By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington
The 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
“Nights of Cabiria” (1957, Federico Fellini). 12 a.m. (9 p.m.); Friday, April 11.
Federico Fellini takes us into the sordid, sinful, falsely glamorous, sometimes oddly appealing and sometimes dangerous night world of Roman prostitution. He and his actress wife Giulietta Masina (the magical waif of “La Strada”) create one of their most memorable characters: the childlike, hard-luck whore, Cabiria – unlucky in love, but lucky in cinema. While the buoyant but put-upon Cabiria is batted back and forth among a succession of awful johns and lovers – a thief, a philandering movie star and a gentle-eyed suitor who may be a killer – she becomes a figure of almost Chaplinesque charm and resilience. Co-written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, costarring Francois Perier, and Amedeo Nazarri, with a wonderful, typically lilting score by Nino Rota. It’s one of Fellini’s masterpieces, and the Oscar winner as 1957’s best foreign language picture.
Is it noir? Well, at least partly. In fact, imagine the same story, shot the same way, in the same stylish black-and-white, but with English-speaking actors in an American city (say, Los Angeles or New York), and you’re thinking, more than likely, of another noir. Of course, the actual American remake, Bob Fosse’s colorful “Sweet Charity,” with Shirley MacLaine, is somewhat brighter and more sentimental, but it was a musical. If anyone was a maker of noir musicals, though, it was Fosse. And, if anyone was a poet of the dark sides of the city, it was Fellini. (In Italian, with subtitles.)
Friday, April 11
10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “The Blue Gardenia” (1953, Fritz Lang). With Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Hammond Burr and Nat King Cole. Reviewed in FNB on May 22, 2013.
12 a.m. (9 p.m.) “Nights of Cabiria” (1937, Federico Fellini). See Pick of the Week.
Saturday, April 12
3:45 a.m. (12:45 a.m.): “Shaft” (1971, Gordon Parks). “Who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?” asks Oscar winning singer-composer (and self-proclaimed Black Moses) Isaac Hayes (Best Song of 1971). The girl chorus answers “Shaft!” (Richard Roundtree) Legendary photographer/writer/ filmmaker Gordon Parks tries his hand at film noir or neo-noir and scores one of the big movie hits of the year. (“Right on!”) With Moses Gunn and Charles Cioffi.
Sunday, April 13
5 a.m. (2 a.m.): “Mildred Pierce” (1945, Michael Curtiz). With Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson and Zachary Scott. Reviewed in FNB on Dec. 11, 2010,
Monday, April 14
7 a.m. (4 a.m.): “The Maltese Falcon” (1941). With Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook, Jr. Reviewed in FNB March 11, 2014.
11 a.m. (8 a.m.): “Gaslight” (B, 1944). With Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury. Reviewed in FNB on Aug. 8, 2012.
1 p.m. (10 a.m.): “Citizen Kane” (1941, Orson Welles). With Welles, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloan and Dorothy Comingore. Reviewed in FNB on July 13, 2012.
5 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Casablanca” (1942). With Bogart, Bergman, Paul Henreid, Greenstreet, Lorre, Marcel Dalio, S. Z. Sakall and Dooley Wilson. Reviewed in FNB on Aug. 25, 2012.
5:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m.): “The Petrified Forest” (1936, Archie Mayo). With Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Bogart and Charley Grapewin. Reviewed in FNB on May 16, 2013.
From FNB readers