Movie Notes

Film noir month at Cinematheque

by Adrian Mack on July 29th, 2014 at 3:05 PM
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      Barbara Stanwyck comes to Vancouver the way nature intended this weekend—over 20 feet tall and smouldering.

      A restored version of the 1944 Stanwyck-Fred MacMurray classic Double Indemnity plays as part of a special long-weekend film-noir triple bill at the Cinematheque on Sunday (August 3), along with The Maltese Falcon and Mildred Pierce. (Twenty-foot Joan Crawford! Argh!!)  

      The downtown film society is bringing 12 of the genre’s most hard-boiled works back to the big screen, with The Postman Always Rings Twice, Niagara, The Lady From Shanghai, and Gun Crazy among the acknowledged masterworks. But the month-long series also offers some lesser known gems, chief among them Joseph H. Lewis’s 1948 France-set So Dark the Night—after which the Cinematheque’s series is named.

      “It has more cinematic ideas per square foot of screen than any number of contemporary A-features,” wrote Time Out’s Tony Rayns of the microbudgeted wonder. “This is what Lewis is all about.”

      See the full program here. 

      Watch the trailer for Gun Crazy

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      Adrian Mack

      Adrian Mack writes for the Georgia Straight on a number of topics, including music, film, and fascist death cults. He’s also frequently spotted around town playing a 1962 Gretsch round badge three-piece drum kit with a champagne sparkle finish. Adrian is unapologetic about his interest of UFOs,...

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      Comments

      3 Comments

      A. MacInnis

      Jul 29, 2014 at 5:41pm

      Yep, I'm pretty darn excited about that Lewis. Never seen it, but Gun Crazy (also Joseph H. Lewis) is amazing, and... hell, whatsitcalled? The one where cunnilingus is hinted at...? The Big Combo, yeah! With Richard Conte and Lee van Cleef. That was great too!

      Ron Y

      Jul 29, 2014 at 11:19pm

      Ooh, Lee Van Cleef. My son is a huge fan of "Angel Eyes."

      I have been watching the classics selection on Netflix, but the theatre experience is not the same, I believe.

      A. MacInnis

      Aug 3, 2014 at 2:13am

      Ron, has your son seen The Big Gundown? Great, great Van Cleef role, film recently restored and put out on an amazing Blu-Ray/ DVD combo with an extra CD included with the killer Morricone soundtrack. Also with Thomas Milian - a favourite spaghetti western of Alex Cox, Quentin Tarantino, and, uh, myself. Interestingly enough Franco Solinas (better known for very political films written for Gillo Pontecorvo, Joseph Losey and Costa Gavras) worked on the writing of it, so it's got some meat to it.