ANGEL FACE
US 1953 DIRECTOR: OTTO PREMINGER
MARCH 11 13 FRI 7 PM WHITSELL AUDITORIUM,
SUN 6 PM GUILD THEATRE
A hangdog ambulance driver, Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) is called to a the high class Tremayne mansion to rescue an ailing society queen. After meeting, and immediately falling for spooky debutante Diane (Jean Simmons), Frank begins to uncover layers of family deceit and possible foul play. With the ornately shadowed Tremayne mansion as its backdrop, director Preminger turns a traditional domestic mystery into a paranoid psychological thriller. (91 mins.)

top

THE SNIPER
US 1952 DIRECTOR: EDWARD DMYTRYK
MARCH 12 13 SAT 7 PM, SUN 8 PM GUILD THEATRE
Eddie Miller (Arthur Franz) is a lonesome loser, who's infatuation and disdain for women seems all-consuming. Eddie finds that the world looks most clear through the crosshairs of a telescopic sight, and begins a murder spree in the heart of San Francisco. As the traditional game of cat-and-mouse unfolds with the police, Eddie's darkest impulses seem to take on a life of their own. Intended as another low-budget, B grade studio picture, Dmytryk's coolly atmospheric film transcends its fate while anticipating the great anti-heroic films of the 1970s. (79 mins.)

top

GUNMAN IN THE STREETS
US 1950 DIRECTOR: FRANK TUTTLE
MARCH 18 20 FRI 7 PM, SUN 7:45 PM GUILD THEATRE
A rare example of a 50s French-American co-production, noir craftsman Tuttle's continental thriller manages to tap into the stylish lyricism of French noir while maintaining a hard-boiled, American ferocity. Eddy Roback (Dane Clark) is an American Army deserter on the run in France. Rather than lie low, Eddy takes up with the tragically beautiful gun moll Denise (a seductively Gallic Simone Signoret) and a host of other underground types in order to make a break for freedom. (86 mins.)

top

THIS GUN FOR HIRE
US 1942 DIRECTOR: FRANK TUTTLE
MARCH 19 20 SAT 7 PM, SUN 6 PM GUILD THEATRE
Noir legend Alan Ladd plays Phillip Raven, the aptly named killer for hire whose detachment from society betrays some old emotional wounds. On the lam after assassinating a Japanese-contracted double agent, Raven meets a strange woman on a train (Veronica Lake), whose beauty serves as a beguiling cover for a secret life. Ladd and Lake make for a definitive noir pairing, a sensitive killer and beauty with a jet-black secret. Director Tuttle's collaboration with cinematographer John Seitz (SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, SUNSET BLVD.) results in an inky masterpiece, with Graham Greene's novel serving as the crafty point of genesis.(80 mins.)

top

THE CRIMSON KIMONO
USA 1959 DIRECTOR: SAMUEL FULLER
MARCH 25 27 FRI 7 PM, SUN 6 PM GUILD THEATRE
Samuel Fuller's look into the sordid world of Los Angeles' Japanese district follows two detectives (Glen Corbett and James Shigeta) tracking down the killer of a nightclub stripper. Both veterans of the Korean War, the detectives seem as devastated by their past as they are by the witness whom they both fall for. As a cultural artifact, Fuller's unflinching look at interracial relationships is ahead of its time, though at the center of the film remains the classic noir love triangle. (82 mins.)

top

UNDERWORLD USA
USA 1961 DIRECTOR: SAMUEL FULLER
MARCH 26 27 SAT 7 PM, SUN 8 PM GUILD THEATRE
UNDERWORLD USA is Fuller's most pure contribution to the genre, an epic revenge drama that's taut with sincerity and unhampered by the conventional melodrama that infuses many noir films. Tolly Devlin (Cliff Robertson) has his childhood cut short when his father is killed by a gang of neighborhood street toughs. When the hoods inevitably rise to the top of the local crime syndicate, Devlin fulfills his destiny by going after every last of his father's killers. With a stranglehold on the whole town, the syndicate is primed to erase the vigilante Devlin, who cashes in old favors in order to settle the score. (99 mins.)

top

THE NAKED KISS
US 1964 DIRECTOR: SAMUEL FULLER
MARCH 31 THUR 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
Fuller's sordidly-titled melodrama follows former prostitute Kelly (Constance Towers) who relocates to the small town of Grantville in order to flee her past. After a thwarted affair, the town sheriff pegs Kelly as a bad seed, and grows determined to make her new life difficult. While Kelly begins working at an orphanage for handicapped children, the heir apparent of the town, JL Grant, falls for her, and a storybook ending seems all but written. In true Fuller style, the darker side of humanity is finally uncovered in a coolly deliberate arc. Fuller's unconventional cinematographic eye and use of music proved influential on a generation of filmmakers, including Martin Scorcese, who sights THE NAKED KISS as a masterpiece of the genre. (90 mins.)

top

UNION STATION
USA 1950 DIRECTOR: RUDOLPH MATE
APRIL 1 FRI 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
From one of legends of cinematography (THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC, PRIDE OF THE YANKEES) comes a kidnapping thriller set in Chicago's chaotic central train station. When down-on-his-luck everyman Joe Beacon decides to hatch a plot to kidnap the blind daughter of tycoon Herbert Heyes, he seems driven by moral despair as much as financial circumstances. With the help of two sidemen, the plot is set into action, but soon security Chief Lieutenant Calhoun (William Holden, fresh from his turn in SUNSET BLVD.) is set on the case. Calhoun takes on criminals, corrupt cops, and Heyes' flirtatious secretary (Nancy Olson) with equal aplomb, while maintaining the civilized bustle of the station. Naturally, what begins at Union Station must end at Union Station, the action culminating with the pace of a runaway locomotive. (80 mins.)

top

THE KILLER THAT STALKED NEW YORK
USA 1950 DIRECTOR: EARL MCEVOY
APRIL 2 SAT 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes, THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH) arrives in the metropolis from Cuba with a cache of smuggled diamonds and an incurable smallpox virus. The wilting villianess spreads smallpox throughout the city while the authorities simultaneously seek the source of the epidemic and the smuggler of the diamonds, not knowing that they are in fact the same woman. The film finds its unlikely heroes in the street smart Treasury department dick Matt Krane (Charles Korvin), and dashing Public Health doctor Ben Wood. With an obscure premise that seems eerily contemporary, McEvoy's cold war artifact employs one of the stranger femme fatale characters of the genre. (79 mins.)

top

BORN TO KILL
USA 1947 DIRECTOR: ROBERT WISE
APRIL 3 SUN 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
One of the genre's most immutable toughguys, Lawrence Tierney (DILLINGER, THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE) takes an all-too-believable turn as the cold-blooded killer of his girlfriend and her lover. When Sam Wilde (Tierney) has a chance meeting with crime witness Helen (Claire Trevor), their fates seem locked together. Unaware of each other's link, the two fall into a treacherous love affair, resulting in Sam's sham marriage to Helen's wealthy half-sister. As "the coldest killer a woman ever loved," Tierney fills the screen with a psychotic charm that's rare among even the most legendary of the noir antiheroes. Based on the novel by pulp legend James Gunn. (92mins.)