Film Noir File: TCM’s badass binge continues with darkside divas Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott and more

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 soldiers on

Barbara Stanwyck plays the tough-as-nails title broad in “Martha Ivers.” Kirk Douglas plays her husband.

Barbara Stanwyck plays the tough-as-nails title broad in “Martha Ivers.” Kirk Douglas plays her husband.

Unless you’re a noirista who has been living under a rock, you know that TCM’s badass binge of film noir continues this Friday.

This week TCM’s list includes the spine-tingling masterpiece “Strangers on a Train” and the lesser-known but compelling melodrama “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” plus noir highlights by and with ace actors like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, recent birthday gal Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott, and Audrey Totter, brilliant writers like Patricia Highsmith, W. R. Burnett and Cornell Woolrich, and directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Joseph H. Lewis, Phil Karlson and Anthony Mann.

Lizabeth Scott and Van Heflin co-star in “Martha Ivers.”

Lizabeth Scott and Van Heflin co-star in “Martha Ivers.”

Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one festival of classic dreams and movie nightmares, you don’t want to miss. As Raymond Chandler once said about Phillip Marlowe, in “The Simple Art of Murder”: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid…”

Friday, July 17

7:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m.): “Tension” (John Berry, 1950).

Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum

9:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m.): “Where Danger Lives” (John Farrow, 1950). Robert Mitchum is dragged to the bad side of the border and the law by second-tier femme fatale Faith Domergue. This one has its moments.

11 a.m. (8 a.m.): “The Woman on Pier 13” (“I Married a Communist”) (Robert Stevenson, 1950).

12:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m.): “A Lady Without Passport” (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950). Hedy Lamarr is an illegal alien who proves irresistible to secret service man John Hodiak. Stylishly wrought by the director of “Gun Crazy” and “My Name is Julia Ross.”

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Cause for Alarm” (Tay Garnett, 1951). Loretta Young, caught in a noir trap of lies and murder. With Barry Sullivan.

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.): “No Questions Asked” (Harold F. Kress, 1951). Barry Sullivan is an insurance agent gone bad. With Arlene Dahl and other temptations.

Farley Granger and Robert Walker have a wonderful weird chemistry in “Strangers on a Train.”

Farley Granger and Robert Walker have a wonderful weird chemistry in “Strangers on a Train.”

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Strangers on a Train” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951).

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “The Racket” (John Cromwell, 1951). Gangster Robert Ryan and tough cop Robert Mitchum duke it out in this moody adaptation of Bartlett Cormack’s hit stage play.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Too Late for Tears” (Byron Haskin, 1949). Recently restored by the FNF, this sleeper stars Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. The film examines the evils of money. Seriously?

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (Lewis Milestone, 1946).

12:15 a.m. (9: 15 p.m.): “99 River Street” (Phil Karlson, 1953). Taut little thriller, with unlucky but feisty cabbie John Payne caught in a frame-up, directed with panache by B-maestro Karlson (“The Phenix City Story”). Evelyn Keyes co-stars.

2 a.m. (11 p.m.): “Conflict” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1945). Bogie in his bad mode, tormenting Alexis Smith and trying to evade Sydney Greenstreet.

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.). “Klute” (Alan Pakula, 1971).

Saturday, July 18

8:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m.). “Crime and Punishment” (Josef von Sternberg, 1935). Director Sternberg, in his Dietrich years, tackles Fyodor Dostoyevsky, with the young Lucien Ballard behind the camera, and a cast that includes Peter Lorre (as the gloomy, philosophical student killer) and Edward Arnold (as his nemesis, genial and persistent police detective).

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.) “Rebel Without a Cause” (Nicholas Ray, 1955).

5:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m.): “Lolita” (Stanley Kubrick, 1962). Kubrick’s superb film of Vladimir Nabokov’s classic comic-erotic novel about the dangerous affair of college professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) with nymphet Lolita (Sue Lyon). [Read more…]

Film noir darkness descends again: Dmytryk, Hawks, Siodmak, Mann and more, part of TCM’s terrific fest

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 Film Noir Friday

The Czar of Noir Eddie Muller guides us through another great dark day of classic film noir.

Friday, June 19

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “Cornered” (Edward Dmytryk, 1946).

7:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m.): “Crack-Up” (Irving Reis, 1946). Crooks in the art world face fearless critic. With Pat O’Brien and Claire Trevor.

9:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m.): “Gilda” (Charles Vidor, 1946).

11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “The Big Sleep” (Howard Hawks, 1946).

“The Killers” catapulted Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster to A-list status.

“The Killers” catapulted Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster to A-list status.

1:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m.): “The Killers” (1946, Robert Siodmak).

3:15 p.m. (12:30 p.m.): “Nobody Lives Forever” (Jean Negulesco, 1946). But we wish John Garfield had had a few more decades. Here, he puts the con on Geraldine Fitzgerald, and then falls for her.

6 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Nocturne” (Edwin L. Marin). Mediocre noir from George Raft, the actor who turned down the leads in “The Maltese Falcon” and “High Sierra.”

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “Crossfire” (Edward Dmytryk, 1947).

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Hollow Triumph” (“The Scar”) (Steve Sekely, 1948). Paul Henreid plays a bad guy playing a classy shrink. With Joan Bennett.

Border Incident poster 214

9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “Mystery Street” (John Sturges, 1950).

11:30 p.m. (8: 30 p.m.): “Border Incident” (Anthony Mann, 1949).

1:15 a.m. (10:15 a.m.): “The People Against O’Hara” (John Sturges, 1951). Spencer Tracy and his Milwaukee boyhood pal and Hollywood Irish lunch buddy Pat O’Brien pull some courtroom shenanigans.

9:15 a.m. (12:15 a.m.): “Get Carter” (Mike Hodges, 1971).

Saturday, June 20

2:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m.): “All the King’s Men” (Robert Rossen, 1949).

11:30 p.m. (:30 p.m.): “99 River Street” (Phil Karlson, 1953). Good tough B, with John Payne as a framed cabbie.

1 a.m. (10 p.m.): “The Face Behind the Mask” (Robert Florey, 1941). Peter Lorre as a fire-scarred crime genius.

3:45 a.m. (12:45 am.): “Mean Streets” (Martin Scorsese, 1973).

Nebraska native Montgomery Clift stars as a priest in “I Confess.”

Nebraska native Montgomery Clift stars as a priest in “I Confess.”

Monday, June 22

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “To Have and Have Not” (Howard Hawks, 1944).

Tuesday, June 23

10:45 a.m. (7:45 a.m.): “A Place in the Sun” (George Stevens, 1951).

3 p.m. (12 p.m.): “I Confess” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1953).

9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “The Last of Sheila” (Herbert Ross, 1973). James Mason, James Coburn, Dyan Cannon and murder on a yacht. Plays like an attempted cross of Patricia Highsmith and Agatha Christie.

Film Noir File: Summer of Darkness starts off with a bang

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.

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.”

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).

L.A. Confidential poster 2141:45 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).

Film noir takes center stage as Summer of Darkness returns

We are super excited that Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is going dark on Fridays in June and July with the return of Summer of Darkness, film noir screenings hosted by Eddie Muller, also known as “The Czar of Noir.”

TCM Summer of Darkness 2015The Summer of Darkness programming slate will feature more than 100 noir titles making it the most extensive catalog of noirs ever presented by the network.

Summer of Darkness titles include:

Nightmare Alley poster 150·      “Nora Prentiss” (1947, Vincent Sherman), starring Ann Sheridan and Kent Smith.

·      “Born to Kill” (1947, Robert Wise), starring Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor.

·      “Nightmare Alley” (1947, Edmund Goulding), starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker.

·      “Gun Crazy”(1950, Joseph H. Lewis), starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins.

·      “The Third Man” (1949, Carol Reed), starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard.

·      “L.A. Confidential” (1997, Curtis Hanson) starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger.

Double Indemnity posterTCM first featured Summer of Darkness programming in the summer of 1999.

In addition to the 24-hour on-air programming, fans will also have the opportunity to experience film noir on the big screen when TCM, Fathom Events and Universal Pictures bring Billy Wilder’s 1944 noir classic “Double Indemnity,” starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, to theaters across the country on July 19 and 20.

Count us in! Reviews for most of these titles are on FNB — just hit the search bar on the right.