French film noir fest starts Friday in San Francisco

Simone Signoret in “Dedee D’Anvers,” one of the films in The French Had a Name for it at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

Simone Signoret in “Dedee D’Anvers,” one of the films in The French Had a Name for it at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

Mick LaSalle of SF Gate reports: “The Roxie Theater is launching a remarkable festival on Friday, Nov. 14, of films you’ve never heard of. Until a couple of weeks ago, I’d never heard of them either. I didn’t know they existed, or even that there were movies of this kind. But now I’ve seen every one of them, and the experience is like finding gold where you thought was rock.

“The festival is called The French Had a Name For It: French Film Noir 1946-1964. Of course, I knew that the French adored American noir and that the French critics gave the genre its name. But I had no idea they were also churning out noirs themselves, nor that they were doing them so well.

“Some of these films are great. Some are very good. And some are completely insane.”

Read the rest of his story here.

Oh, how I would love to dash up north for this festival!

But I’m not complaining. We at FNB are fully immersed in the AFI Fest by Audi, which runs through Thursday in Hollywood.