film noir

Just saw something about Richard Fleischer by Dave Kehr in the Times- a few films showing at the Walter Reade and Film Comment in the coming weeks.

Oh man just saw Night and the City starring Richard Widmark. One of the bleakest noir films I've ever seen. Widmark is amazing in it.

Richard Fleischer thing starts on Friday at FF. It's in color- in Cinemascope!

Wow this 1948 UK film Daughter of Darkness was just given dvd reissue by Redemption films. It's both British noir and femme fatale wrapped in one with plenty of chiaroscuro and gothic vibe. Definitely recommended.

http://www.thelmagazine.com/images/blogimages/2009/09/30/1254335093-daughterofdarkness.jpg

I think I'm noir illiterate. Watching the big sleep - drunk, granted - and I can't make a lick of sense out of it.

iirc an actor approached hawks before filming the scene for his death. "i know my lines, howard," he said, "but who kills me?" and hawks thinks for a second and says "well hell, i'm not sure. hang on." so he rings faulkner, who wrote the screenplay, and he asks him "hey bill, who kills this guy?" and faulkner says "damn howard, I'm not sure. hang on." and he telegrams chandler "who killed butler STOP hawks wants to know STOP"

next day hawks gets a telegram: "hell if i know--ray"

iyigd

why chandler had to telegram hawks when they were in the same city is beyond me, but i fuckin love that story

I thought Chandler's line was actually "who cares?" which I think is funnier.

Isn't there some companion story of Hawks saying something to the effect that making that movie taught him that the plot didn't really have to make sense?

the studio thought the original was boring and made him do reshoots. the result capitalized on the bogart-bacall relationship but made less sense.

hawks continued to make films whose scripts were well-crafted by conventional standards.

later people began to interview this great maestro, this incomparable innovator of cinematic form, and he made up some stories that made him sound cool but don't really accord with the facts.

I'll buy that.

the original cut is on the US DVD and it gives an explanation for the chauffeur's death.

Anyone seen Nightmare Alley? I have seen most of the classics save, Detour and this. Think I like Kiss Me Deadly or Gun Crazy best.

Spent last week at the Noir City festival - always tremendous, especially with Eddie Muller's commentary.

nightmare alley is good, tyrone power trying to ditch the pretty boy rep

AFI Silver has just announced its 2019 Noir City DC lineup: https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/EventsAndExperiences/EventDetails/0000000010

Not sure yet which screenings I plan to attend, but a couple of them will be free co-presentations with the National Gallery of Art. And last year I liked Muller's intro to both versions of The Killers.