10 Films
3 Days
1 historic theater
Film noir is revolutionary. The cinematic style permeated the American psyche, leaving a permanent imprint on all genres produced today. The gritty characters in these films often inhabit a surrealistic world, and as they navigate danger and double crossers we escape into their realm and imagine how we might also evade similar perils.
Join us at the Wheeling Scottish Rite Cathedral's Art Deco theater for three days of electrifying Film Noir programming. Each of the 10 films screened throughout the fest will be accompanied by its own guest presenter who will discuss a variety of subjects related to each film.
For specific screening dates/times and ticket sales, please visit our TICKET link.
Detour (1945), Poverty Row Studios, 67 minutes
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Screenplay: Martin Goldsmith
Cinematographer: Benjamin H. Kline
Starring: Tom Neal & Ann Savage
Down and out musician, Al Roberts (played by Tom Neal), trails his starry-eyed girlfriend to Hollywood and encounters a mysterious man on a lonesome desert highway, forever altering his future. Further led astray by a feral hitchhiker named Vera (played by Ann Savage), Al tumbles on the unforgiving streets of Downtown Los Angeles. There’s zero fluff in this 67-minute crime story. This is a flawless portrayal of desperate characters navigating a society still reeling from the Great Depression, cranked out by a little B-movie studio that could.
Producer & Filmmaker, Bitten Heine, shares the often overlooked history of low budget filmmaking during the golden era of Hollywood, and how Edgar Ulmer's shoestring production budget resulted in a hardboiled jewel.
Nightmare Alley (1947), 20th Century Fox, 111 minutes
Director: Edmund Goulding
Screenplay: Jules Furthman
(based on Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham)
Cinematographer: Lee Garmes
Starring: Tyrone Power & Joan Blondell
Tyrone Power’s performance as a ghoulish carnival grifter in Nightmare Alley shattered his romantic lead typecast and introduced an audience to the murky depths a man can sink when possessed by the pursuit of prominence. While his dark pathology is reflected in the caravan of sideshow performers he travels with, glimpses of humanity emerge in the surroundings despite a bleak foreshadowing. A potent presentation of the world inhabited by phony spiritualists, human oddities, and a working class on the fringe. This horror dappled Noir restructured the genre and paved a new path in filmmaking possibilities.
Special Guest Presenters, Mr. Arm & Velda Von Minx visit us from the Trundle Manor in Pittsburgh to fascinate us with stories of sideshow oddities in both fiction and non-fiction form, as well as the eerie mechanics involved in the making of Nightmare Alley.
Sudden Fear (1952) RKO Radio Pictures, 110 minutes
Director: David Miller
Screenplay: Lenore J. Coffee
(based on Sudden Fear by Edna Sherry)
Cinematographer: Charles Lang
Starring: Joan Crawford & Jack Palance
Playwright, Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford), relies on her keen sense of character to create sensational scenes on Broadway, and believes her instincts are equally accurate about a budding romance with stage actor Lester Blaine (Jack Palance). As their whirlwind courtship hurtles towards wedding vows, Myra stumbles upon evidence that could steer her from danger if she dares to conjure up a real-life cat and mouse plot. A quintessential nail-biter of a film, as only David Miller could direct, where Joan Crawford channels her silent film chops and delivers, arguably, the finest performance of her career.
Special Guest Presentation TBA
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) 20th Century Fox, 95 minutes
Director: Otto Preminger
Screenplay: Ben Hecht
(based on Night Cry by William L. Stuart)
Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle
Starring: Dana Andrews & Gene Tierney
Otto Preminger’s examination of a nocturnal metropolis inhabited by disenchanted outsiders is delivered through the lens of hard-nosed police detective, Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews). Prone to roughing up suspects to get his leads, he walks a tightrope back at the station when word of his unconventional methods reaches the top brass. A series of unexpected events during an investigation places Dixon at a crime scene he produced, and his frantic attempt to cover his tracks tests his true caliber. Enchanted by the equally misanthropic, but gorgeous, Morgan Taylor (Gene Tierney), Dixon must finally choose between his oath to the badge or his desire to be loved.
Special Guest Presenter, retired Detective Robertson travels from the West to Wheeling to share her perspective on Otto Preminger's portrayal of a Post War police detective in reflection of her career in investigations. What is the Film Noir detective archetype, and how does it translate to real life police work?
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) United Artists, 119 minutes
Director: Otto Preminger
Screenplay: Walter Newman, Lewis Meltzer, Ben Hecht
(based on The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren)
Cinematographer: Sam Leavitt
Starring: Frank Sinatra & Kim Novack
All Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) has ever wanted to do is play drums with a big band, and after a stint in the slammer, he’s back home in the North Side Chicago, and determined to stay clean for a big break. His loyal lady, Zosh (Eleanor Parker), is confined to a wheelchair and in chronic despair about their future. Lack of work, a strained relationship, and a scattered mind ushers Frankie towards a wayward path, but with the intervention of an old flame (Kim Novack), his luck might finally change. With a phenomenal film score arranged and conducted by Elmer Bernstein, the musical ingenuity matched with Preminger’s vision is impossible to eclipse.
Special Guest Historian and Author, Gary Rider, shares the history of complexities faced by WWII veterans, including the rarely discussed struggles with addiction and mental health. Frank Sinatra's portrayal of a veteran was a bold role to accept during an era where many veterans lived in silence. Mr. Rider’s presentation is titled, Addiction: A Coping Method for Veterans.
Brute Force (1947) Universal Pictures, 98 minutes
Director: Jules Dassin
Screenplay: Richard Brooks
Cinematographer: William H Daniels
Starring: Burt Lancaster & Hume Cronyn
This prison Noir delivers a wallop with a formidable cast of defiant inmates filmed with such stark realism; it feels as though you’re sharing a cell inside the Westgate Prison’s tyrannical walls. Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) is locked up with a bonded group of convicts while navigating a diabolical Chief of Security, Captain Munsey (Hume Cronyn). While the residents ponder the poor choices and dumb luck that led to their incarceration, they grapple with the threat from inside and plot a good old fashioned rebellion.
Presenter Kirby Pringle, PhD (Film/Music Historian & Writer), shares background on prison culture and the brutality that makes the California prison system the nation’s most violent. Pringle worked for a few years inside a half-dozen of the golden state’s prisons and will give commentary on the incredible sets, design, and art production in Brute Force that rendered the film unforgettable. He will discuss the true story that inspired the movie and the social conditions that made recidivism a major concern for politicians and society. Additionally, he also has some personal connections to some of the actors in the film that he will share with us.
Gilda (1946) Columbia Pictures, 110 minutes
Director: Charles Vidor
Screenplay: Marion Parsonnet & Ben Hecht
Cinematographer: Rudolph Mate
Starring: Rita Hayworth & Glenn Ford
A dreamy Buenos Aires serves as a backdrop for Rita Hayworth’s emblematic role as Gilda Mundson, a femme fatale capable of seducing anything with a pulse. Glenn Ford plays Johnny Farrell, a vagabond gambler who shares a history with Gilda, unbeknownst to her newlywed husband and casino owner, Ballin Mundson (George Macready). As the star-crossed former lovers pretend to not know each other, pitfalls ensue, but Gilda’s glamour remains intact.
Special Guest Presenter TBA
Elevator to the Gallows (1958), Nouvelles Editions de France, 95 minutes
Director: Luis Malle
Screenplay: Roger Nimier & Louis Malle
(based on Frantic by Noel Calif)
Cinematographer: Henri Decai
Starring: Jeanne Moreau & Maurice Ronet
Sometimes referred to the “Hitchcock of France”, Luis Malle’s conception of hedonistic lovers unsettled by their ruinous actions was a foundational film for the French New Wave movement. The streets of Paris at night are decadently animated in the background while our main characters frantically seek a way out of their self-imposed disasters, driven by a desire for romance and escape. A score by Miles’ Davis saunters seductively alongside the entirety of the story, as we observe deception, violence, longing, and self-redemption unfold onscreen. It would be almost impossible to find a movie that makes you feel quite as hip watching it as this eternally sophisticated Noir.
Special Guest Presenter TBA
Pick Up on South Street (1953), 20th Century Fox, 80 minutes
Director: Sam Fuller
Screenplay: Sam Fuller
Cinematographer: Joseph MacDonald
Starring: Richard Widmark & Jean Peters
The streets of NYC are jammed with criminals, and survivalism is high in Sam Fuller’s Cold War vision of an urban crime story. Skip McCoy (played by the always impressive Richard Widmark) is a dastardly pickpocket who slums it in a fishing dock shack on the East River, and prefers a life lived under the radar. That is until he lifts an item from Candy’s (Jean Peters) purse that could land him in boiling hot water with the United States Government. Sam Fuller’s cast of characters are all just ultimately trying to get by in a world not of their design, and their tough exteriors have been carefully constructed to trudge through their lives in the big city.
Guest Presenter, Kelly Robin worked in the film industry for decades as a Set Builder and Costumer. A true cinefile (and particularly fond of Sam Fuller’s work), she will discuss Fuller’s career, DIY spirit in filmmaking, and his influence on indie films and studios.
Night of the Hunter (1955), United Artists, 92 minutes
Director: Charles Laughton
Screenplay: James Agee
(based on The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb)
Cinematographer: Stanley Cortez
Adapted from the novel by Moundsville native, Davis Grubb, Night of the Hunter is a Depression era gothic Noir based on Grubb’s lifelong observations growing up in the Ohio River Valley. Robert Mitchum stars as Harry Powell, a freshly paroled jailhouse preacher who charms his way into Willa Harper’s (Shelly Winters) home, intent on ransacking a small fortune rumored to be stashed on the property. Powell practically oozes homicidal maniac, and can’t maintain his ruse for long. Charles Laughton’s piercing perception of darkness and light in Grubb’s story is translated masterfully, with key shots filmed locally to truly bring his novel to life.
Guest Presenter, Christina Fisanick, PhD, discusses the author of Night of the Hunter. Born and raised in Moundsville, WV, Davis Grubb was heavily influenced by the impact of the Great Depression on his family’s well being, including their eviction from the family home. These early life experiences appear in Grubb’s work as deeply troubled men whose lust for power and wealth turn them into monsters. The rolling hills of Appalachia serve as the backdrop for Grubb's ongoing sparring matches between love and hate.
