*All times are PT. Please check your local listings to confirm dates and times.
Saturday, October 31 - Sunday, November 1
10:30 PM
CAT PEOPLE (1942): Produced by the legendary Val Lewton, this atmospheric and heartbreaking horror film tells the tale of Irina (Simone Simon), a beautiful and charming Serbian emigree who meets and marries all-American architect Oliver (Kent Smith). She is reluctant to consummate their marriage, and he turns to his friend and coworker Alice (Jane Rudolph) with tragic and frightening results. Producer Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur styles merge to produce one of the greatest films of the genre. Lensed by the noted noir cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca. Dir. Jacques Tourneur
10:30 PM
THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943): A young woman (Kim Hunter) leaves school to investigate the disappearance of her beautiful and mysterious older sister (Jean Brooks). She finds out some interesting facts, one, her sister was married and two, she was part of a satanic set. The husband (Hugh Beaumont), a poet (Erford Gage) and a psychiatrist (Tom Conway) aid her search for the truth about her sister. Produced by horror icon Val Lewton. Dir. Mark Robson
12:00 AM
THE LEOPARD MAN (1943): Legendary B horror producer Val Lewton strays into noir territory with this suspenseful tale of a leopard on the prowl for human prey in a small New Mexican town. The night club performer (Jean Brooks) responsible for letting the leopard loose and her manager (Dennis O'Keefe), who dreamed up the stunt, began to suspect that a man, and not the leopard, is responsible for the deaths of several young women. Based on Cornell Woolrich’s novel, Black Alibi. Dir. Jacques Tourneur
Sunday, November 1, 8:15 AM
MURDER MOST FOUL (1964): Elderly sleuth Miss Marple joins a small-town theatre to investigate a murder of a landlady. The case has already been closed by the police, but she believes that the lodger convicted in the crime is innocent. As in the rest of the series, her friend Jim Stringer, played by Rutherford’s husband Stinger Davis. Extremely loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty's Dead which is actually a Hercule Poirot story (for the second time in the series) and is a jolly good read (and pretty dark). Dir. George Pollock
Monday, November 2, 3:45 PM
TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE (1945): In this charming programmer, an amnesiac (Tom Conway) discovers he's wanted for murder. Ann Rutherford plays the spunky cab driver who helps him after she nearly runs him over. Jane Greer and Jeanne Brooks play the women in the case. Dir. Anthony Mann
Tuesday, November 3, 9:45 AM – Wednesday, November 4, 2:00 AM
Here are the noirs...
5:00 PM
THE KILLERS (1946): Expanded from the Hemmingway short story, two professional killers come to a small town looking for The Swede (Burt Lancaster). An insurance investigator (Edmond O'Brien) unravels the tangled skein of events that led up to the hit. Ava Gardner plays Kitty, the woman who led the Swede to his doom. Dir. Robert Siodmak
7:00 PM
SORRY, WRONG NUMBER (1948): Barbara Stanwyck gives a tour-de-force performance (Oscar-nominated) as a bedridden woman who, through crossed phone wires, overhears a murder being planned. This engrossing extension of Lucile Fletcher’s legendary 22-minute radio drama is pure noir, tracking an ill-fated romance that spirals into deceit, despair, and death. Featuring Burt Lancaster in one of his earliest roles and richly atmospheric camerawork by the great Sol Polito. Famous, yet still underrated! Dir. Anatole Litvak
8:45 PM
CRISS CROSS (1949): A lovelorn loner (Burt Lancaster) returns to Los Angeles and quickly falls under the spell of his one-time flame (Yvonne De Carlo), who is now in thrall to a sinister gangster (Dan Duryea). A daring armored car robbery becomes the fulcrum of their dangerous triangle as the two men play each other while vying for the dame’s loyalty. Siodmak creates one of the most seductive and spellbinding tales of amour fou in the entire noir canon—a complex and elegantly told tale of desire, desperation and sudden death. Dir. Robert Siodmak
10:30 PM
KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS (1948): War profiteering, 1940s-style, is the backdrop of this London-set noir, in which a traumatized American GI (Burt Lancaster) goes on the run after killing a man in a pub. Joan Fontaine is his only hope for salvation, Robert Newton his nemesis. The first film produced by Lancaster's Norma Productions, which recreated twenty square blocks of London on the Universal backlot, brilliantly photographed by Russell Metty. Miklós Rózsa contributed the highly effective score. Based on the novel by Gerald Butler. Produced by Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster. Dir. Norman Foster
Wednesday, November 4
12:00 AM
BRUTE FORCE (1947): In this brutal film noir, a convict (Burt Lancaster) plans a daring and violent escape from a sadistic prison. FNF prez and Noir Alley host Eddie Muller said of the film’s ending, “the climax of Brute Force displayed the most harrowing violence ever seen in movie theaters.” Gritty noir photography provided by Oscar winner William Daniels. Dir. Jules Dassin
Saturday, November 7, 2:45 PM
THE LAST OF SHEILA (1973): Movie producer Clinton Greene hopes to solve the mystery surrounding his wife's death the year before by inviting the suspects aboard his yacht and engaging them in an elaborate mystery game. He assigns everyone a secret that they are not to share with anyone. Every day for the next six days, they will call into a port where they will be given clues to discover one person's secret. The game takes a deadly twist when a murder takes place. The guests comprise Richard Benjamin, James Mason, Joan Hackett, Raquel Welch, Dyan Cannon, and Ian McShane. Co-writers Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins used to host murder mystery parlor games. Guests included producer and director Herbert Ross, who encouraged them to write a script based on this type of party. Dir. Herbert Ross
Saturday, November 7, 9:00 PM
Sunday, November 8, 7:00 AM
BREAKDOWN (1952): Heavyweight boxer Terry Williams (William Bishop) is wrongfully convicted of murder. After serving a prison sentence, Terry is paroled early by a novice promoter to re-enter the ring. But will his search to find the real killer derail his career? Dir. Edmond Angelo
Tuesday, November 10, 3:00 PM
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957): A desperate press agent (Tony Curtis) stoops to new depths to help an egotistical columnist (Burt Lancaster) in an emotionally repugnant, but brilliant, performance, break up his sister's romance. Suitably noirish cinematography by James Wong Howe and an acidic script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman combine with an excellent cast to deliver a remarkable film. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick
Wednesday, November 11, 8:30 AM
KEY LARGO (1948): A returning veteran (Humphrey Bogart) tangles with a ruthless gangster (Edward G. Robinson) during a hurricane while falling for his dead war buddy’s widow (Lauren Bacall). Claire Trevor steals the film with her Oscar winning performance as the gangster’s alcoholic and emotionally abused girlfriend. Dir. John Huston
Thursday, November 12, 1:00 PM
DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954): A man (Ray Milland) hires a friend to murder his wealthy wife (Grace Kelly). His plan goes awry when she stabs the would-be-murderer. Then he decides he can still get rid of her, by eroding her self-defense claim. Her ex-lover (Robert Cummings) tries to save her. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Friday, November 13, 11:00 AM
THE WOMAN ON PIER 13 aka I Married a Communist (1950): Communists blackmail a shipping executive (Robert Ryan), previously a communist agitator, into sabotaging labor talks involving the union and shipping management. Dir. Robert Stevenson
Saturday, November 14, 7:15 PM
THE KILLING (1956): The best laid plans… Ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) masterminds a racetrack heist. Instead of securing the two million dollar take, his gang’s emotional entanglements bring disaster. In a quintessential piece of noir casting, Marie Windsor plays the treacherous wife of Elisha Cook, Jr. Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Saturday, November 14, 9:00 PM
Sunday, November 15, 7:00 AM
SLANDER (1957): Steve Cochran, cast completely against type, gives a career best performance as ruthless scandal sheet owner H.R. Manley. Manley’s own mother despises his underhanded tactics used to publish shocking but true stories. Finding himself in dire financial straits, hope comes in the shape of Scott Martin (Van Johnson) a puppeteer about to get his big break in children’s television who knows a famous actresses’ damaging secret. Manley threatens Scott with a layout on his own criminal past if he doesn’t reveal the actresses’ secret. Dir. Roy Rowland
Sunday, November 15, 11:00 AM
A STOLEN LIFE (1946): Wealthy aspiring painter Kate (Bette Davis) falls for Bill (Glenn Ford). Her manipulative twin Pat, also played by Davis, steals him away. Kate tries to concentrate on her art after the pair marries, taking lessons from a talented but arrogant painter (Dane Clark). A twist of fate gives her the chance to impersonate her sister and fulfill her dream of being Bill’s wife, but things do not go as planned. Dir. Curtis Bernhardt
Sunday, November 15, 5:00 PM-10:15 PM
5:00 PM
SPELLBOUND (1945): A beautiful psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) shields an equally beautiful amnesic (Gregory Peck) who’s pretending to be the new doctor at the sanatorium that she works at. Can she help him recover his memory and find out what happened to the doctor he’s impersonating? This David O. Selznick production features a dream sequence by Salvador Dali. Composer Miklós Rózsa won an Oscar for his score. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
7:00 PM
THE PARADINE CASE (1948): In this court room drama, a married lawyer (Gregory Peck) falls for the woman (Alida Valli) he's defending on the charge of murdering her husband. The supporting cast includes Ann Todd as his wife, Louis Jordan as the possible motive for the crime, Charles Laughton as the presiding judge, Ethel Barrymore as the judge’s wife and Leo G. Carroll as the the Crown's prosecutor. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Tuesday, November 17, 3:15 AM – 11:00 AM
3:15 AM
MYSTERY STREET (1950): A Cape Cod coroner (Ricardo Montalban) and a Harvard criminal pathologist (Bruce Bennett) try to solve a possible murder with nothing but the victim's bones to go on. Elsa Lanchester steals the show as the victim’s shady landlady. Leonard Spigelgass received an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. Dir. John Sturges
5:15 AM
BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955): A one-armed veteran (Spencer Tracy) uncovers small-town secrets when he tries to visit an Asian American war hero's family. Noir icon Robert Ryan shines as the bigoted boss of the town. This film earned three Oscar nominations: Spencer Tracy for Best Actor in a Leading Role; John Sturges for Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay for Millard Kaufman. Dir. John Sturges
7:00 AM
EDGE OF DOOM (1950): Dana Andrews cast against type as a priest, more typically, hunts down the boy (Farley Granger) who murdered his colleague. However, the boy’s punishment takes a more spiritual turn than his crime. Dir. Mark Robson
9:00 AM
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1958): A British lawyer (Charles Laughton) gets caught up in a couple’s tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder. Laughton’s wife Elsa Lanchester plays the nurse trying to keep him on his diet and off the cigars and brandy. This first-rate film features both one of Tyrone Power’s and one of Marlene Dietrich’s best performances Based on the play written by Agatha Christie, adapted from her own short story. The film was nominated for six Oscars: Best Picture, Arthur Hornblow Jr.; Best Actor in a Leading Role, Charles Laughton; Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Elsa Lanchester; Best Director, Billy Wilder; Best Sound, Recording, Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD); and Best Film Editing, Daniel Mandell. Dir. Billy Wilder
Thursday, November 19, 10:15 PM
MARNIE (1964): A forceful millionaire (Sean Connery) blackmails a beautiful thief (Tippi Hedren), who attempted to rob him, into marrying him. He tries to unravel the mystery of her compulsion to steal. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Saturday, November 21, 11:00 AM
WHITE HEAT (1949): “Top of the world, Ma!” A G-man (Edmond O'Brien) infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic, James Cagney in a standout performance. This film marks the cinematic movement away from the traditional Warner Brothers’ portrayal of the gangster to the more cynical and psychological film noir interpretation. Virginia Kellogg garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story for the film. Pointless trivia: Naked Gun 33 1/3 borrowed the plot. Dir. Raoul Walsh
Saturday, November 21, 9:15 PM
Sunday, November 22, 7:00 AM
NORA PRENTISS (1947): In this noir tale, a decorous doctor becomes obsessed with a beautiful nightclub singer, (Ann Sheridan). Interestingly, uber straight man Kent Smith, best known as Irina’s husband in Val Lewton’s Cat People (1942) gets the chance to play a man who will stop at nothing to possess the object of his desire. Dir. Vincent Sherman
Monday, November 23, 3:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Lock the door and power off your phone
3:00 AM
BORN TO KILL (1947): This utterly bizarre film noir details the torrid affair between a killer (Lawrence Tierney) and the narcissistic woman (Claire Trevor) who witnessed his crime. He marries her sister and things really heat up between the amoral pair. Based on James Gunn’s novel Deadlier Than the Male. Dir. Robert Wise
4:45 AM
D.O.A. (1950): This classic and rather convoluted noir tells the tale of small-town businessman Frank (Edmond O'Brien) who is slipped a dose of luminous toxin while out on the town in San Francisco. He determines to track down his own killer during the 24 hours that he has left to live. Existential doom and great San Francisco locations abound. Dir. Rudolph Mate
6:30 AM
RACE STREET (1948): In this San Francisco based noir, an ex-bookie Dan Ganin (George Raft) tries to go straight by opening a nightclub with his singing sister (Gale Robbins) as the main attraction but soon finds himself seeking vengeance against a protection racket syndicate after they kill his friend (Harry Morgan). Noir stalwart William Bendix plays the cop and childhood friend trying to keep Dan in one piece while he’s on his rampage. Dir. Edwin L. Marin
8:00 AM
WOMAN ON THE RUN (1950): A lost gem rediscovered! Thanks to the efforts of the Film Noir Foundation, this terrific 1950 film noir, the only American print of which was burned in a 2008 fire, has been rescued and restored to its original luster. Join the wild chase around San Francisco as a man goes into hiding after witnessing a gangland execution. Police bird-dog his wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan), certain she’ll lead them to her husband, whose testimony against the killer could bring down a crime kingpin. But Eleanor and her hubbie are Splitsville—she never wants to see him again. When roguish newspaperman Danny Leggett (Dennis O’Keefe) charms Eleanor into helping him track down the hidden husband—there are unexpected, stunning, and poignant results. This nervy, shot-on-location thriller is a witty and wise look at the travails of romance and marriage, and perhaps the best cinematic depiction ever of mid-20th century San Francisco. Dir. Norman Foster
9:30 AM
IMPACT (1949): A woman’s (Helen Walker) plot to kill her wealthy husband (Brian Donlevy) goes awry and her lover is killed instead, and the authorities misidentify the body as the husband’s. So, hubby goes into hiding, so that she’ll fry for murder. Things get complicated when he falls for a sweet and beautiful widow (Ella Raines). Dir. Arthur Lubin
11:30 AM
BLONDE ICE (1948): A society reporter (Leslie Brooks) kills a series of wealthy husbands (hers not other people’s) for fame and money, then tries to frame her lover (Robert Paige). Based on the 1938 novel Once Too Often by Elwyn Whitman Chambers. Dir. Jack Bernhard
1:00 PM
DARK PASSAGE (1947): Adapted from a story by David Goodis, this noir follows convicted wife murderer Vincent Parry’s (Humphrey Bogart) escape from jail and subsequent hunt for the real killer of his wife. Sympathetic stranger Irene (Lauren Bacall) encounters him during his jail break and aids him. Agnes Moorehead steals the show as Irene’s shrewish friend who knew Vincent and his wife prior to the murder. Dir. Delmer Daves
3:00 PM
THE MALTESE FALCON (1941): How do I love this movie, let me count the ways… In arguably the first, and greatest, film noir, hard-boiled detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) gets caught up in the deadly search for a priceless statue. Along the way he tangles with a murderous liar (Mary Astor), a foppish thug (Peter Lorre) and an obese mastermind (Sydney Greenstreet). Director John Huston brilliantly adapted it from the Dashiell Hammett novel and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Screenplay. The film also garnered nominations for Best Picture and for Sydney Greenstreet, in his film debut, Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Dir. John Huston
Friday, November 27, 8:30 PM
TAXI DRIVER (1976): Paul Schrader wrote the script for this tale about a loner (Robert De Niro) who becomes fixated on a beautiful campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd) and befriends a teen prostitute (Jodie Foster) with violent results. Director Martin Scorsese’s choices of composer, Bernard Hermann and cinematographer, Michael Chapman, added immeasurably to the film’s impact. Hermann was posthumously nominated for an Oscar for Music, Original Score. De Niro and Foster each earned Oscar nods for their performances. The film was also nominated for Best Picture. Dir. Martin Scorsese
Saturday, November 28, 12:30 PM
THE NAKED CITY (1948): A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York. Barry Fitzgerald plays the compassionate cop on the trail of a murder in this groundbreaking police procedural. Watch for noir regular and radio’s Sam Spade, Howard Duff as the murdered girl’s sleazy boyfriend. William H. Daniels won the Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Paul Weatherwax won for Best Film Editing. Malvin Wald was also nominated for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. Dir. Jules Dassin
Saturday, November 28, 9:15 PM
Sunday, November 29, 7:00 AM
THE GREAT FLAMARION (1945): Vaudevillian sharpshooter The Great Flamarion (Erich von Stroheim) falls for his beautiful assistant (Mary Beth Hughes), and she persuades him to off her alcoholic loser husband (Dan Duryea) who is his other assistant. Duryea does the most realistic drunk acting I have ever seen. Dir. Anthony Mann
Sunday, November 29, 5:45 AM
THE HOUSE ACROSS THE STREET (1949): Managing editor Dave Joslin (Wayne Morris) is demoted to advice columnist when he criticizes the police for failing to protect a witness set to testify against a crime boss (Bruce Bennett). He enlists the help of the previous advice columnist and girlfriend Kit (Janis Page) to solve the murder of the witness. Dir. Richard Bare
Sunday, November 29, 7:15 PM
CHINATOWN (1974): In this critically lauded neo-noir, a private eye (Jack Nicholson) unwittingly sets up an innocent man for murder and then joins his widow (Faye Dunaway) in unearthing the corruption behind the crime in this physically beautiful but emotionally bleak neo-noir set in a morally bankrupt 1930s Los Angeles. Dir. Roman Polanski
Monday, November 30, 8:00 AM
WHITE HEAT (1949): “Top of the world, Ma!” A G-man (Edmond O'Brien) infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic, James Cagney in a standout performance. This film marks the cinematic movement away from the traditional Warner Brothers’ portrayal of the gangster to the more cynical and psychological film noir interpretation. Virginia Kellogg garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story for the film. Pointless trivia: Naked Gun 33 1/3 borrowed the plot. Dir. Raoul Walsh
Monday, November 30
12:30 AM
SPIN A DARK WEB aka Soho Incident (1956): Canadian war vet Jim (Lee Patterson) lives in London prizefighting with limited success. He gets himself crossed up with the sister of a mobster (Faith Domergue) who eventually tries to lure him into a murder plot. Based on Robert Westerby’s 1937 novel Wide Boys Never Work. Dir. Vernon Sewell
2:00 AM
WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950): A suicidal patient (Faith Domergue) draws her doctor (Robert Mitchum) into a web of sex and murder in this dream like noir. When he accidentally kills her husband (Claude Rains in a film stealing performance), they go on the run to Mexico despite the brain injury that is slowly incapacitating him. Dir. John Farrow
Eddie Muller presents Val Lewton's The Leopard Man on the October 31-November edition of NOIR ALLEY
Margaret Rutherford and Stinger Davis in Murder Most Foul on November 1
Ann Rutherford and Tom Conway star in Two O'clock Courage on November 2
Burt Lancaster in The Killers on November 3
Dan Duryea as Slim Dundee in Criss Cross on November 3
Howard Duff and Burt Lancaster in Brute Force on November 4
Raquel Welch in The Last of Sheila on November 7
Eddie Muller presents Breakdown on the November 7-8 edition of NOIR ALLEY
Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success on November 10
Laraine Day and Robert Ryan in The Woman on Pier 13 on November 13
Timothy Carey in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing on November 14
Steve Cochran stars in Slander presented by Eddie Muller on the November 14-15 edition of NOIR ALLEY
Hitchcock + Salvador Dali — Spellbound on November 15
Gregory Peck and Alida Valli in The Paradine Case on November 15
Ricardo Montalban and Elsa Lancaster in Mystery Street on November 17
Spencer Tracey, Robert Ryan and Ernest Borgnine in Bad Day at Black Rock on November 17
Farley Granger stars in Edge of Doom on November 17
Hitchcock's Marnie screens November 19
Eddie Muller presents Nora Prentiss on the November 21-22 edition of NOIR ALLEY
D.O.A. — Neville Brand and Edmund O'Brien in 1950 San Francisco on November 23
Henry Morgan and George Raft in Race Street on November 23
Leslie Brooks stars in Blonde Ice on November 23
The Maltese Falcon screens November 23
James Franciscus in The Naked City on November 28
Eddie Muller presents The Great Flamarion on the November 28-29 edition of NOIR ALLEY
Faith Domergue in Spin a Dark Web on November 30
Three's a crowd? Robert Mitchum, Claude Rains, and Faith Domergue in Where Danger Lives on November 30