FRENCH NOIR, B NOIR. Has any modern movie house shown more noir films than the Film Forum? In recent years, programmer Bruce Goldstein has showcased what must be hundreds of the gritty, atmospheric dramas from the United States as well as other lands, perhaps with bias towards France. Many of the flicks revolve around crime, of course, but the range of subgenres is impressive. There's boxing noir, outdoor noir, color noir, etc.

Currently, the Film Forum is host to Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows, in which the director applies his noir sensibility to the story of early fighters in the French Resistance. Starring Lino Ventura (right) and featuring Simone Signoret and Jean-Pierre Cassel, the intense and haunting film was made in 1969, but the Film Forum run represents its belated theatrical premiere in the United States. I’m still not sure how I feel about the movie in every respect--but it's the toast of film buffs around town and definitely worth viewing. The more you know about the Resistance, the better off you’ll be.

Army of Shadows isn't the only example of noir at the Film Forum at present. There's also a big B-Noir festival that offers more than 60 examples of the form on double and triple bills. Many are unknown to me, but based on what I've seen so far, you can count on the films to be pretty good stuff. They might lack some of the niceties of A-list productions but compensate with a genre-appropriate roughness as well as the moxie to venture into territory (such as sexuality, violence, and race relations) that the Production Code censors didn't tolerate in the bigger productions.

The one double bill that I strongly recommend comes up this weekend: Gun Crazy (a.k.a. Deadly is the Female) (1949) and The Big Combo (1955), which play Friday-Saturday, May 19-20. Both were directed by the great Joseph H. Lewis, who scrappily found ways to squeeze brilliance into B-movie budgets. Gun Crazy, which stars Peggy Cummins and John Dall, might well be the archetypal crime-spree noir; if you need a visual to be persuaded to go, perhaps this will do the trick. The Big Combo sounds like a fast-food promotion, but it's actually a man-against-the-mob noir with terrifically quirky characters and a fair share of sexual suggestiveness. It also includes a kind of "tribute" to another film that most experienced moviegoers should be able to recognize. (When questioned about it at MOMA some years ago, Lewis cracked that one should only steal from the best.)

As for the rest of the festival, here are some notes: Dark-tressed beauty Ella Raines figures in Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady and The Suspect (May 26-27)...Joseph Losey's 1951 M remake (starring David Wayne) shares a bill with The Big Night, which stars John Barrymore Jr. (Drew's crazy Dad) (June 5)...Jacques Tourneur's Nightfall boasts well-photographed settings as well as Anne Bancroft and Brian Keith; it's billed with Dan Duryea and Jayne Mansfield in The Burglar (June 6)...Sam Fuller's oddball The Naked Kiss, which sold out in at least one previous Film Forum screening, plays with Cliff Robertson in Underworld, U.S.A. (June 7-8)...The 3-D noir Man in the Dark plays with D.O.A., both starring Edmund O'Brien (June 11)...Joseph H. Lewis's tax noir The Undercover Man plays with the Georges Simenon-inspired The Brothers Rico (June 12)...Sam Fuller returns for the Asian noir double-bill The Crimson Kimono (pictured and highly recommended) and House of Bamboo (June 14).

Got that? Your own tips are welcome!