Noir” from NOIR CITY #15: http://www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_15.html

"Shoot Out The Lights: Nicholas Musuraca" from NOIR CITY #19: http://www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_19.html

“Two-Bit Crimes: How Comics Became ‘Adult Entertainment’” from NOIR CITY #8: http://www.noircitymag.com/noir_city_8.html

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Theme from Wicked As They Come (by Malcolm Arnold). "Who Do You Love" (Bo Diddley), "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress" (The Hollies), "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" (The Animals), "Moonlight Drive" (The Doors).

For the NOIR CITY 16 film festival, we broke out of the studio and went on location with numerous guests from the historic Castro Theatre in San Francisco:

Annabelle Zakaluk, Ms. NOIR CITY 2018, talks about the Castro Theatre, how she became Ms. NOIR CITY, the making of this year's festival poster, and her glamorous vintage outfits for each night of the festival. (1:45)

Bill Arney, the voice of NOIR CITY in San Francisco since 2006, on introducing the festival's shows, how his mom's pies helped him meet Eddie Muller, and living in the apartment where Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon. (16:40)

Brian and Stacey Homan of Jacksonville, FL on what's inspired them to attend NOIR CITY every year since 2009, plus a special guest appearance on opening night of this year's festival. (25:20)

Bill Selby, art director for the NOIR CITY film festival, on building the original Noir City website before the festivals began, as well as designing the festival posters over the years and working with the women who've been Ms. NOIR CITY. (34:45)

Matthias Merkelbach, creator of the largest European database for film noir and neo-noir, on how he first learned about film noir growing up in Germany, traveling from Stuttgart to attend NOIR CITY, and Address Unknown, the terrific 1944 film set in 1930s Germany that was shown in this year's festival. (45:45)

Greg Andrew, who's been attending NOIR CITY from England since 2013, on film noir in Britain and the international noir festival from 2014. (58:00)

Marya Gates, assistant manager at Turner Classic Movies, on TCM's presence at the festival promoting Noir Alley, her own experience attending NOIR CITY and meeting an iconic Hollywood star, and doing a month-long noir immersion each year during "Noirvember." (1:04:50)

Monica Nolan, a San Francisco-based writer and contributor to the FNF's NOIR CITY e-magazine, on attending NOIR CITY every year since it started in 2003, the festival's place within the local repertory movie culture, some highlights from this year's festival, and the massive showing every year from devoted Bay Area noir fans. (1:14:20)

Images and info about previous NOIR CITY posters at these links: http://filmnoirfoundation.tumblr.com/tagged/NOIR-CITY-poster-week

http://www.noircity.com/noircityware.html

Matthias Merkelbach's German-language film noir database: http://www.der-film-noir.de/

Annabelle Zakaluk sings vintage harmonies as part of The Century Sisters: https://www.centurysisters.com/

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Themes from This Gun For Hire, Night Editor, I Wake Up Screaming, Shadow Of A Doubt, The Blue Dahlia, I Walk Alone, and The Unsuspected.

"Laura" sung by Annabelle Zakaluk. Dialogue from The Underworld Story.

What was it like to be a devotee of film noir before most people had ever heard of it? Brooklyn College film professor Foster Hirsch, from the Film Noir Foundation's board of directors, joins us to talk about how the concept of noir became widely known in America--and the time when it wasn't.

We focus much of our discussion on the writing of his ground-breaking book Film Noir: The Dark Side Of The Screen (1981), one of the first books about noir published in the US. We discuss noir's French origins and how it first became known to American film scholars and cineastes in the 1970s (3:00), the impact of younger filmmakers bringing noir influences to their own work in the early 1980s (16:00), and some of the reasons for the explosion of interest in classic noir since the 1990s (22:45).

FNF president Eddie Muller also joins us to preview NOIR CITY 16, including details on the restoration of The Man Who Cheated Himself and other rare titles being shown on this year's festival circuit (32:00).

The Dark Side Of The Screen: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Side-Screen-Film-Noir/dp/0306817721/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=

Full schedule and tickets for NOIR CITY 16 available at: http://www.noircity.com/

Please send us any feedback you have on our show to podcast@filmnoirfoundation.org, and rate/review us on iTunes.

Music: Themes from The Big Heat (by Henry Vars), Sudden Fear (Elmer Bernstein), Body Heat (John Barry), and In A Lonely Place (George Antheil).