I WAKE UP DREAMING 2011: THE LEGENDARY & THE LOST

[Lzcutter]

Elliot,

Marco and I are planning on being there for the 3:30 matinee on Saturday. Guess we better plan on getting there a tad earlier than we scheduled.

Can't wait to see you and ChiO!

[ChiO]

It's off to beautiful O'Hare.

See you tonight, Dewey, with the Mysterious Mook in tow, perhaps. I hope that Mrs. Dewey will be noiring it tonight as well.

See you Saturday, Lynn & Marco.

Let the chiaroscuro begin!

[ChiO]

Jay North.

The mind of a film programmer must be fascinating terrain. Thinking of a general theme, then the movies that fit within that theme, and then trying to get what is available seems to be an insurmountable task. But, then, to select which film goes with what to make that perfect double feature? It has to be extraordinarily difficult, but very fulfilling when the perfect match is made.

Jay North.

SMOOTH AS SILK (1946) is manipulation, frame-ups, and double-crossing squared. And true B-noir fare -- not a knock-out, but quite fun waiting to see who gets stuck with the murder rap. Starring Kent Tayor, Virginia Grey (THE NAKED KISS, CRIME OF PASSION), Milburn Stone (not playing a doctor) and John Litel (THE MADONNA'S SECRET, a favorite from an I Wake Up Dreaming a year or two ago). Uncredited appearances by Chester Conklin and Joe Kirk.

Directed by Charles Barton, yes, of many, many Abbott & Costello movies, and shot by the phenomenal Woody Bredell, cinematographer of CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY, PHANTOM LADY (shown on the first night of the festival), THE KILLERS (1946), THE UNSUSPECTED and my favorite, FEMALE JUNGLE.

Jay North.

CUSTOMS AGENT (1950) fits more into that '50s docu-noir sensibility, focusing on the exploits of a -- can you guess? -- customs agent wracked with guilt over the death of his partner, a death that perhaps he could have prevented. But this does give him the opportunity to not only avenge his death, but stop a drug smuggling ring. Starring William Eythe, with Jim Backus, Denver Pyle and an uncredited (wasn't he always?) John Doucette. Direceted by Seymour Friedman, with cinematography by Philip Tannura (THE RETURN OF THE WHISTLER, NIGHT EDITOR, STRANGE ILLUSION and, coming up soon in a Roxie near you, DANGEROUS BLONDES).

Jay North

Seymour Friedman was the Production Supervisor of a TV series known as Dennis the Menace. The director of the vast majority of episodes? Charles Barton.

Jay North -- the noir tie that binds these two movies.

And thank you, as always, to our gracious hosts, Mr. & Mrs. Dewey.

[ChiO]

A detour to a strange illusion.

What is Noir? Or, what is not Noir? My formulation: Noir = Whatever Dewey includes in his I Wake Up Dreaming series.

A detour to a strange illusion, indeed.

CAFE HOSTESS (1940) comes right at the start of the conventional beginning of the Classic Age of Noir. Hostesses...B-Girls...you know...women who create a strange illusion of genuine interest in men with money in their pockets. But that money takes a detour from those pockets. It's a living, but not much of one if you're Ann Dvorak, who wants to get out from under the thumb of stiff jawed Preston Foster, the man forcing the creation of the strange illusion. Maybe Bruce Bennett will save her before he becomes just another man with a knife in his back. This is definitely a transitional movie, bridging crime melodrama and social issue (or, exploitation, if you prefer) movies of the '30's and the grittier social psychological films to come in the early '40s. Directed by Sidney Salkow (CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL, THE LONE WOLF series), shot by Benjamin H. Kline (ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK, DON'T KNOCK THE ROCK, RUMBLE ON THE DOCKS) whose framing and lighting of two or three scenes on an apartment stairway screams NOIR, and co-written by Tay Garnett.

Another detour to a strange illusion.

Whoever says that Noir may have comical moments, but that it cannot be a comedy, has not seen DANGEROUS BLONDES (1943). One part THE THIN MAN, one part Preston Sturges (hey, William Demarest provides much of the comedy, but not nearly all of it), one part drawing room comedy and one part standard Screwball Comedy, this had the audience in stitches. So, where's the Noir? First, there are brutal murders that need to be solved...but will it be by the police or the intrepid murder-mystery author? Second, there is a Noir cast for the ages: Edmund Lowe, Allyn Joselyn, Evelyn Keyes (!) and Ann Savage (!! -- who just happens to end up strangled...hmmm....). Directed by Leigh Jason (THE MAD MISS MANTON, and the under-appreciated Arch Hall, Jr./Bruno VeSota vehicle, THE CHOPPERS) and photographed by Philip Tannura, who also was DP for the previous night's CUSTOMS AGENT. This movie joins HIS GIRL FRIDAY on my Noir comedy list.

And there is the detour to a strange illusion. Ann Savage, of course, was in DETOUR. And DETOUR's cinematographer was Benjamin H. Kline, who also was an uncredited cinematographer for STRANGE ILLUSION, which was credited to Philip Tannura. It was an Ulmer night ,once removed.

Yes, the mind of a programmer consists of a detour to a strange illusion.

And kudos to Dewey for such breathtakingly bold programming choices on the edge of Noir.

[Lzcutter]

Well, we survived the non-Rapture at the Roxy Theater this evening. Marco (moraldorubini) and I joined ChiO and Dewey for an afternoon/evening of rare film noir.

Ride the Pink Horse was up first. As soon as I saw the credits, I was reminded that we were making of habit of seeing the talented Montgomery family on the big screen. Last year at this same time, we went to Dewey's fest to see Cop Killer and Johnny Cool. Cool co-starred Robert's talented daughter, Elizabeth. Pink Horse starred her dad, Robert. It was definitely the better of the two films.

Almost all of it was shot on soundstages but the opening shot of a vintage Greyhound bus was fun as were the establishing shots of Santa Fe in 1947. Thomas Gomez, looking a bit like Edmund O'Brien in The Wild Bunch stole the movie. Fred Clark as the big bad was on-hand as well. The script was by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer and that definitely helped.

ChiO had seen I Love Trouble earlier in the afternoon and warned us that Franchot Tone was the weak link in the film. Boy, was he right. The star of the movie for me was post-war Los Angeles. From the opening shots of Westwood in 1948, I was in heaven. Westwood Village has changed a great deal in the almost 40 years I have been here but some of the buildings are still standing and I recognized immediately the old Bank of America building.

From there the plot took us down to Venice with a shot of the old Ocean Park amusement park and it's giant ferris wheel. And oil derricks everywhere. And I mean everywhere, like every three feet. Working oil derricks in neighborhoods, in business areas, everywhere. I think Curtis Hanson must have watched this film prior to making LA Confidential.

The downtown financial area, mid-Wilshire, Beverly Hills, all those location shots made this City of Angels girl suddenly very home-sick.

The movie, co-starring Janet Blair, Janis Carter and the always wonderful, Glenda Farrell were joined by John Ireland and a duo of heavies (one of which is an incredibly young Raymond Burr) that are more comedy than intended.

Eduardo Ciannelli even had a scene or two.

Written by Roy Huggins (from his popular novel), Franchot Tone played private detective Stuart Bailey. Efrem Zimbalist, jr would have much more luck with the character of Stuart Bailey when Huggins took the idea to television and produced the series, 77 Sunset Strip.

Dewey was able to secure actual prints and the audience was appreciative. The big reveal in Trouble took some of the audience by surprise and that was fun.

All and all, much more fun and better than any Rapture could have been.

[ChiO]

Happy Birthday to Bob & Ray!, Or: My Afternoon with Lynn & Marco

This double feature was a birthday salute to Robert Montgomery and Raymond Burr.

First up, I LOVE TROUBLE (1948). I'm never purported to be a fan of Franchot Tone, but with a cast including Janet Blair, Cinemaven fave Janis Carter, Glenda "Torchy Blane" Farrell, Tom Powers, Eduardo "Waldo" Ciannelli, Raymond Burr, and John "If I Were Odder Looking I'd Be Timothy Carey" Ireland, that weak link can be ignored. Secret identities, double-crosses, and frame-ups in a plot nearly as convoluted as THE BIG SLEEP's, this was a very enjoyable tale of Detective Tone's search for the secret of a politician's wife's past life...even the second time I sat through it, first alone, then with Lynn and Marco. Suitably hardboiled dialogue by Roy Huggins in his first movie script. Shot by Charles Lawton (Boetticher Westerns and THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI).

RIDE THE PINK HORSE (1947), directed by and starring Robert Montgomery, was released the same year as LADY IN THE LAKE, which made it a pretty good year for our birthday boy. The hardest of hardboiled dialogue was provided by Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and an uncredited Joan Harrison for Montgomery's war weary veteran's blackmail and revenge plot against the evil Fred Clark in a border town, San Pablo. Montgomery is aided by the mysterious innocent naif Wanda Hendrix and loyal Thomas Gomez, and thwarted by the beautiful Andrea King. And in only his fourth screen appearance, the ubiquitous and uncredited John Doucette portrays...what else?...a thug. During the second screening, I had a dream of two men in a projection room after watching this film:

Samuel (shooting a pistol in the air): Dammit, Orson, I was planning this movie.
Orson: (furiously writing a 58 page memo): So was I, Sammy. Now what?
Samuel: Well, I was thinking. Maybe I switch the action to New York, get a streetwise gal, like Thelma Ritter, to replace the mouse and have the cynical protagonist, maybe Widmark, give the faux-patriotism speech instead of the big bad guy.
Orson: Not bad. I'll keep the locale, but change the name to Los Robles. And those long tracking shots...I'll keep those, but make the first one even longer. Maybe I'll use the same cinematographer, Russell Metty, just to make sure. And I'll keep the naif, but make her the protagonist's new wife. Will we be able to get away with this?
Samuel: Sure, big guy. Someday people will watch almost any movie they want right in their homes. Mine'll be so good, some fancypants label'll release it, and yours will probably be released in three or four versions. RIDE THE PINK HORSE? It'll never be released.

[ChiO]

The Roxie Salutes Edmond O'Brien, Or: My Afternoon with Lisa

After Mook Ryan and I enjoyed a lovely brunch (note to self: Is it hipsterish or pathetic to eat in a place where you could be the parent of everyone at every other table?), followed by dessert at Bi-Rite (Thanks for the tip, Marco! I was assured that the salted caramel and basalmic strawberry, when combined, cancelled out all calories.), we settled in for THE WEB (1947) and 711 OCEAN DRIVE (1950), both starring Edmond O'Brien.

THE WEB, directed by Michael Gordon and shot by Irving Glassberg (OUTSIDE THE WALL, THE STORY OF MOLLY X), has O'Brien as the Everyman Good Guy, a struggling lawyer hired by Vincent Price to protect him, but framed in the murder of Price's former business partner. William Bendix, an old friend of O'Brien's father, is the cop trying to solve the crime. And Ella Raines is Price's personal secretary and O'Brien's love interest. Although I couldn't argue that this is anything out of the ordinary, something about it was absolutely entrancing. Maybe it was the interaction between Price and O'Brien -- almost father-and-son, but with an undercurrent of malevolence. Some interesting uncredited appearances: Ed Begley, Ruth Roman, and Jack Gargan, who (according to IMDb, so it must be true) made 204 screen appearances, including CITIZEN KANE, without a single credit.

I've long been a fan of 711 OCEAN DRIVE (1950). O'Brien portrays the Everyman Bad Guy who parleys his job as a telephone lineman to helping modernize a bookie wire service to taking over the wire service to joining the Syndicate to dead man. Directed by Joseph M. Newman, shot by Franz Planer -- another Austro-Hungarian cinematographer (what was in that water?) -- who has FACE BEHIND THE MASK, THE CHASE, LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, CRISS CROSS, 99 RIVER STREET, and THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR. T on his resume. Co-starring Joanne Dru and the ever suave-evil Otto Kruger.

[JackFavell]

Ha! That conversation you dreamt is priceless.

P.S. Love your reviews. Hope there's more to come!

[CineMaven]

Yay! A shout out to Janis Carter. ChiO, sounds like you had an all-'round good time..in and out of the movie theatre. < ( sigh! ) > I must plan better for next year. Nice recounts.

[ChiO]

My final night at the Roxie...and the double feature that I built the trip around...with both movies introduced by Johnny Legend (who, of course, was introduced by our most gracious of Noir hosts, Dewey).

Lenny Bruce wrote and starred in DANCE HALL RACKET (1953), a sordid story of a dance hall where the seamen patrons get clipped by the one-ticket, one-dance ladies. But it is also a cover for a smuggling enterprise that Customs is investigating. The dance hall boss is one of the great screen presences, Timothy Farrell (JAIL BAIT, GLEN OR GLENDA). Bruce is his top henchman with a penchant for killing on a dime with his switchblade (Big deal! I killed a guy, it just makes me a criminal.). And the ladies...oh, the ladies.... One is Honey Bruce (Lenny's wife) and the matron is Sally Marr (Lenny's mother). Sally, by the way, does a mean Charleston. Harry Keaton, Buster's brother, also appears. Phil Tucker, famed director/producer of ROBOT MONSTER, directed, and George Weiss (GLEN OR GLENDA, four OLGA movies) produced. Think VARIETEASE (without Bettie Page, unfortunately) with comic burlesque bits, glimpses of forbidden female body parts between the shoulders and knees, and a narrative. This film lived the Noir life.

And then, finally, seeing THE VIOLENT YEARS (1956) on a screen larger than my TV screen. A nightmare come true! This is the distillation and summation of all of America's 1950s neuroses. Juvenile delinquency, female sexuality, female aggression, pregnancy out-of-wedlock, absentee parenthood in the middle class, and the foreign menace. Only from the pen of Edward D. Wood, Jr. A middle-class gang of attractive thrill seeking high school girls runs rampant, robbing gas stations, vandalizing the school, and sexually assaulting an unsuspecting pretty boy. Led by the daughter of the local newspaper editor...and right under his and his wife's unsuspecting noses (Juvenile delinquency is the result of adult delinquency.). But the crime spree comes to an end due to the local police force led by -- ah, the presence --Timothy Farrell. Unfortunately, some of the girls and a cop had to pay the ultimate price...death...including the gang leader, who died in the reformatory while giving birth to a girl. And her parents? They are denied custody of the baby due to their demonstrated lack of parental abilities. As the father learned: It does no good to look back. It can only be more of a hurt. We must now look forward, using the past only as a pattern of judgment for the future. (Didn't Criswell reprise this?) This was William Morgan's last directing assignment, but he stayed busy as editor of Lassie (other editing credits included PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and SONG OF THE SOUTH). Cinematographer William C. Thompson belongs in the sub-Poverty Row Hall of Fame due to his work on MANIAC, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, DEMENTIA, JAIL BAIT, GLEN OR GLENDA, and NIGHT OF THE GHOULS.

What a fitting end to this journey to the dark edges of Noir. Thank you, Dewey!

[Dewey1960]

ChiO, the pleasure was all mine!! It was a great honor to have you come all the way out to San Francisco to help celebrate this wonderful series! The scintillating summaries you provided of your experiences at the Roxie have been an absolute delight; many thanks for taking the time to do them! As soon as thing ends (Thursday night), I'll post my own observations. Thanks again for being here!

[Dewey1960]

Now that the dust is beginning to clear around the Roxie in the wake of this season's annual film noir blow-out—I WAKE UP DREAMING 2011: THE LEGENDARY AND THE LOST, I can kick back a little and reflect on some of the highlights of this incredible series. In chronological order, these are the moments that really filled me with tremendous pride and satisfaction:
Friday, May 13: PHANTOM LADY / DEMENTIA. This is a double feature I have longed to present, two seemingly very different films with similar dark concerns. Each features a heroine who is determined to find out the truth behind a nightmarish situation: Ella Raines in PHANTOM LADY has but a few short days to find the real murderer of her employer's faithless wife. Adrienne Barrett in DEMENTIA takes a fateful nocturnal fling through the streets of skid row in order to catch up with her own fragile sanity. Both films brilliantly utilize jazz club settings in order to create disturbing juxtapositions. A near capacity crowd went totally wild for this killer combo!

Saturday, May 14: MINISTRY OF FEAR. It's amazing to me that this key Fritz Lang film, made during his absolute Hollywood heyday, has gone without a DVD release. For that matter, it's also been completely ignored by other noir “festivals.” How can this be? Everyone else's loss was the Roxie audience's gain; a gorgeous 35mm print of an essential noir classic!

Sunday, May 15: THE SPIRITUALIST (THE AMAZING MR. X) / NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES. Two magnificent examples of supernatural noir, both managing to elicit genuine emotion from their respective cinematic treatments: NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES with its tragic nuances derived from the twisted prose of Cornell Woolrich; THE SPIRITUALIST by means of the spectacular cinematography of John Alton. A grand and gloomy time was had by all!

Monday, May 16: GUILTY BYSTANDER and C-MAN. Two unapologetically threadbare poverty row gems from a director (Joseph Lerner) no one seems to know anything about. These two films came to us courtesy of our wonderful friend Paul Meienberg in excellent 16mm prints. The audience was 100% enrolled in these two, fully aware of their raggedy-ass significance in the noir spectrum.

Tuesday, May 17: ONCE A THIEF and THE GREAT FLAMARION. Another great evening of 16mm brilliance, and an inadvertent tribute to Billy Wilder's older brother, W. Lee Wilder. The elder Wilder produced Anthony Mann's FLAMARION and directed ONCE A THIEF. I wish someone (other than myself) would start to sing this man's praises; his contributions, while not to all tastes, is proof alone of his eccentric and worthwhile talent.

Wednesday, May 18: RUTHLESS. I've wanted to put this Edgar G. Ulmer classic up on the Roxie screen for years, and this year proved to be the long-awaited time. The gorgeous 35mm print came to us courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archives and it knocked everyone out! In attendance was Mr. Ulmer's grandson, now a resident of San Francisco.

Thursday, May 19: SMOOTH AS SILK. Yet another B gem yet to emerge on DVD. This 63 minute noir potboiler, photographed by the incredible Woody Bredell, looks awesome on the big screen. It was very warmly and enthusiastically received by the Roxie crowd!

Friday, May 20: DANGEROUS BLONDES and CAFE HOSTESS. Who would have thought that an intentional comedy (in the Nick and Nora manner) would find a responsive reception at a hard-boiled noir series like this one? DANGEROUS BLONDES was perhaps one of the most wildly appreciated films in the line-up, drawing huge laughs throughout and thunderous applause at the end. I had nightmares all week leading up to this night, fearful that the crowd would simply not find it funny or appropriate. Not only was I wrong, I was really wrong! CAFE HOSTESS, while not necessarily noir in the strictest sense of the word, pleased the crowd as well. The director, Sidney Salkow, a man not known as a premier stylist, invests the film with many tasty touches that elevate to something beyond a mere B picture. Besides, the moment Ann Dvorak hits the screen, you just can't help but accept everything thrown your way. A shame she didn't make more tough-minded films in the noir vein during the 40s.

Saturday, May 21: RIDE THE PINK HORSE. One of the most truly memorable nights of the series for me. This is a film I've tried to nail down for years. Each time I tried to book it from Universal the response was the same: no prints available. On a lark, I shot them an email requesting it for this series, and miraculously enough, they came through. A major coup to my way of looking at it. This has been one of those films that everyone's heard of but relatively few have seen. Despite the individual carping about Robert Montgomery's acting style, the majority of the crowd loved it.

Sunday, May 22: 711 OCEAN DRIVE and THE WEB. Edmond O'Brien. “Nuff said.

Monday, May 23: THE VIOLENT YEARS and DANCE HALL RACKET. Kindly refer to ChiO's brilliant post.

Tuesday, May 24: CELL 2455, DEATH ROW. This B movie retelling of the Caryl Chessman story caught most people by surprise. Chessman, of course, was the man sentenced to death in San Quentin's gas chamber on rape and kidnapping charges. Many believe that his life should have been spared due to inconclusive findings. At the time this film was made (1955) he was still five years away from his ultimate fate. CELL 2455, DEATH ROW is not only a poignant saga of a young man's downward spiral, but also a thrilling crime noir in its own right.

Thursday, May 26: KISS ME DEADLY and WITNESS TO MURDER. Two all-time favorites from the fifties and the perfect way to close the series! A sell-out crowd was on hand to gape in disbelief at Robert Aldrich's subversive rehashing of Mickey Spillane's pulp novel. The brilliance of Ernest Laszlo's razor sharp cinematography and A. I. Bezzerides' tough-minded screenplay combine to create one of noir's true mastepieces—that much more so on the big screen! As for WITNESS TO MURDER, one only has two, no make that three words to say: Alton, Stanwyck, and Sanders! The finale, (spoiler alert!) which finds villain Sanders plummeting to his death from atop a skyscraper elicited the kind of hysterical cheering usually associated with Saturday afternoon serials!

All in all this was a hugely successful event and I'm extremely grateful for the wonderful reception these (and the other) films received at the Roxie! It also goes without saying that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing ChiO, Mook Ryan, Lynn, and Marco in the house!

[kingrat]

Dewey, congratulations on what sounds like a great series. Thank you, Lynn, and ChiO for your terrific posts. It's clear that your audience loves what you do for them.

[CineMaven]

Dewey...congratulations on a successful film festival. If you program it, they will come. It's obvious the love and care you give to programming this San Francisco staple. Kudoes and congratulations to you!

[Dewey1960]

Thank you, Maven. And next time you WILL be there!