Note: Special start time
Turner Classic Movie host and Film Noir Foundation President Eddie Muller returns with a selection of crime classics, half in rare 35mm film prints, with a focus on women related to his book Dark City Dames.
Saturday 1pm
The Narrow Margin (1952). RKO. 71 minutes. 35mm.
Marie Windsor gives one of her signature performances in this heralded thriller, one most inventive B films of the classic noir era. Set mostly on a train rife with killers, a tough cop (Charles McGraw) is assigned to haul a mobster’s wife to L.A. to testify against a gang of mobsters. It’s a toss-up as to what’s more exciting—Richard Fleischer’s propulsive handling of the spirited action sequences or Windsor and McGraw, chest to chest, spewing hardboiled insults at each other all the way from Chicago to L.A. Earl Felton’s dialogue snaps, crackles, and pops, and Fleischer’s dynamic direction is explosive enough to have blasted him out of the B unit and into the ranks ofHollywood’s preeminent directors for the next thirty-five years.
Kiss of Death (1947). 20th Century–Fox. 99 minutes. DCP.
A timeless crime drama, superbly written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, featuring a memorable performance from Victor Mature. He’s an ex-con who refuses to play ball with the assistant D.A. (Brian Donlevy)—until he’s double crossed by his psychopathic partner in crime, Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark, in his unforgettable cackling-hyena debut). Coleen Gray, in one of her earliest roles, provides the spark of hope and the rare noir voiceover by a woman. Vibrant direction by Henry Hathaway in the “semi-documentary” style—meaning shot on-location in New York City. Perhaps the definitive “prestige” noir made at 20th Century–Fox, Kiss of Death remains one of the essential crime films.
This is one of four double features in the Noir City Film Festival. Check out our other screenings here:
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All-Access Passes are available here:
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