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). All movies below are from the schedule of TCM, which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).
Pick of the Week
Playing as part of Betty Grable Day.
“I Wake Up Screaming” (1941, H. Bruce Humberstone). Saturday, Aug. 30. 11:45 p.m. (8:45 p.m.).
In the Neglected Works of Noir department, “I Wake Up Screaming” is just crying out for attention.
Director H. Bruce Humberstone made a fun and taut whodunit that’s also a treat for the eyes. The film stars Betty Grable (singer, dancer and pin-up legend in her first dramatic role) and Carole Landis as sisters Jill and Vicky Lynn, who quickly shed their homespun sensibilities as they fend for themselves in New York City. You can read the full review here.
Friday, Aug. 29 (Joseph Cotten Day)
8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “Under Capricorn” (1949, Alfred Hitchcock). With Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Margaret Leighton. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 17, 2012.
11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “The Steel Trap” (1952, Andrew L. Stone.) With Cotten, Teresa Wright and Jonathan Hale. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 26, 2012.
3 p.m. (12 p.m.) “Gaslight” (1944, George Cukor). With Bergman, Charles Boyer, Cotten, Dame May Whitty and Angela Lansbury. Reviewed in FNB on Aug. 26, 2012.
6:45 p.m. (3:45 p.m.): “Journey Into Fear” (1942, Norman Foster & Orson Welles (uncredited). As he would later in “The Third Man,” star Joseph Cotten here plays an innocent American coping with corrupt WW2-era Europe. Based on one of novelist Eric Ambler’s brainy, tense, left-wing spy thrillers and set in war-torn Eastern Europe, the movie was faithfully adapted by the Mercury Theater Company, by their fearless leader, Orson Welles and his designated director Norman Foster. (Cotten also co-wrote the screenplay.) Like too much of Welles’ work, the film was mutilated in the cutting, but it still packs a Wellesian punch. With Dolores Del Rio, Agnes Moorehead and Everett Sloane.
12:15 a.m. (9:15 p.m.): “The Third Man” (1949, Carol Reed). With Cotten, Welles, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard.
2:15 a.m. (11:15 p.m.): “Citizen Kane” (1941, Orson Welles). With Welles, Cotten, Sloane, Dorothy Comingore, Moorehead and Ray Collins. Reviewed in FNB on July 13, 2012.
Saturday, Aug. 30 (Betty Grable Day)
11:45 p.m. (8:45 p.m.): “I Wake Up Screaming” (1941, H. Bruce Humberstone). See Pick of the Week above.
Sunday, Aug. 31 (Alan Ladd Day)
12:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m.): “The Glass Key” (1942, Stuart Heisler). With Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy and William Bendix.
10:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m.): “This Gun for Hire” (1942, Frank Tuttle). With Ladd, Lake, Robert Preston and Laird Cregar.
12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “The Blue Dahlia” (1946, George Marshall). With Ladd, Lake and Bendix.
Wednesday, Sept. 3
12 a.m. ( p.m.): “A Woman’s Face” (1941, George Cukor). With Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Marjorie Main and Henry Daniell. Reviewed in FNB on Jan. 16, 2014.
From FNB readers