French Noir Fest at Film Forum

Bruce Goldstein's exploration of French crime and suspense dramas continues this summer with a series that kicks off with the famous heist movie Rififi (August 8/9). But that's not even the high point of the festival, as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't seen all of the offerings, but out of the ones I've seen, I'd say the must-sees are the double bill Le doulos/Classe tous risques (August 24/25) and The Wages of Fear (September 4), which remains the all-time greatest movie about driving truckloads of nitroglycerine on bumpy roads. And there's also Le Cercle rouge (August 15/16), Bob le flambeur (pictured, August 17/18, on a double bill with Touchez pas au grisbi), Eyes Without a Face (August 27, on a double bill with Diabolique), and the double bills Breathless/Band of Outsiders (August 31/September 1) and Quai des Orfèvres/Pépé le Moko (September 3/4).

The whole series seems to be very strong. I'm not sure that any of them rate less than an isolated 6.7 on IMDB. Out of what I haven't seen, the ones with the highest IMDB ratings are the charmingly titled We Are All Murderers (8.2, on a double bill with Riptide on August 18) and Casque d'or (8.0, on a double bill with Goupi mains rouges on September 2).

Here are three or four amazing clips from The Wages of Fear. If you haven't seen it, think twice before seeing anything after the first clip. Spoilers, you know.



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NYC NOIR [AND NON-NOIR] AT THE FILM FORUM

Bruce Goldstein melds New York movies and film noir in the Film Forum's midsummer repertory schedule for 2007. There's a mix of the familiar and the obscure (at least to me), so here is a very likely incomplete list of top-notch flicks in the series.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
July 27 and 28
Gossip columnist Burt Lancaster lords it over the city in this metropolitan melodrama featuring great location shooting from James Wong Howe.

THE CAMERAMAN with SPEEDY
July 30
Silent-era comedians Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd wreak havoc in the black-and-white Big Apple. Try to see the 3:50 pm or 7:00 pm screenings of The Cameraman for live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner.

PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET with KISS OF DEATH
August 1 and 2
This isn't quite the millionth time I've plugged Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street on this blog, but by now my regular readers must know how much I admire this hardboiled and still unnerving Cold War noir featuring Richard Widmark and a strong score by Leigh Harline. Kiss of Death scores high on IMDB.

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE
August 3 and 4
Travel back into the NYC subway system circa 1974—if you dare—in this Blog About Town favorite.

ROSEMARY'S BABY
August 10 and 11
Roman Polanski's masterful, moody exploration of a Dakota Hotel tenant's somewhat unusual pregnancy (based on the novel by Ira "Stepford Wives" Levin, Rosemary's Baby was produced by gimmick king William Castle, whose cheesy movies (such as The Tingler) were once a staple of Film Forum summer programming. See the amazing trailer below!

MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER
August 12 and 13
If you dig movie couples, few programs could be more appealing than this pairing of the flicks that solidified the relationship between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in the Seventies.

KILLER'S KISS with SOMETHING WILD
August 22 and 23
Killer's Kiss is an early Kubrick quickie, but Something Wild is what really catches my interest in this double bill. The talent includes Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Jean Stapleton, Aaron Copland, and Eugen Sch¨aut;fftan, a refugee from Breslau who also worked on visual effects for the Fritz Lang masterpiece Metropolis (which is closing tonight).

REAR WINDOW and ROPE
August 24 AND 25
Two of Hitchcock's most impressive movies. He never made a movie more taut than Rope.



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Stills courtesy Film Forum/Photofest

B MUSICALS AT THE FILM FORUM. Think of it as the Bruce Goldstein challenge: Goldstein crams more than 45 obscure musicals into a three week series, leaving it to the rest of us to try to identify the ones we most want to see. [Flash: The series will be covered on WNYC's Soundcheck at 2 pm today.]

One way to figure it out is to comb through the series for the talent: Frank Loesser, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Douglas Sirk--they're all represented. Buffs will want to set aside the Sunday, April 15 Vitaphone Varieties program featuring rare short subjects paired with the rediscovered Song of Love (1929), notable for a rare film appearance by Belle Baker as well as the debut of Eve Arden (billed as Eunice Quedens). Thursday, April 12 is a triple bill including the Marilyn Monroe movie Ladies of the Chorus and Minstrel Man, with Joseph H. Lewis (Mr. "Always Steal from the Best") directing Benny Fields and John Raitt. If you want a triple dose of the nearly forgotten hillbilly craze, try the Monday, April 9 Judy Canova mini-festival featuring Joan of Ozark, Sis Hopkins, and Hit the Way.

But over here at Blog About Town, I've run the material through IMDB looking for the top-ranked movies. A bunch haven't received ratings yet, but here are some of the IMDB ratings-based highlights. (Note that the single highest-ranked movie is Mister Big, showing on the April 16 program.)

Tuesday April 10
7.9 Start Cheering (Broderick Crawford, Jimmy Durante, Three Stooges)
7.2 Hips, Hips, Hooray (Pre-Code with Thelma Todd and Ruth Etting)
6.7 Crazy House (pictured, top; Tarantino favorite with Count Basie, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce)
7.3 AVERAGE

Monday April 9 (Andrews Sisters)
7.9 Give Out, Sisters (with Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan)
7.1 Buck Privates (with Abbott & Costello)
6.6 Argentine Nights (with the Ritz Brothers)
7.2 AVERAGE

Saturday March 31
7.4 Sweater Girl (Eddie Bracken, with music by Jule Styne and Frank Loesser)
6.8 Double or Nothing (Bing Crosby, Martha Raye, William Frawley, Andy Devine)
7.1 AVERAGE

Monday April 16 (Donald O'Connor-ama, with Peggy Ryan and Gloria Jean)
8.6 Mister Big
7.5 The Merry Monahans
4.2 Get Hep to Love
6.8 AVERAGE

Sunday April 1
7.0 Torch Singer (pre-Code Claudette Colbert)
6.5 Sitting Pretty (Jack Haley, Jack Oakie, Ginger Rogers, Thelma Todd)
6.75 AVERAGE

Wednesday April 4
7.0 Moonlight and Pretzels (pictured, right)
6.5 Melody Cruise (Phil Harris, Charles Ruggles)
6.75 AVERAGE

Friday April 13
7.0 King of Burlesque (Alice Faye, Fats Waller)
6.1 Hooray for Love (Ann Sothern, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Fats Waller)
6.55 AVERAGE

Also of note: San Antonio Rose (IMDB 7.2 with Eve Arden, Shemp Howard, and Lon Chaney, Jr.) on the Monday, April 2 triple bill and Eadie Was a Lady (IMDB 7.0) on the Ann Miller triple bill (also featuring Duke Ellington, Count Basie, the Mills Brothers, and Frank Sinatra) in Reveille with Beverly on Tuesday, April 3.

Here are stills (courtesy Film Forum/Photofest) from Ladies of the Chorus, Hit the Hay, and Reveille with Beverly.