Eddie Muller, author of several critically-acclaimed histories on the subject, Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir, and The Art of Noir: Posters and Graphics From the Classic Film Noir Era;  guest curates an evening of the festival and will show two of his personal favorites, “Nightmare Alley” and “In a Lonely Place”.

Muller is founder and president of The Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit corporation dedicated to the rescue and preservation of the genre's "lost" and damaged films, and each January he programs and hosts NOIR CITY: The San Francisco Film Noir Festival, the largest event of its kind in the United States. Every April, the American Cinematheque in Hollywood invites him to program and host its Annual Festival of Film Noir at the legendary Egyptian Theatre. He is also the coauthor of the current bestseller Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of Movie Star.

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Live Radio Plays
Film Noir achieved its greatest popularity during the forties and fifties, the heyday of American radio. Over 8 radio dramas will be commissioned, from John Hopkins Middle. The other radio plays will be written by two local playwrights and one from New York City. The radio plays will be performed by local actors with a live Foely (sound effects) orchestra. Some of the radio plays will be broadcast on the local community radio station WMNF at a later date.

Performance and broadcast dates at WMNF studios:

01/16/05
01/23/05
01/30/05

The public is invited to attend free of charge as part of the studio audience. Doors open at 8:30 pm, performance runs from 9-9:30 pm.

For additional information or to reserve a seat contact WMNF by phone (813-238-8001 x 122) or by email ([email protected]). WMNF is located at 1210 East MLK Jr Blvd., Tampa, FL.

Exhibit of
Genre Book Covers
During the run of the festival two hundred paperback novels will be on display. These pulp fiction and crime novels were a staple of the era and inspired some of the eras greatest cinema. Several of the films in the festival will be based on some of this "dime store" literature.

Jazz Concert
A concert of jazz inspired music called the "Marlowe Suite" by Clint Page will be performed in conjunction with the film festival. The ensemble will consist of local musicians including Vernon Taranto, choral professor of music at St. Petersburg College.

La France Fashion Show
La France of Ybor City presents vintage fashion from the Atomic Age of the 40's and 50's with monchromatic styling that once adorned damsels in distress and lizards of the lounge.

Program Curators
The film festival was curated by Margaret Murray and Rich Agan. Murray is the past Executive Director of the Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the founder of Movies That Move, an award-winning,  roving cinema showcase, and has curated films for the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, the Salvador Dali Museum’s Cinema of Agitation, and KidFlix International Children’s Film Festival. She has been a panel moderator for The Education Channels film festival, and was a documentary juror for the 2005 Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. She currently works for the Arts Center in St. Petersburg as Communications Director. Rich Agan has always been an old movie aficionado. He has a varied background, with a degree in Art, a Building Contractors license, and now works at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. He also likes working on art pieces in his wood shop.

Film Descriptions

The Big Clock
Investigative crime reporter, George Stroad, is assigned by his publisher to find a killer.  When he starts digging, it appears he is the killer.  It's the strangest manhunt in movie history.  Starring Ray Milland and Charles Laughton.

Leave Her to Heaven
Writer Richard Harband meets beautiful Ellen Berent on a train. They fall in love and marry, but her insane jealousy leads to tragedy. The first color crime movie, it's all in glorious, melodramatic Technicolor.  Starring Gene Tierney and Cornell Wilde.  

Lady in the Lake
With the most amazing and unusual camera work to come out of Hollywood for its time, this groundbreaking movie follows private eye, Phillip Marlowe, as he looks for a client's missing wife. A Raymond Chandler Mystery. Starring Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter and Lloyd Nolan.  

The Big Sleep
Humphrey Bogart is private dick, Phillip Marlowe, who falls into a swirling plot of blackmail, murder, sex and drugs.  He also falls for his client's daughter, Lauren Bacall.  A Howard Hawks classic, with help on the screenplay by William Faulkner. From a Raymond Chandler novel.

The Big Heat
Nobody can stop hard cop, Dave Bannion, in his quest for revenge.  His only help is Debby, the disfigured ex-moll of evil mobster, Vince Stone.  Fritz Lang's Noir Classic stars Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin.

Detour
New York pianist, Al Roberts, hitchhikes to Hollywood to see his girl.  When the driver who gives him a ride dies, Roberts assumes his identity.  He makes a big mistake when he then picks up nasty, blackmailing Vera, who gets him deeper into trouble.  Classic B Noir by Edgar Ulmer starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage.  

Kiss Me Deadly
Violent, sleazy private eye Mike Hammer picks up a girl on the highway wearing only a trench coat.  When she is tortured to death he starts finding out why. Everything revolves around a deadly box. Watch out for the explosive ending. The classic 50's film noir is from a Mickey Spillane story. Starring Ralph Meeker, with Cloris Leachman in her screen debut.  

Double Indemnity
Insurance salesman Walter Neff does more with good­looking Phyllis Dietrichson than just renew her husband's policy. Soon they plot to kill him for the insurance money, and that's when everything starts to go wrong.  Director Billy Wilder¹s perfect thriller is one of the great films of the 40's.  Raymond Chandler helped on the screenplay. Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson.

Blue Dahlia
Johnny Morrison comes home from WWII to find his wife has been cheating on him, but when she's found dead, he's the suspect.  Luckily he's got sultry blond Joyce Harwood to help him. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake steam up the screen in this stylish 40's LA film noir. Raymond Chandler's first original screenplay.

Slightly Scarlet
When bad sister Dorothy is paroled from prison into the custody of her good sister June, the Lyon sisters become involved with the underworld of big city politics, and they both fall for one man, Ben Grace. Filmed in 1954 in flaming scarlet color, it stars Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl.

Split Second
The worst killer in the USA breaks out of prison with two other convicts and holes up in a Nevada ghost town with several hostages. The big problem they all have is an atom bomb test in the morning.  Lots of B film noir suspense. Directorial debut by Dick Powell, starring Stephan McNally and Alexis Smith.

The Big Combo
Obsessive police detective Leonard Diamond is going to nail crime boss Mr. Brown, or die trying. Surprisingly violent, hardboiled and brutal movie. A brilliant, little known noir classic. Starring Cornel Wilde and Richard Conte.

Program Dates

11/21/05-12/06/05


Admission

RKO
Single Ticket - $6

Guys and Dolls
One Night Pass - $10

Smoking Gun
All Access Pass - $100
($175 for two All Access Passes)

The Radio Plays and Marlow Suite jazz concert are each $6.

The Kid's Radio Plays, Muller lectures, and Fashion Show are free of charge (donations appreciated).

Popcorn, soda and candybars will be available.


Program Schedule

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11/21/05
Monday

7:00 PM
Rififi
Rififi Means Trouble!

Director: Jules Dassin 1955, 1 hr 47 mins.    

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/22/05
Tuesday
Classic Noir
                   
7:00 PM
Kiss Me Deadly    
Blood red kisses! White hot thrills! Mickey Spillane's latest H-bomb!

Director: Robert Aldrich 1955, 1 hr. 44 mins    

9:00  PM
Double Indemnity  
From the Moment they met it was Murder!

Director: Billy Wilder    
1944, 1 hr. 47 min.    
                   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/23/05
Wednesday                   
Guns, Girls and Gangsters: B-Films
                   
6:00 PM
Split Second        
Director: Dick Powell    
1953, 1 hr. 25 mins
   
8:00 PM
Detour
He went searching for love... but Fate forced a DETOUR to Revelry... Violence... Mystery!   
   
Director: Edgar Ulmer
1945, 1 hr. 7 mins.    
                   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/25/05
Friday                  
Lost Weekends:
The Effects of Too Much Noir
                   
6:30 PM
Devil Thumbs a Ride
He'll kill until he dies!

Director: Felix E. Feist    
1947, 1 hr. 2 mins.    

8:00 PM
Lost Weekend  
The Screen Dares To Open The Strange And Savage Pages Of A Shocking Best-Seller!
      
Director: Billy Wilder
1945, 1 hr. 41 mins.    

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/26/05
Saturday           
Damsels Causing Distress: Femme Fatales of Film Noir                    
5:00 PM
Blue Dahlia
Tamed by a brunette - framed by a blonde - blamed by the cops!
     
Director: George Marshall
1946, 1 hr. 36 mins.

7:00 PM                
Out of the Past    
Trying to run away from his past... A WOMAN - Trying to escape her future!

Director: Jacques Tourneur
1947, 1 hr. 37 mins.    

9:00 PM
Gun Crazy
Nothing Deadlier Is Known To ManŠ She's Thrill Crazy and Kill Crazy!       

Director: Joseph H. Lewis
1949, 1 hr. 26 mins.  
                   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/27/05
Sunday
The Man in the Hat:
Phillip Marlowe
  
4:00 PM               
Lady in the Lake
  
Director: Robert Montgomery    
1947, 1 hr. 45 mins.    

6:00 PM
The Big Sleep      
The picture they were born for!

Director: Howard Hawks
1946, 1 hr. 56 mins. 
                   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/28/05
Monday             
The Big Noir Films
                   
6:00 PM
Big Heat
A hard cop and a soft dame!
   
Director: Fritz Lang
1953, 1 hr. 29 mins.

8:00 PM
The Big Clock
The strangest and most savage manhunt in history!
      
Director: John Farrow
1948, 1 hr. 35 mins.    

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
11/30/05
Wednesday                 
B&W in Color: The Many Shades of Noir                    
6:00 PM
Leave Her to Heaven
Hers was the deadliest of the seven sins!

Director: John Stahl
1945, 1 hr. 50 mins.    

8:00 PM
Slightly Scarlet
Out of the shadows of a vice-ridden city.
      
Director: Allen Dwan    
1956, 1 hr. 39 mins.    

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/01/05
Thursday       
The Ancient and the New: Japanese Film Noir
                   
6:00 PM
Stray Dog
Kurosawa's first major masterpiece!

Director: Akira Kurosawa
1949, 2 hr. 2 mins.  

8:30 PM
Violent Cop
Kitano straight--no chaser!
      
Director: Takeshi "Beat" Kitano
1989, 1 hr. 43 mins.
                   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/02/05
Friday                  
Pretty in Pink: The Gay Gaze in Film Noir                    
6:30 PM
Lecture with Eddie Muller Homoeroticism in Film Noir                  

7:00 PM
The Big Combo
The Most Startling Story The Screen Has Ever Dared Reveal!
       
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
1955, 1 hr. 29 mins.    

9:00 PM
Gilda
There NEVER was a woman like Gilda!
       
Director: Charles Vidor    
1946, 1 hr. 50 mins.
   
Q&A with Eddie Muller                    
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/03/05
Saturday                 
                    
6:00 PM            
Lecture with Eddie Muller
The Dark Side: History of Noir
               
7:00 PM
In a Lonely Place 
The Bogart suspense picture with the surprise finish!

Director: Nicholas Ray    
1950, 1 hr. 34 mins.    

9:00 PM
Nightmare Alley
Tyrone Powers' Greatest Performance!

Director: Edmund Goulding
1947, 1 hr. 50 mins.     

Q&A with Eddie Muller                    
Closing Night Party                    
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/04/05
Sunday

2:00 PM
Kids' Radio Plays  

7:30 PM
Marlowe Suite
Jazz Concert  
                 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/05/05
Monday

7:30 PM
Adult Radio Plays 
         
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
12/06/05
Tuesday
                 
7:30 PM
La France Fashion Show