Noir City: Chicago starts Friday at the Music Box

Chicago’s Music Box Theatre will host the third annual Noir City: Chicago starting Friday and running through Aug. 18. Presented by the Film Noir Foundation, the fest features 16 noirs, all in 35 mm.

Opening night is a double feature: 1947’s “High Wall” by director Curtis Bernhardt, starring Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter, and “The Dark Mirror” (1946, Robert Siodmak) in which Olivia de Havilland plays twin sisters, one of whom is deranged. Shocker!

Other highlights include: “Sorry Wrong Number” (1948, Anatole Litvak) and “The Glass Key” (1942, Stuart Heisler) as well as lesser-known films like “Loophole” (1954, Harold D. Schuster) and “The Hunted” (1948, Jack Bernhard), recently saved from extinction by the foundation.

Authors Alan K. Rode and Foster Hirsch will be on hand to discuss these classic noirs.

Having worked at the Chicago Tribune for many years before heading to the West Coast, I always remember this sage editing adage: “If your mother says she loves you, you’d better doublecheck.”

Speaking of checking, you can see the full Noir City: Chicago 3 lineup here.

FNB writer Wilmington wins Chicago journalism award

Michael Wilmington

I’m very pleased to share some exciting news. Contributing FNB writer Michael Wilmington has won a Peter Lisagor award for exemplary journalism from the Chicago Headline Club. Wilmington won in the arts reporting and criticism category for a non-daily publication, circulation less than 20,000. His “Front Row” DVD column runs in the Chicago Jewish Star, which is owned and operated by Doug and Gila Wertheimer.

“Thanks to the Headline Club and thanks to the Star – I love writing for them,” Wilmington told FNB. He also won a 1993 Lisagor as an individual critic for the Chicago Tribune and was part of a Tribune critics’ project that won a 2007 Lisagor.

Roger Ebert

Additionally, three veteran journalists received lifetime achievement awards. They are: Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967; Richard C. Longworth, who spent nearly 30 years at the Chicago Tribune as an economics reporter, business editor, chief European correspondent and senior writer; and Elizabeth Brackett, correspondent and substitute host for WTTW’s flagship public-affairs program Chicago Tonight.

The Chicago Headline Club is the country’s largest chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The club announced the winners of the 34th annual Lisagor awards Friday at Chicago’s Hotel Allegro.