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Ann
Sheridan in the San Francisco film noir 'Nora Prentiss'
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Film Historian Marc Kagan
& Guerrilla Cinema Host "Dark Marc" invite you to a |
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to a
Fund Raiser for The Friends of
Joe DiMaggio Playground. |
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Every Saturday night in February - Screening Times
at 7:30 pm |
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To reserve seats
for this series only,
email
fjdmp@mindspring.com |
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_________________ |
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Saturday
February 4th 7:30 pm -
San Francisco Film Noir |
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‘House on Telegraph
Hill’ (
20th
Century Fox 1951 ) Director: Robert
Wise |
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Starring:
Valentina Cortese, Richard Basehart, William Lungan, Kai T.
Chun & Fay Baker. |
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Lovely Italian actress Valentina
Cortese in an typically twisted Film Noir plot. Things go from
bad to weird when Victoria Kowelska survives Nazi concentration
by assuming the papers and identity of a close friend who died
in the camps. Before the war began, the dead woman had sent her
young son to San Francisco to live with a wealthy aunt. Victoria
travels to America with plans to reunite with the boy posing as
his mother. Upon arriving she finds he's inherited a
fortune, not everyone is happy about it and they are out to
raise Hell. In fact, these are the kind of neighbors that
would give the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association reoccurring
nightmares. It's fun and games with the dysfunctional
wealthy on one of the richest pieces of real estate in the
Western Hemisphere. |
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Filmed in the City by the Bay,
'House on Telegraph Hill' is a wonderful yet rarely
seen Noir Thriller, very much in the Hitchcock vain. Directed by
Robert Wise who got his start at RKO Studios where he edited
sound and later footage including what some believe to be the
greatest film of all time, 'Citizen Kane'. Wise got his
directorial break when famed horror film producer Val Lewton
hired him to helm two dark classics, 'Curse of the Cat
People' and 'The Body Snatcher'. Lewton and his
protégés, including Wise, basically created the look of what
would become Film Noir at the most prolific studio in the Noir
style, RKO Pictures.
There's plenty of location shots of
North Beach, Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill in the 1950's, so
don't miss a rare chance to see this terrific film noir in a
setting within blocks of where it was made. |
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Saturday
February 11th 7:30 pm - San Francisco
Film Noir |
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‘Nora Prentiss’ (
Warner Bros. 1947 ) Director : Vincent
Sherman |
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Starring: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Robert De Alda,
Rosemary DeCamp & Wanda Hendrix |
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Successful doctor Richard Talbot
(Kent Smith) leads an austere married life among San Francisco's
elite. He comes to realize that while he's comfortable, he's
bored at heart. Talbot in his daily routine beats a non-stop path
between his Seacliff mansion and downtown practice. Then by
chance he
meets beautiful nightclub singer, Nora Prentiss (Ann Sheridan)
and they fall in love. Talbot's weakness is that he can't bear
to tell his wife that he wants to leave her. Confused, he devises a plan that
becomes one of the most ironic in all of Film Noir. But as we
have come to expect from the canon, fate moves in to deliver the
good doctor a bitter pill. |
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Released by Warner Brothers, who's
publicity department promoted 'Nora Prentiss' as a
typical femme fatale movie, but in fact it is the male that
leads the characters down a dark path and into the gutter.
The studio produced the film on the
heels of it's success with 'Mildred Pierce' which won
Joan Crawford a Best Actress Oscar. Hoping to do the same
for Ann Sheridan, studio head Jack Warner assigned a top notch
crew including director Vincent Sherman and cameraman James Wong
Howe. The result is an excellent production, but one that was a bit too downbeat and hard-boiled for the mainstream
audiences of
1947.
Today's it's a favorite of fans
of Film Noir who love their films with bleak tragic endings on a
note of sublime hopelessness. Don't miss it, very worth
seeing and another San Francisco Noir. |
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______________ |
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Saturday
February 18th 7:30 pm - A Woman's
Film Noir |
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‘The Accused’ (
Paramount Pictures 1949 ) Director :
William Dieterle |
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Starring: Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey &
Sam Jaffe |
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Wilma Tuttle, Psychology
Professor, lets aggressively brash student Bill Perry drive her
home. He attempts to rape her and she accidentally kills
him. Panicked, Wilma hides her traces and flees. As
time passes she watches the investigation of Homicide Detective
Lt. Dorgan with painfully concealed apprehension, complicating
matters with her budding romance with Warren Ford, Perry's
guardian. How long can she stand the strain? |
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The plot for 'The
Accused' was taken from the novel 'Be Still, My Love' by June Truesdell
and stars Loretta Young as Wilma Tuttle a unmarried woman of
intellect and power, a professor.
The idea of a
female protagonist of this nature was incongruous to society's accepted
role definitions throughout the middle 1930's and early 40's.
Hollywood, as American Dream Machine and it's censors
reinforced the misguided idea that women are inferior to men and
that only through marriage and bearing children have value.
Like the Pre-Code films of the thirties before censorship, early Film Noir and it's liberal writers broke down those
stereotypes and began presenting women in a more equal light, due in part to the social effects of World War II. |
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'The
Accused' is an interesting example of film noir and worth
seeing as a curiosity, as it's plot and storyline walk a narrow
tightrope between representing the new evolving role models and reinforcing the
old. In dealing with the issue of women's empowerment, this film
takes a more cautious approach to what was by 1949 a trend in
film. When a violent reaction arises due to Wilma's attractiveness
and power; it leads to a whirlpool of terror that's beyond her
control, a position without power. Wilma Tuttle may be beautiful
and smart, but her job as teacher of young people is symbolic of Motherhood and
in this respect only slightly renovates inequality.
Young, a devout Catholic woman, was perfectly cast in this role. |
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'The Accused' was lensed by Milton Krasner who
in the same year won a 'Best Cinematography' Award at the Cannes Film Festival for the film
noir 'The Set-Up'. It's got content and
style, with one of the most beautiful woman to work in pictures
and it's rarely shown so hey... don't miss this one. |
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Saturday
February 25th
7:30 pm -
1930's Naughty Pre-Code Film -
Introduction by Paul Meienberg |
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‘Search for Beauty’ (
Paramount 1934
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Director : Erle Kenton |
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Starring: Ida
Lupino, Buster Crabbe, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason &
Gertrude Michael |
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From the extensive
vaults of film collector Paul Meienberg comes this
racy Pre-Code spoof on the Health & Fitness Industry. Sleazy
racketeering publishers promote their health and beauty
magazine... which is 90% SEX. After hiring young Olympic stars
to lure young athletes both strapping males and winsome females
to Los Angeles to compete in a contest, the participants are
routed instead to a health farm to entertain debauched
connoisseurs of young flesh. |
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There is plenty of
snappy dialogue by the stars with exceptional rapport between
James Gleason and Robert Armstrong. Gertrude Michael competes
with Ida Lupino for the affections of a hunky Buster Crabbe.
Toby Wing giggles and dances in her lingerie.
This film was released just a few
months before the Hollywood Production Code censorship rules
took effect in 1934. Bare-butt nudity and most of the dialogue
would have been Taboo. |
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Paramount studio in 1933 sponsored a
"Search for Beauty Contest" in which they attracted contestants
from around the U.S. & white British Commonwealth countries.
The finalists all appear in the film and a few were offered
contracts which gave them minor careers. One contestant, Ann
Sheridan, was eventually able to obtain stardom although it took
her 4 years and a leap to Warner Bros. where she was promoted
as the "Oomph Girl"! |
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If you are not sure
what Pre-Code films are all about, then this is an excellent
introduction to the current rage in classic movies, a film
genre with a colorful political history. Paul Meienberg, who
will talk about the Pre-Code era is one of the world's leading
authorities on the subject and was a contributor to the essential book
"Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood" by Mark Vieira. A
valuable resource for more information on the subject. |
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______________ |
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Four rare films
in a wonderful setting and for a good cause |
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Donations at
the door - with food and drinks |
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Walk-Ins OK
... Seat Reservations not required but are recommended |
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To reserve seats
for this
series only
email
fjdmp@mindspring.com
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LOCATION:
North Beach Recreation Center
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Lombard at Mason
Street & Columbus Ave. San Francisco
415-274-0201 |
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MUNI BUS LINES from Market &
Kearny / Market & 3rd Street: Use the 15 Third &
30 Stockton Lines |
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Doors open at 6:30 pm - Films at
7:30 pm |
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