Friday, Jan 25 — PEGGY CUMMINS IN PERSON!
Come early for an hour of pre-film entertainment, 7–8 pm in the Castro auditorium, kicking off this year's festival. Then strap yourself in for the 86-minute adrenaline rush that is…
GUN CRAZY
D: Joseph H. Lewis. 1950, United Artists [WB], 86 min.
8:00 PM
This year's program blows out of the starting gate straight into fifth gear with the most audacious work of "outlaw cinema" made during the classic Hollywood era. Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo blasts through the Production Code with the sexually charged story of naive gun lover Bart Tare, whose life runs off the rails once he meets the woman of his darkest dreams, carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr, portrayed in an all-stops-out performance by 24-year-old Peggy Cummins, delivering the most astounding depiction of erotically explosive female ferociousness ever committed to film.
NOIR CITY is honored to welcome Peggy Cummins as its Guest of Honor. She joins Eddie Muller for an onstage conversation immediately following the screening of GUN CRAZY.
Saturday, Jan 26 Matinee — TRIBUTE TO PEGGY CUMMINS, cont'd
CURSE OF THE DEMON
D: Jacques Tourneur. 1957, Columbia [Sony] 95 min.
1:00, 5:00 PM MATINEE
An American psychologist (Dana Andrews) travels to England to discredit the occult beliefs of the "Demon Cult." He's aided by a feisty schoolteacher (Peggy Cummins) whose father may have been killed by the Satanists. This suggestive and suspenseful sojourn into the Black Arts is one of the most spellbinding horror films ever made.
$10 double feature shows start at 1:00 and 3:00 PM
HELL DRIVERS
D: Cy Endfield. 1957, The Rank Organization [Park Circus], 101 min.
3:00 PM MATINEE
An ex-con (Stanley Baker) trying to go straight takes a job driving for a corrupt trucking company, where the bosses pit the drivers against each other in a dangerous competition that leads to higher profits and — death! Peggy Cummins is the saucy secretary who flirts her way through an array of up-and-coming stars. A gear-grinding masterpiece!
NOT ON DVD!
Saturday, Jan 26 Evening — TRIBUTE TO NANCY MYSEL
The Film Noir Foundation will officially announce the Nancy Mysel Legacy Project, created to recognize and financially endow the development of new film preservationists. The Project is a tribute to the manager of the FNF's restoration projects, Nancy Mysel, who passed away in 2012. Her famiily will be present on Saturday night, January 26, to inaugurate the project in which they play a major role.
TRY AND GET ME!
D: Cy Endfield. 1964, United Artists [FNF/UCLA], 91 min.
7:30 PM
The true story of a shocking 1934 kidnapping and murder in San Jose provided the inspiration for one of the most compelling — and unjustly neglected — masterpieces of film noir. Ex-GI Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy), struggling to support his family, meets flashy hoodlum Jerry Slocum (Lloyd Bridges), who eases the gullible Howard into a lucrative life of crime. Their escapade turns dark and desperate when Jerry takes hostage the son of a wealthy local businessman. One of the last films made in the U.S. by blacklisted writer/director Cy Endfield before he relocated to England, Try and Get Me! (originally released as The Sound of Fury) has been restored by the Film Noir Foundation so that it may be experienced in its original form by future generations and assume its rightful status as one of the great films of its era.
WORLD PREMIERE 35mm FNF RESTORATION!!
NOT ON DVD
THE HOODLUM
D: Max Nosseck. 1951, United Artists [UCLA], 61 min.
9:20 PM
An unrelentingly bleak and nasty B programmer (mercifully, it's only 61 minutes!) that stands as a backhanded tribute to its ornery star, the irascible Lawrence Tierney, aka The Meanest Man in the Movies. Six years after making a huge splash as the star of the Oscar-nominated Dillinger, Tierney's meteoric career was in a nosedive as a result of his notoriously drunken, belligerent behavior. The producers of this no-budget wonder reunited the volatile actor with Dillinger director Max Nossek for an even darker plunge into the sordid life of an unrepentant criminal.
35mm RESTORATION!!
NOT ON DVD
Sunday, Jan 27 — Show Biz Noir
REPEAT PERFORMANCE
D: Alfred L. Werker. 1947, Eagle-Lion [UCLA/FNF], 91 min.
1:00, 5:00, 9:10 PM
Consider it the noir version of It's a Wonderful Life. Broadway actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) rings in the New Year by shooting her husband to death. She blurts out a confession to her friend, the poet William Williams (Richard Basehart), but as she leads him to the crime scene . . . the preceding year begins again! Will Sheila be able to correct what went so dreadfully wrong, or will Fate demand a . . . Repeat Performance? Back-stabbing backstage melodrama is crossed with The Twilight Zone. We are proud to resurrect this rare fantasy-noir hybrid in a brand new 35mm restoration, funded in part by the Film Noir Foundation.
PREMIERE 35mm FNF RESTORATION!!
NOT ON DVD
$10 double feature shows start at 1:00, 5:00 and 7:00 PM
SUNSET BOULEVARD
D: Billy Wilder. 1950, Paramount , 110 min.
2:50, 7:00 PM
Not only the ultimate Hollywood noir, Sunset Boulevard is also one of the greatest films ever made, in Hollywood or anywhere else. Beleaguered screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) is thrown by fate into the clutches of aging silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and exploits, for personal gain, her delusional quest for a big-screen comeback. Joe, you should have stuck with the baseball picture. Billy Wilder exerts a master's control over every aspect of the most memorable movie ever made about the scary, mind-altering power of . . . the movies.
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE OF
4K DIGITAL RESTORATION!!
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