Noir City fest gets a passport, Anthony Mann films at UCLA, Alex Prager photography at M + B Gallery

January 24, 2014 by

The darkness, dahlings, just doesn’t stop. And who’s complaining? Not us! There is much for noiristas to relish, starting today:

Too Late for Tears posterNOIR CITY’s flagship festival in San Francisco returns to its home at the historic Castro Theatre Jan. 24-Feb. 2, 2014. The 12th edition of the popular film noir festival is going international and the lineup is downright sumptuous. Films include: “The Third Man,” a restoration of “Too Late for Tears” (with Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea), “Drunken Angel,” “It Always Rains on Sunday,” “Brighton Rock,” “The Wages of Fear,” “Rififi” and “Pépé le Moko,” just to name a few.

We can’t wait until the fest hits Los Angeles in April!

ANTHONY MANN is being celebrated by the UCLA Film & Television Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood. The series Dark City, Open Country: The Films of Anthony Mann runs Jan. 31 to March 30.

Says UCLA: Director Anthony Mann’s reputation is now grounded in his 1940s crime melodramas, many of them film noirs, and his 1950s Westerns (eight with Jimmy Stewart at Universal). … The conflicted heroes of Mann’s Westerns are cut from the same cloth as his noirish crime dramas, often attempting to outrun a past that weighs heavily on their actions, morally ambivalent, as they vacillate between individual desire and communal responsibility. …

"Side Street," starring Farley Granger, plays March 15 at UCLA.

“Side Street,” starring Farley Granger, plays March 15 at UCLA.

Mann often dismissed his early career in Hollywood’s poverty row, cranking out low-budget crime features for Republic, PRC and Eagle-Lion, but a number of critics have begun to re-evaluate his early work. Indeed, this series was inspired in part by the publication of The Crime Films of Anthony Mann (2013) by Max Alvarez, who will also appear as a guest on Wednesday, March 12.

ALEX PRAGER, a Los Angeles-based photographer who draws from vintage Hollywood and neo-noir imagery, has a show opening Saturday, Jan. 25, at M+B Gallery, 612 North Almont Drive in LA. Face in the Crowd features new large-scale color photographs of elaborately staged crowd scenes and a film by the same name. This body of work was created for Prager’s first major museum exhibition in the United States at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which opened in November 2013. Alex Prager: Face in the Crowd will run at M+B Jan. 25 to March 8, 2014, with an opening reception on Saturday, Jan. 25, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Also of note: Director David Cronenberg wrote the intro to a new translation of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis:” http://lat.ms/1c9cU60. And a report on Paris haute couture: Butterflies and Dita Von Teese at Gaultier: http://lat.ms/1aO0csu.

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Carole Lombard author gets two parties from Larry Edmunds

January 15, 2014 by

The nice guys at Larry Edmunds Bookshop are back in the swing of events with two book parties for Robert Matzen, author of “Fireball: Carole Lombard & the Mystery of Flight 3.”

Carole Lombard died in a plane crash in 1942. She was 33.

Actress Carole Lombard died in a plane crash on Jan. 16, 1942. She was 33.

Matzen takes a fresh look at Hollywood’s Queen of Screwball Comedies, Carole Lombard, and examines the plane crash that took her life on Jan. 16, 1942. With TWA’s most experienced pilot flying a 10-month-old aircraft on a clear night, why did the flight crash into the side of a Nevada mountain?

Having just completed the first sale of war bonds and stamps, following the U.S. entry into World War II, Lombard became the first Hollywood star to sacrifice her life in the war. “Fireball” tells multiple stories: the passengers (including 15 members of the U.S. Army Air Corps), the friends and families left behind (such as Lombard’s husband Clark Gable) and the first responders who struggled up a mountain hoping to perform a miracle rescue.

There will be two signings this week:

From 8-10 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 16 at the Museum of Flying, 3100 Airport Ave. in Santa Monica.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18 at Larry Edmunds Bookshop, 6644 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, 323-463-3273.

Hurrell's HollywoodAlso available at the bookshop is this essential book for any film lover’s library: “George Hurrell’s Hollywood: Glamour Portraits 1925-1992” by Mark A. Vieira, with a foreword by Sharon Stone.

Known as the Rembrandt of Hollywood, Hurrell (1904–1992) was the creator of the glamour portrait and played a crucial role in establishing the star power of Tinseltown’s elite. Perhaps most famous for his work with Joan Crawford, he also photographed Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Bette Davis, Jane Russell, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Warren Beatty and, as you can see from the book’s cover, the stunning blonde goddess, Carole Lombard.

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Golden Globes draws largest audience in 10 years

January 13, 2014 by

The Golden Globe Awards telecast is required viewing for us film and fashion junkies. The show drew its largest audience in 10 years and its largest young-adult audience in seven years, according to Variety. You can read the list of winners here.

Looks we loved: Cate Blanchett (the Best Actress in a Drama winner wore a lace Armani Prive gown), Mila Kunis, Lupita Nyong’o, Margot Robbie, Uma Thurman and Reese Witherspoon.

Trends we spotted: Bold lips, lots of eyeliner, stylishly messy waves, piecey buns and slicked-back up-do’s.

Surprises we savored: Matthew McConaughey’s win for Best Actor in a Drama; “12 Years A Slave” snaring Best Picture/Drama and Jacqueline Bisset’s bumbling acceptance speech when she won Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or TV Movie.

Marilyn Monroe with the Golden Globe she won for 1959’s "Some Like It Hot."

Marilyn Monroe with the Golden Globe she won for 1959’s “Some Like It Hot.”

 

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A very happy 2015 to all lovers of film noir

January 8, 2014 by

I am so behind with posts and so late in wishing you a happy 2014 that I decided to fast-forward and be ahead in wishing you a happy 2015. Way ahead. 😉

I have no good excuse for my getting behind other than it was an extra-busy holiday season: first came Keithmas (Keith Richards’ birthday is Dec. 18, 1943, and the FNB team decided to make it a party – it was his 70th after all), then Christmas and New Year’s. Much fun to see friends and family but I guess travel, time zones and opening gift after gift after gift (life is hard for a gold-digger) got the best of us.

We are now back in LA and grateful for the warm weather. As Keith Richards would say: “It’s great to be here. It’s great to be anywhere.”

KEITHMAS 2013

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‘Bettie Page Reveals All’ hits theaters

December 1, 2013 by

Bettie Page Reveals AllNow playing at the Nuart Theatre in LA: ‘Bettie Page Reveals All.’ It’s just here for a week so see it while you can.

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‘Letters to Jackie’ documentary airs Sunday night on TLC

November 16, 2013 by

Letters to Jackie

LETTERS TO JACKIE: REMEMBERING PRESIDENT KENNEDY. Directed and written by Bill Couturié, this acclaimed documentary about JFK’s inspirational presidency will air at 9/8c on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013 on TLC.

The film features 18 stars, including Anne Hathaway, Bérénice Bejo, Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst and Chris Cooper, reading from letters sent to Jacqueline Kennedy in the days following the death of John F. Kennedy. These letters illustrate the country’s remarkable ability to unite and uplift their first lady with words of compassion and love.

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True Hollywood Noir probes legendary Tinseltown mysteries

November 8, 2013 by

True Hollywood Noir“Lana Turner was the quintessential film noir blonde,” says author Dina Di Mambro in her new book, True Hollywood Noir: Filmland Mysteries and Murders, pointing to Turner’s standout part as Cora in “The Postman Always Rings Twice.”

The actress’s real life was no less fascinating than any of the roles she portrayed on the screen, says Di Mambro, setting up the chapter on Turner and the 1958 fatal stabbing of her boyfriend Johnny Stompanato.

A coroner’s inquest jury found the act (by Turner’s teenage daughter Cheryl Crane) to be justifiable homicide but there has long been speculation that Turner herself did the deed. In probing that theory, film historian and entertainment writer Di Mambro offers “the story you haven’t heard.”

Author Dina Di Mambro

Author Dina Di Mambro

It’s one of 12 stories Di Mambro explores in her book; the others are: William Desmond Taylor, Thomas H. Ince, Jean Harlow, Thelma Todd, Joan Bennett (and the shooting of Jennings Lang), George Reeves, Bob Crane, Gig Young, Natalie Wood, Robert Blake and death of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley). The finale, as it were, is a lengthy chapter on gangster Mickey Cohen.

Says Di Mambro in the book: “The West Coast mob, city corruption and Hollywood mysteries were often intertwined. This is a common thread through much of this book. … Many of the plots of the noir films were taken from actual happenings in the underworld.”

Di Mambro presents her facts in a straightforward, no-nonsense style, leaving the reader to decide which theory is most likely. Replete with vintage photos, the book clocks in at 230 pages, making it a pretty fast read cover to cover. It’s also a great reference volume if you prefer to dip in one grisly cold case at a time.

We at FNB especially like the fact that Di Mambro includes in her acknowledgements her “muse,” meaning her cat Sunny, who supervised the writing process. Nothing like a regal kitty to tap a true-crime scribe vibe.

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Britt Ekland to introduce ‘The Wicker Man’ final cut

November 1, 2013 by
Britt Ekland in

Britt Ekland in “The Wicker Man.”

The Wicker Man final cut/1973/Rialto Pictures/88 min.

Actress Britt Ekland will attend the 7:30 p.m. showing of “The Wicker Man” final cut (1973, Robin Hardy) at the Nuart Theatre, on Friday, Nov. 1. She will introduce the movie and run the Q&A. In addition to her memorable performance in “The Wicker Man,” the Swedish beauty is also well known as the Bond girl in “The Man with the Golden Gun.”

Other notable film appearances include “The Night They Raided Minsky’s,” “Baxter!,” “The Double Man,” “Get Carter” and films with Peter Sellers, her husband from 1964-1968.  In 1975, she provided whispers in French on the end of then-boyfriend Rod Stewart‘s song Tonight’s the Night. Ekland was one of the most photographed and talked-about celebrities in the world. In 1980, she published her best-selling autobiography, True Britt.

I recently saw “The Wicker Man” final cut and it’s a fun flick – so very 70s and so very British. A standup, stiff-upper-lip Scottish police sergeant (Edward Woodward) receives an anonymous note in the mail, claiming that a girl on an island village has gone missing. But, when he arrives on the island to investigate, he receives blank stares and puzzled looks from her fellow villagers.

Wicker Man posterNo one seems to know who the girl is or why he is concerned. They’re more interested in drinking, dancing and pagan fertility rites. The sergeant digs his heels in and decides to stay a while longer; Ekland plays the sexy daughter of the innkeeper.

Inspired by writer/actor David Pinner‘s 1967 novel Ritual, Anthony Shaffer wrote the screenplay. Director Hardy elicits subtle performances, creating an atmosphere of low-key tension and muted anxiety. Cinematographer Harry Waxman shows the austere and rugged beauty of a remote part of the world. While the story might be short on action by today’s standards, this cult horror classic is nonetheless pretty entertaining and well worth viewing on the big screen.  Seen for decades only in mutilated copies, this director-approved restoration by Studiocanal is the culmination of a worldwide search conducted via Facebook.

“The Wicker Man” final cut will play at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles for one week: Nov. 1-8.

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Robert Wise casts a spell with subtlety, smarts, superb acting

October 29, 2013 by

The Haunting posterBy Michael Wilmington

The Haunting/1963/Argyle Enterprises, MGM/112 min.

From Shirley Jackson’s eerie, intellectual ghost story “The Haunting of Hill House” director Robert Wise and screenwriter Nelson Gidding weave a classic supernatural thriller, a shocker without gore, a ghost movie seemingly without ghosts. Or is it?

In “The Haunting,” poltergeist investigator John Markway (Richard Johnson) and his group of spook watchers (Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn and Julie Harris) are ensconced in a notorious old dark house together. Harris gives a movie-stealing performance as repressed spinster Nell Lance, who succumbs to Hill House’s shivery spell and terror-laced eroticism. Like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining,” Harris makes you feel the story’s terror – the menace and the entrapment of Hill House as Nell is pulled into the evil of the haunted domicile’s very dark past.

The cast is well nigh perfect, from Johnson’s enthusiastic and charming investigator, Bloom’s ambiguous, fancily severe Greenwich Village lesbian, Julie, to Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny of the James Bond series) as Mrs. Markway.

Tamblyn, who will be present for discussion at the 7 p.m. Tuesday screening of “The Haunting” in Westwood, plays smart-alecky nonbeliever Luke Sanderson. Tamblyn was reteaming here with director Wise, who had guided the actor to the highlight of his career, as Jet gangleader Riff in the 1961 Best Picture Oscar winner “West Side Story.”

Wise’s movie is quite faithful to Jackson’s acclaimed novel. The dialogue is literate and tense. The movie’s tasteful production design and the crystal-sharp black and white cinematography (by Davis Boulton) give this picture, shot in England, a classic look. It’s the kind of brainy, spooky cinematic treat Wise might have whipped up for producer Val Lewton in the ’40s, in their RKO prime time of “The Body Snatcher” and “The Curse of the Cat People” if they’d only had this kind of budget.

Roman Polanski once named Wise’s “The Haunting” as one of his favorite movies. It’s a shame that Polanski didn’t direct the 1999 remake of “The Haunting,” which was messed up by the producers and director Jan De Bont, and not helped by its big budget and gaudy effects. Subtlety, intelligence and superb acting are what cast the spell for Wise and company. Polanski probably would have brought all that back and made the movie sexy to boot – something the 1963 “Haunting” doesn’t really need.

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Film noir fashionistas in the spotlight

October 28, 2013 by
Edith Head worked on film noir titles such as “Double Indemnity,” “Sunset Blvd.,” “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.”

Edith Head worked on film noir titles such as “Double Indemnity,” “Sunset Blvd.,” “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.”

Happy birthday, Edith Head! She was born October 28, in San Bernardino, Calif. In her 60-year career, at Paramount and Universal, she worked on more than 1,131 films, received 35 Academy Award nominations and won eight Oscars, more than any other woman. (Walt Disney, with 22 Oscars, holds the record for a man.)

Grace Kelly was born on Nov. 12, 1929 in Philadelphia. She died on Sept. 14, 1982 in Monaco.

Grace Kelly was born on Nov. 12, 1929 in Philadelphia. She died on Sept. 14, 1982 in Monaco.

The exhibition From Philadelphia to Monaco: Grace Kelly Beyond the Icon opens today at the James A. Michener Art Museum, near Philadelphia.

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