"Who's Crazy Now?" - Noir City 9, Opening Night

Stranger on the Third Floor

So…I paid my 10 bucks to park in the lot adjacent to Sullivan’s Funeral Home on Market Street in San Francisco and was heading for the Wells Fargo ATM near 16^th...I checked my phone and noticed a text message…my friend Dick, who I was to meet for dinner before attending opening night of San Francisco’s 9^th annual film noir festival.

Focus on Film Noir: Barbara Stanwyck

Three films of legendary star to be screened at Noir City 9

Her childhood has been called Dickensian and the rags-to-riches trajectory of her life could easily have provided material for one of her films…

• She was the youngest of a hard-drinking Irish American bricklayer’s five children
• She lost her mother at age three when the woman was pushed, while pregnant, from a streetcar
• Her father abandoned his children (for the second time) and went to sea
• She lived in a series of foster homes
• She began working at age 13

NOIR CITY 9 - Schedule announced for 9th annual San Francisco festival

The ninth annual San Francisco film noir festival, Noir City 9, will run from Friday, January 21, through Sunday, January 30, at the historic Castro Theatre; 24 films noir, both celebrated and obscure, will screen.

1st Film Noir Xmas coming to San Francisco…9th Noir Festival set for January

The San Francisco Film Noir Foundation has set its first-ever Noir City Xmas for Wed., December 15, at the Castro Theatre, and extends an invitation to “enjoy a Cruel Yule...”

The double feature pairs Remember the Night (1940) and Mr. Soft Touch (1949).

TCM has been airing Remember the Night regularly in recent years, and that's where I first saw it. The film stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck as an assistant DA and a thief who share a memorable and affecting holiday before she is set to serve her  jail sentence. Directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges.  A classic.

Mr. Soft Touch stars Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. A combination of “tight-lipped noir and broad comedy," it was shot on location in San Francisco. The film tells the story of a WW II veteran (Ford) out for revenge when he falls in with a kindly social worker (Keyes).  My first viewing of Mr. Soft Touch will be this “freshly struck 35mm print.”

San Francisco’s 9^th annual Noir City Film Festival will run from January 21 – 30, 2011, also at the Castro Theatre; I'll post the screening schedule and ticket information as soon as it's available. Film noir fans should try hard to attend this festival, it's a chance to see both classics and rare "B" gems on the big screen in an old-style movie palace.