By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington
The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard). All films without a new review have been covered previously in Film Noir Blonde and can be searched in the FNB archives (at right).
Pick of the Week: Summer of Darkness starts Friday
Hold onto your hat, button up your raincoat (you guys) or slip into your slinky gown (you gals), practice your best sneers or sultry glances, shove your gat in your pocket, crush a cigarette in the nearest ashtray (but don‘t smoke it), gun your engines and get set for the ride of your life.
June is the month when all lovers of film noir get the treat of the year on Turner Classic Movies. All you have to do every Friday is remember what day it is, then switch on the set and gorge yourself on TCM’s great festival of classic crime and prime punishment, Summer of Darkness.
Some experts consider “The Maltese Falcon” the first film noir. Others say “Stranger on the Third Floor” holds that distinction.
It’s the station’s annual banquet of stylish movie murder and mayhem, of gunmen and gunsels, of whiskey and women and blues in the night, and of dark deeds on dark, rainy city streets. Each Friday, throughout June, running from dawn to dusk and late into the night (natch), TCM will show nearly 50 classic noir titles, including “The Maltese Falcon,” “Born to Kill,” “Out of the Past,” “The Third Man,” “The Killers” and “Detour.”
Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other towns where people prowl around after midnight, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one season in Hell, and one festival of dreams and nightmares, you won’t want to miss.
Friday, June 5
6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “M” (Germany: Fritz Lang, 1931).
8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “La Bete Humaine” (France: Jean Renoir, 1938). Jean Renoir’s noir masterpiece is a dark, stark tale of railroads, adultery, madness and murder, with Jean Gabin as the train engineer who goes crazy with l’amour fou, Simone Simon as the woman who drives him there, and Fernand Ledoux as her rat husband and his boss. The source is a classic novel by Emile Zola.
9:45 a.m. (6:45 a.m.): “The Letter” (William Wyler, 1940).
11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “Stranger on the Third Floor” (Boris Ingster, 1940).
The great Peter Lorre stars in “Stranger on the Third Floor.”
12:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m.): “High Sierra” (Raoul Walsh, 1941).
2:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m.) “The Maltese Falcon” (John Huston, 1941).
4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.): “Journey Into Fear” (Norman Foster & Orson Welles (uncredited), 1942).
5:45 p.m. (2:45 p.m.): “Johnny Eager” (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942).
8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Nora Prentiss” (Vincent Sherman, 1947). Ann Sheridan gives Doc Kent Smith all the oomph he can handle.
10:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m.): “Woman on the Run” (Norman Foster, 1950). Neglected noir with Sheridan sizzling as a murder witness’s wife.
11:45 p.m. (8:45 p.m.): “Dark Passage” (Delmer Daves, 1947).
1:45 a.m. (10:45 p.m.): “Born to Kill” (Robert Wise, 1947).
3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): “L. A. Confidential” (Curtis Hanson, 1997).
Saturday, June 6
4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.): “The Big Heat” (Fritz Lang, 1953).
Monday, June 8
5 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Conflict” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1945).
8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Man Hunt” (Fritz Lang, 1941). Big game hunter Walter Pidgeon goes after human prey Adolf Hitler – who was no friend of Fritz.
10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Hangmen Also Die” (Fritz Lang, 1943).
12:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m.): “Saboteur” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942).
From FNB readers