By Michael Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde
The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir, sort of 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
Ann Blyth is the venal daughter opposite Joan Crawford (and her shoulder pads) in “Mildred Pierce.” Blyth is slated to attend the TCM film fest later this month.
“Mildred Pierce” (1945, Michael Curtiz). With Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth and Jack Carson. Friday, April 5, 8 p.m. (5 p.m.). Read the full review here.
Sunday, April 7
3:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m.): “Double Indemnity” (1944, Billy Wilder). With Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson.
8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Spellbound” (1945, Alfred Hitchcock). With Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Diabolique” (1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot). With Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, and Charles Vanel. (In French, with subtitles.)
12 a.m. (9 p.m.)” “Blackmail” (1929, Alfred Hitchcock). Hitchcock’s first talkie: a thriller about a young London woman (Anny Ondra) who kills her would-be rapist (Cyril Ritchard), and then is blackmailed. The film was originally planned (and partially shot) as a silent movie and the transition to sound is sometimes a little clumsy. But the chills and invention and the fascination with perverse psychology are all recognizably Hitchcock.
2 a.m. (11 p.m.) “The Murderer Lives at Number 21” (1942, Henri-Georges Clouzot). Clouzot, one of the kings of French noir, grips and thrills and teases us with this dark-hued, very cynical and very smart murder mystery about a suave inspector (Pierre Fresnay of “Grand Illusion”) pursuing a serial killer. It’s also a stinging portrait of life in wartime Paris. With Suzy Delair. (In French, with subtitles.)
Monday, April 8
8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Roxie Hart” (1942, William Wellman). If there’s such a thing as comedy noir, here’s one of the classics: the breezy, cynical tale of a loose-moralled Chicago showgirl (Ginger Rogers) who tries to parley a highly publicized murder trial into song-and-dance stardom. This is the movie, remade from a 1927 Cecil B. DeMille silent picture, that was later refashioned into the Tony-winning Bob Fosse show, which became the Oscar-winning 2002 Rob Marshall movie musical “Chicago.” (“He had it coming!”) With Adolphe Menjou, George Montgomery and Phil Silvers; written by Nunnally Johnson.
9:30 p.m. (6:30 p.m.): “Knock on Any Door” (1949, Nicholas Ray). Star Humphrey Bogart and director Nick Ray combine for this dark, near-tragic study of the relationship between a social-reformer defense lawyer (Bogie) and a pretty-boy juvenile delinquent (John Derek), a bad kid whose motto is “Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse.” Based on the novel by Willard Motley.
11:15 p.m. (8:15 p.m.): “Compulsion” (1959, Richard Fleischer). With Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. Reviewed on FNB March 20, 2013.
1:15 a.m. (10:15 p.m.): “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959, Otto Preminger). With James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara and George C. Scott.
Tuesday, April 9
2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.): “Three Strangers” (1946, Jean Negulesco). With Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. Reviewed on FNB August 8, 2012.
From FNB readers