The Film Noir File: Bogie is at the top in ‘High Sierra’

April 4, 2014 by

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on Cable TV. All movies below are from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

Pick of the Week

“High Sierra” (1941, Raoul Walsh). 4 p.m. (1 p.m.), Saturday, April 5.

Bogart and Ida Lupino star in "High Sierra."

Bogart and Ida Lupino star in “High Sierra.”

In 1941, the same year he played Sam Spade, private eye, one of the greatest of all movie detectives, in John Huston’s classic film noir “The Maltese Falcon,” Humphrey Bogart also played one of the greatest of all movie gangsters, Roy Earle, in Raoul Walsh‘s classic noir, “High Sierra.”

If Spade was one of the meanest, most realistic and most unsympathetic of all movie detectives (up until then), Earle was one of the roughest, least clichéd but most surprisingly sympathetic gangsters. He’s a hard guy with a soft streak, whose sentimentality (especially toward women and little dogs), may trip him up in the end.

Veteran thief Big Mac (Donald MacBride) and an ex-cop (Barton MacLane) engineer Earle’s release from prison so he can take over a very lucrative job: a high-end resort robbery near the Sierras. But Earle finds himself yoked to a young, inexperienced gang.

The tyro would-be crooks include Arthur Kennedy, Alan Curtis and inside man Cornel Wilde. The moll of one of the guys is Marie (Ida Lupino), a smart, bruised city doll who falls for Earle, but whom the old pro regards, like all dames, as “trouble.”

More to his taste, disastrously, is the beautiful, seemingly sweet club-footed girl Velma (Joan Leslie), whose family (including Henry Travers) he meets and helps on the road.

Roy sets up the robbery and tries to woo the crippled girl. But it’s his last job, and we know what that means in a movie. As the boss‘s outlaw doctor (Henry Hull) tells Roy: “Guys like you and Johnny Dillinger “are just rushing toward death.”

High Sierra posterAndrew Sarris once described “High Sierra” as “the Gotterdammerung of the gangster movie.” And perhaps Bogart connected so well with the part of the doom-haunted criminal Earle because he had a face that really could suggest a man rushing toward death. Bogie’s dark burning eyes, brusque been-there-shot-that manner, innate intelligence and his existential tough-guy persona were leagues away from the standard handsome male stars who tended to monopolize Hollywood’s leading man roles.

Screenwriting team John Huston and W. R. Burnett based their work on Burnett’s hard-boiled novel. Action-master director Raoul Walsh, a first-tier ‘20s silent moviemaker (he directed Douglas Fairbanks in the 1924 “The Thief of Baghdad“), had been languishing in the second tier for most of the ‘30s.

But Walsh came back with 1939’s “The Roaring Twenties” (in which James Cagney played a sympathetic gangster and Bogie was the villain), 1940‘s “They Drive by Night” (with truck-driver Bogie as the second lead after star George Raft) and “High Sierra,” in which Bogie finally got the lead. (Raft turned down both of the roles that took Bogart to the top: Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon” and Roy Earle in “High Sierra.”)

By the way, the last shot of “High Sierra,” with Ida Lupino walking toward the camera, framed by the mountains and the sky, is one of the great last moments in film noir and in all Hollywood movies.

Saturday, April 5

4 p.m. (1 p.m.): “High Sierra” (1941, Raoul Walsh). See Pick of the Week.

Sunday, April 6

8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “They Drive By Night” (1940, Raoul Walsh). With George Raft, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart and Ann Sheridan. Reviewed in FNB on July 7, 2012. [Read more…]

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Noir City Hollywood: Don’t miss the final days!

April 3, 2014 by

Noir City: Hollywood, the 16th annual festival of film noir, at the Egyptian Theatre will be over before you know it! So plan to take a prowl …

There are double features on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, “Detour” screens, followed by the festival’s wrap party.

M posterOn Sunday is this rare treat: Joseph Losey’s 1951 version of “M” and “The Hitch-Hiker,” which is the only American film noir directed by a woman: Ida Lupino.

Losey’s American remake of Fritz Lang’s classic from 1931 follows a child murderer being simultaneously hunted by the police and the underworld. “M” stars David Wayne, Howard Da Silva, Luther Adler, Steve Brodie, Raymond Burr, Norman Lloyd, Walter Burke and Jim Backus.

Next up is “The Hitch-Hiker” (1953), a groundbreaking, fact-based story of two pals on a Mexican fishing trip kidnapped by a serial killer. Edmond O’Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman and José Torvay star.

Both films screen in newly restored 35mm prints thanks to the Library of Congress. The fest is co-presented by the American Cinematheque and the Film Noir Foundation.

See you in the dark!

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The Film Noir File: Sam Fuller takes us down ‘Shock Corridor’

March 27, 2014 by

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

Pick of the Week

“Shock Corridor” (1963, Samuel Fuller). 10 p.m. (7 p.m.), Saturday, March 29.

Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 16, 2011.

Friday, March 28

12:15 p.m. (9:15 a.m.): “The Racket” (1928, Lewis Milestone). The first movie version of playwright/screenwriter/Chicago crime reporter Bartlett Cormack’s tense play about the war of nerves between a tough, obsessed police captain and a brutal mob boss. With Thomas Meighan, Louis Wolheim and Marie Prevost. The movie was remade in 1951 at Howard Hughes’ RKO (by director John Cromwell), with Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan.

Night of the Living Dead poster1:45 a.m. (10:45 p.m.): “Night of the Living Dead” (1968, George Romero). With a plague of blood-thirsty, lurching, relentlessly oncoming zombies rampaging all over the Pittsburgh area, a group of bickering and sometimes hysterical survivors barricade themselves in a suburban house near a graveyard, and try to survive the longest night of their lives. One of the most noirish – and certainly one of the scariest – of all low-budget horror classics, directed (and written) by George Romero with nerve-rending, savage black-and-white pseudo-realism and some macabre humor. Starring Duane Jones and Judith O’Dea.

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” (1962, Robert Aldrich). With Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono and Anna Lee. Reviewed in FNB on July 28, 2012.

Saturday, March 29

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “His Girl Friday” (1940, Howard Hawks). With Cary Grant. Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart and John Qualen. Reviewed in FNB on Jan. 22, 2013.

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Shock Corridor” (1963, Samuel Fuller). See Pick of the Week.

Rhonda Fleming and Vincent Price are supporting players in "While the City Sleeps."

Rhonda Fleming and Vincent Price are supporting players in “While the City Sleeps.”

12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “While the City Sleeps” (1956, Fritz Lang). The great film noir director Fritz Lang worked even longer in Hollywood than he did in Germany, and of all the pictures of his American career, his two favorites were reportedly the 1936 lynch-mob classic “Fury” (starring Spencer Tracy and scripted by Bartlett Cormack), and the lesser-known crime thriller “While The City Sleeps.” Set in a big metropolitan newspaper which is in the throes of transition and a possible take-over, the movie’s complex plot revolves around both the corporate battles at the paper, and the big news story that is consuming the city and the newsroom: a series of vicious serial slayings by an unknown psychopathic killer. It’s an engrossing melodrama, steeped in stark, boozy, big-city ’50s atmosphere.

The remarkable cast is headed by noir mainstays Dana Andrews and Ida Lupino (as star reporters). Andrews and Lupino bring a whole raft of urban noir memories along with them. So does the supporting cast of journalists, executives and crime-fighters, played by George Sanders, Vincent Price, Thomas Mitchell, Howard Duff, Rhonda Fleming, James Craig, Sally Forrest and Mae Marsh. The young leather-jacketed psycho-killer they’re after is played by John Barrymore, Jr. (aka John Drew Barrymore, John Barrymore’s son and Drew Barrymore’s dad.)

That all-star cast and Lang’s moody mastery of big-city tension and cynicism keep you on the hook. Though we wouldn’t rank this picture above “Scarlet Street” and “The Big Heat” (which Lang apparently did), it’s an underseen, underrated gem of film noir, hot off the presses, from the genre’s heyday.

The Lady from Shanghai posterSunday, March 30

12:15 p.m. (9:15 a.m.): “The Lady from Shanghai” (1948, Orson Welles). With Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane and Glenn Anders. Reviewed in FNB on Dec. 26, 2013.

Monday, March 31

9 p.m. (6 p.m.): “On the Waterfront” (1954, Elia Kazan). With Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Rod Steiger. Reviewed in FNB on Feb. 20, 2013.

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): North by Northwest” (1959, Alfred Hitchcock). With Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 17, 2012.

 

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‘They Drive by Night’: a noir gem of the Bogart box set

July 7, 2012 by

Bogart has a supporting role.

The WHV/TCM set

They Drive by Night /1940/Warner Bros./          95 min.

Humphrey Bogart gets fourth billing in “They Drive by Night” (1940, Raoul Walsh). Cool, cocky wisecracks are in short supply and there are no dustups with lanky, gum-chomping weasels or fat men with spats and cravats.

That said, he brings depth and dimension to the part of Paul Fabrini, a salt-of-the-earth, devoted husband (his wife is Gale Page) eking out an existence as a truck driver with his brother Joe (George Raft). Of the two, Joe is brainier and more charming – he is also a bit of a ladies’ man until he meets salty/sweet diner waitress Cassie Hartley (Ann Sheridan).

But, not surprisingly in film noir, Joe’s past taps him on the shoulder in the form of cold-blooded, social-climbing, dressed-to-the-nines Lana Carlsen (Ida Lupino). Apparently, the two of them had a fling, though we don’t learn much about it, lest that info detract from Joe’s decent, stand-up character. Lana is married to blustery, ever-chuckling, Teddy-bearish Ed Carlsen (Alan Hale), who is also Joe’s boss at the trucking company. But. Lana. Wants. Joe. Back. See? If that involves murder, then so be it.

Ida Lupino as slinky but psycho Lana dominates the movie.

As the film’s social-conscience premise is put on the back burner and the melodrama heats up, it really becomes Lupino’s show. In the hands of a lesser director, this would likely be a misstep, but Walsh makes it work. Walsh was known for action-packed storytelling and Lana’s deadly ploy to win Joe back is one of many dramatic high points.

In keeping with the rollicking drama, Walsh establishes a mysterious yet upbeat vibe unlike many of his noir contemporaries who specialized in creating moods of angst, alienation, entrapment and doom.

Here, the supporting players – Bogart, Sheridan, Hale and Page – give sharp, piquant performances, a cause that’s aided by a fast, witty script from Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay, based on A.I. Bezzerides’ novel, “Long Haul.” Raft and Lupino also shine.

Arguably, by the time Lana goes off the deep end, Lupino’s overdoing it a bit. Look at where she starts, though, and you’ll see subtlety as her simmering emotions build to a crescendo of fury. Upon seeing Joe at Ed’s office, she tells him icily: “I wonder what I ever saw in you, anyway. You’re crude, you’re uneducated. You’ve never had a pair of pants with a crease in them. And yet I couldn’t say no to you.” When he retorts, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not asking you,” the look that flickers over her face leaves no doubt that this is just the end of a round and her menacing intensity grows as she gears up for the rest of the fight.

Walsh also directed Bogart and Lupino in 1941’s “High Sierra” and I’ll be reviewing that title as part of next month’s giveaway.

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Free stuff from FNB: More chances to win Bogart movies

July 7, 2012 by

The reader-giveaway prize for June was the Humphrey Bogart set, which contains “They Drive by Night,” “Across the Pacific,” “Action in the North Atlantic” and “Passage to Marseille,” from Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies. I am extending this giveaway to July so that I can run a review of “They Drive by Night.”

In August, I will give away the WHV/TCM Greatest Gangster Films: Humphrey Bogart set, featuring “High Sierra,” “The Petrified Forest,” “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” and “All Through the Night.” I will run a review of “High Sierra” in August. Each set is $27.92.

All who entered in June are still eligible to win. To enter the July giveaway, for the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set, just leave a comment on any FNB post from July 1-31.

We welcome comments, but please remember that, for the purposes of the giveaway, there is one entry per person, not per comment.

The June-July winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early August. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck!

Here’s more info on the movies in the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set. [Read more…]

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Film noir Friday on TCM kicks off a new feature on FNB

June 27, 2012 by

THE NOIR FILE
By Mike Wilmington

A noir-lover’s schedule of film noirs on cable TV. First up: Friday, June 29, an all-noir day on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Times: Eastern Standard and Pacific Standard.

Friday, June 29
6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “The Letter” (William Wyler, 1940) Bette Davis, in her Bad Bette mode, strings along Herbert Marshall and James Stephenson (but not Gale Sondergaard) in the ultimate movie version of W. Somerset Maugham’s dark colonial tale of adultery, murder and a revealing letter. Like most of Maugham’s stories, this one was based on fact. Script by Howard Koch.

Bogart and Ida Lupino play outlaw lovers in “High Sierra.”

7:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m.): “High Sierra” (Raoul Walsh, 1941) “The ‘Gotterdammerung’ of the gangster movie,” according to Andrew Sarris. Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino (both great) as outlaw lovers in Walsh’s classic noir from the W. R. Burnett novel. Script by Burnett and John Huston; with Arthur Kennedy, Cornel Wilde, Barton MacLane, Joan Leslie, Henry Hull and Henry Travers. If you’ve never seen this one, don’t miss it: the last shot is a killer.

9:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m.): “The Fallen Sparrow” (Richard Wallace, 1943) John Garfield, Maureen O’Hara and Walter Slezak in an anti-Fascist thriller, with a Spanish Civil War backdrop. From the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes (“In a Lonely Place”).

11:15 a.m. (8:15 a.m.): “Johnny Angel” (Edwin L. Marin, 1946) Night-life murder mystery with George Raft, Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso and Hoagy Carmichael. Too plain visually, but a nice script by Steve Fisher and Frank Gruber.

John Garfield, Hume Cronyn and Lana Turner share a tense moment in “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” directed by Tay Garnett.

12:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m.): “Deception” (Irving Rapper, 1946) Bette Davis, Claude Rains and Paul Henreid in a stormy classical music triangle. Script by John Collier (“Evening Primrose”), from Louis Verneuil’s play.

2:45 p.m. (11:45 a.m.): “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (Tay Garnett, 1946) John Garfield and Lana Turner make the screen blaze as the bloody, adulterous lovers in this hot-as-hell, cold-as-ice movie of the steamy James M. Cain classic noir sex-and-murder thriller. With Hume Cronyn, Cecil Kellaway and Leon Ames. Script by Niven Busch.

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Hollow Triumph” (aka “The Scar”) (Steve Sekely, 1948) Crime and psychology and doubles and scars, with two Paul Henreids, Joan Bennett and Eduard Franz. Script by first-rate Brooklyn novelist Daniel Fuchs (“Low Company”).

Ava Gardner tempts Charles Laughton in “The Bribe.”

6:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m.): “The Bribe” (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949) Ace femme fatale Ava Gardner tempts Robert Taylor and Charles Laughton. Script by Marguerite Roberts (“True Grit”), from a Frederick Nebel story.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Woman in Hiding” (Michael Gordon, 1950) Marital tension with Ida Lupino, real-life hubby Howard Duff (as the wry love interest) and bad movie hubby Stephen McNally (the villain). Script by Oscar Saul (“The Helen Morgan Story”).

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Julie” (Andrew L. Stone, 1956) Doris Day is terrorized by hubby Louis Jourdan. With Barry Sullivan and Frank Lovejoy. Stone scripted.

12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” (Peter Godfrey, 1947) Humphrey Bogart, in Bad Bogie mode, has marriage problems with Barbara Stanwyck and Alexis Smith. Nigel Bruce co-stars; Thomas Job scripted.

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Free stuff from FNB: Classic Legends Bogart set

June 6, 2012 by

Warner Home Video (WHV) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) are adding two new sets to the TCM Greatest Classic Legends line. The newest additions feature Humphrey Bogart and Joan Crawford. (On the Crawford set is “Mildred Pierce,” “Humoresque,” “Possessed” and “The Damned Don’t Cry.”)

Humphrey Bogart

Courtesy of WHV, I will be giving away the Bogart set, which contains “They Drive by Night,” “Across the Pacific,” “Action in the North Atlantic” and “Passage to Marseille.”

(Additionally, WHV and TCM will release the Greatest Gangster Films: Humphrey Bogart set, featuring “High Sierra,” “The Petrified Forest,” “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” and “All Through the Night.”)

Each set is $27.92 and will be available on June 26.

To enter the June giveaway, for the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set, just leave a comment on any FNB post from June 1-30. We welcome comments, but please remember that, for the purposes of the giveaway, there is one entry per person, not per comment.

The winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early July. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck! (Josh is the winner of the May reader giveaway, a Blu-ray set of “Body Heat,” “L.A. Confidential,” and “The Player.” Congrats to Josh and thanks to all who entered!)

Here’s more info on the movies in the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set.

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940) – Bogart and George Raft share a driving ambition in a feisty tale of brothers trying to make it as independent truckers in this fine example of Warner Bros. social-conscience filmmaking that’s also a film noir. Ann Sheridan and Ida Lupino also star.

ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942) – In this wartime thriller, Bogart plays U.S. counterspy Rick, who trades barbs with Mary Astor, matches wits with Sydney Greenstreet and swaps bullets with saboteurs of the Panama Canal. John Huston directs this reunion of the three stars of “The Maltese Falcon.”

ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943) – This World War II salute to Allied forces stars Bogart as First Officer Joe Rossi, who, along with his captain (Raymond Massey), matches tactics with U-boats and the Luftwaffe. The tactics are so on target that this became a Merchant Marine training film.

PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE (1944) – Bogart reunites with director Michael Curtiz and other key “Casablanca” talent for a tension- and controversy-swept story of a French patriot who escapes Devil’s Island, survives a dangerous freighter voyage and becomes a gunner in the Free French Air Corps.

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Non-stop film noir on the big screen in Los Angeles

April 28, 2012 by

The enduring appeal of film noir shows no signs of waning – there are scads of noir screenings in and around LA over the next several weeks.

Noir City Hollywood continues at the Egyptian Theatre through May 6. Tonight, actress Julie Adams will talk with Alan K. Rode between the films 1957’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” (in which Adams co-stars with Richard Egan, Jan Sterling, Dan Duryea, Walter Matthau and Charles McGraw) and “Edge of the City” (1957).

And a must-see for me: Ida Lupino in “Private Hell 36” (1954) by director Don Siegel. Lupino also co-wrote this flick, which runs on Wednesday, May 2, after “Shield for Murder” (1954), co-directed by Howard Koch and star Edmond O’Brien.

In conjunction with the Herb Ritts: L.A. Style exhibition, running through Aug. 26 at the Getty Museum, a companion (free!) film series starts today. Ritts (1952–2002) was a top 1980s photographer and his preference for outdoor locations such as the desert and the beach helped to distinguish his work from his New York-based peers.

Admittedly, “Gilda” is the only true noir on the roster, but Ritts’ work taps retro Hollywood glamour. As the Getty puts it: “Ritts’ relationship with his subjects echoes certain director-actor relationships dating from the silent era and the eight films in this series showcase this special relationship.”

On Friday, May 4, the New Beverly Cinema is showing John Frankenheimer’s sci-fi neo-noir from 1966 “Seconds,” which stars Rock Hudson; cinematography by James Wong Howe. “Seconds” is paired with 1997’s “Face/Off” by director John Woo starring John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Dominique Swain and Nick Cassavetes. Screenwriters Mike Werb and Michael Colleary are scheduled to appear in person.

Also worth a watch: Universal Pictures celebrates its centennial with a series of screenings (“The Black Cat” and “The Birds” caught my eye) at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood from May 4 to June 24.

You’ll certainly get a full-on noir lineup at the 12th annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, which runs in Palm Springs from May 10-13.

Van Heflin and Joan Crawford star in “Possessed” from 1947.

Festival programmer and film historian Alan K. Rode has selected a great lineup, including Fritz Lang’s “The Big Heat” (1953), starring Glenn Ford, and “Possessed” (1947) by Curtis Bernhardt.

Ford’s son Peter will attend “The Big Heat” screening. “Possessed” earned Joan Crawford her second Oscar nom (she won for 1945’s “Mildred Pierce”); co-starring are Van Heflin, Raymond Massey and Geraldine Brooks.

Other titles, screened from new 35 mm prints, include: “Shield for Murder” (1954), “I Love Trouble” (1948), “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” (1957) and “The Face Behind the Mask” (1941), starring Peter Lorre.

I’m also very much looking forward to The Sun Sets in the West: Mid-Century California Noir at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), from May 18-26.

Says LACMA: “Experience the dark side of modern living with this series of mid-century film noirs. Shot on location and set amid the bustle of major cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco – as well as their sun-soaked periphery, beach cities, and desert oases – these 10 films inject the Golden State’s benign climate with a heady dose of postwar angst.”

The titles in the series are: “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955, by director Robert Aldrich); “The Crimson Kimono” (1959, Sam Fuller) “Experiment in Terror (1962, Blake Edwards); “Criss Cross” (1949, Robert Siodmak); “M” (1951, Joseph Losey); “The Damned Don’t Cry” (1950, Vincent Sherman); “Slightly Scarlet” (1956, Allan Dwan); “Murder by Contract” (1958, Irving Lerner); “Nightfall” (1957, Jacques Tourneur) and “The Prowler” (1951, Joseph Losey).

The one and only Bogart

Additionally, UCLA’s Film & Television Archive and the Million Dollar Theater are presenting three interesting double bills in downtown Los Angeles:

Brian De Palma in the 1970s (“Sisters,” his first Hitchcockian thriller, and “Phantom of the Paradise”) on Wednesday, May 2.

“The hunted and the hunter” film-noir night, featuring “Mickey One” (1965, Arthur Penn) and “Blast of Silence (1961, Allen Baron) on Wednesday, May 16.

Nicholas Ray directs Humphrey Bogart in “Knock on Any Door” (1949) and “In a Lonely Place” (1950) on Wednesday, May 23.

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A pre-fest chat with TCM’s Robert Osborne

April 27, 2011 by

TCM's Robert Osborne

Earlier today at a round-table interview, I caught up with TCM’s Robert Osborne, a veteran film historian and author, as the Classic Film Festival was setting up at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Osborne said one of the festival’s strengths is its great mix in terms of programming, which sets it apart from today’s moviegoing where “you have a choice of the same movie 15 different ways.”

I’ve always wanted to talk noir with him, so I asked him why these films have such enduring appeal. “We’ve always had murder mysteries and who doesn’t love that? They have an endless appeal. It’s the shadows and lights and tough people like Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino.

Setting up inside the Roosevelt Hotel.

“To call ‘Leave Her to Heaven’ [a 1945 movie that played at last year’s fest and stars Gene Tierney] a noir is stretching it – ‘Leave Her to Heaven’ is a lush Technicolor movie about rich people.

“My idea of film noir is people in the gutter – tough dames and guys in trench coats up to no good. And nobody did it better than Hollywood in the ’40s.”

As for his favorite femmes fatales, he names Veronica Lake, Lauren Bacall (in the Bogart films), Marie Windsor and Jane Greer, describing them “as very feminine women that were also dames who could give it as well as they took it.”

The TCM fest has a great mix of movies.

And what did he think of remakes such as HBO’s version of “Mildred Pierce” by director Todd Haynes, starring Kate Winslet? Osborne praised Winslet’s performance but said he was disappointed. “They told the whole story too closely; it was too long and drawn out and too ponderous. In the original [Michael Curtiz‘s 1945 movie starring Joan Crawford], writer Ranald MacDougall’s addition of the murder really made the whole thing crackle. [The remake] should’ve been three hours at the most. I’m not fond of remakes generally.”

What is he most looking forward to in this year’s fest? “Night Flight” by Clarence Brown, “The Constant Nymph” by Edmund Goulding, opening night’s “An American in Paris” by Vincent Minnelli, Leslie Caron’s special appearance, and meeting Peter O’Toole.

I also asked Osborne, who got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006, if he had any advice for O’Toole who will be honored at a hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre this Saturday. “Behave!”

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