Noir City Chicago 2024: Darkness Has No Borders

by Rosalie Lewis

Get excited! Noir is back at the Music Box starting Friday, September 6th!

My dark little heart skipped a beat when I saw this year’s Noir City lineup. After missing last year due to a work trip, I am thrilled to return to the Music Box Theatre in Chicago for a week’s worth of detectives, dames, and down-on-their-luck drifters. For this year, the Film Noir Foundation has programmed a mix of English language and international films of the noir variety. Whether you’re making a trip to the fest or doing your own watch along at home, let me tell you what’s in store.

Familiar Favorites

At least four of the movies on the program are stone cold classics of the noir style and chances are good you’ve seen or heard of these even as a casual fan. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) kicks things off on Friday night in style with a good old fashioned kill for love plot on hand. Based on the James Cain novel of the same name, this was not the first time the material had been adapted for the big screen and it wouldn’t be the last. Everyone loves a good “help me kill my dumb ugly husband so we can be together forever” story, apparently. Lana Turner sizzles in this movie, with John Garfield as the handsome drifter who finds her irresistible. This is a quintessential noir and if you haven’t seen it, you should correct that pronto. Even if it’s an old favorite, seeing it on a big screen with a packed house on opening night of the fest introduced by Eddie Muller should make it feel like the very first time. (If you can’t make the fest, you can rent this on most streaming platforms and watch along at home.)

Odd Man Out (1947) is less of a household name than 1949’s The Third Man, but director Carol Reed had a knack for capturing the bleak mood and desperate humanity of noir from the start. In it, a wounded James Mason attempts to evade police in Belfast after a botched robbery. It’s one of those movies that makes you reach for a blanket to stave off the cold shivers that you feel as you identify with the characters on screen. A favorite of filmmakers and critics, this one pops up less often at rep screenings than Reed’s collab with Orson Welles, so take advantage and see it on Saturday if you can. Otherwise, it’s available via Tubi, Prime, and Max.

This Gun for Hire (1942) was the first of four onscreen pairings of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Directed by Frank Tuttle, the movie invokes such classic noir tropes as night club performers, blackmail, double crosses, assassination attempts, and spy conspiracies. Lake was fresh off her star turn in Sullivan’s Travels and Ladd was basically a little known bit player when he was cast in the movie. While both of them developed reputations for hitting the booze a little too hard (You’d probably drink too if your mom ate ant poison and died in the backseat of your car), they clearly had the right chemistry to thrill audiences. This one plays on Sunday and as someone who has seen it on the big screen before, it’s not to be missed. To play along at home, rent on any number of streaming services.

With the recent passing of one of the all time gorgeous men, Alain Delon, even the noir noobs probably know about Le Samourai (1967) at this point. Delon had already made a name for himself in Purple Noon (the French version of Talented Mr. Ripley), Rocco and His Brothers, L’Eclisse, The Leopard, and more; but his team up with French new wave auteur Jean Pierre Melville forever sealed his fate as cinema’s coolest hitman. This movie inspired dozens of imitators, all vying to capture the laconic detachment and effortless sexiness of Delon’s Jef Costello. You know you’re doing something right when everyone from Jim Jarmusch to John Woo to Nicolas Winding Refn is trying to cop your style. See this master class in being a fucking badass on Sunday; or if you can’t, watch at home via Prime, Max, Criterion Channel, or various rental platforms.

Unexpected Delights

I’ve seen seven of the eighteen films playing the fest. Of the ones I have not yet seen, these are the ones I’m most excited about: Hardly a Criminal (1949) directed by Hugo Fregonese is an Argentinian noir about a bank employee who tries to outsmart the law. I know Fregonese from his Hollywood noir One Way Street starring James Nelson and Dan Duryea; but I also know that Argentinian noir is fantastic based on what I’ve seen (The Bitter Stems, Don’t Open That Door). This one is not currently available to stream, and I am not seeing a physical release when I do a quick search. So if you’re in Chicago on Monday, you’d best get down to Southport and buy yourself a ticket.

Black Tuesday (1954) directed by Hugo Fregonese (again) stars Edward G. Robinson in a prison escape plot. I love me some Eddie G, and I also love the screenwriter, Sydney Boehm, who wrote Side Street, The Big Heat, and Hell on Frisco Bay. Another reason to venture out on a Tuesday night? The cinematographer is Stanley Cortez, who gave us the visionary camerawork from The Night of the Hunter and The Magnificent Ambersons. This one is streamable, but according to the program notes it hasn’t been shown cinematically in about twenty years. So best believe I’ll be in the audience to experience this one!

Man in the Dark (1953) directed by Lew Landers throws a few twists into the mix: First, it’s a 3-D movie, which should make for a ton of fun theatrically. Next, one of its plot conceits is not just the ol’ amnesia chestnut—the cause of the amnesia in this case is an experimental surgery meant to remove criminal impulses. As a result, this criminal can no longer remember where he stashed the loot from the robbery that landed him in prison. This should be a hoot! Hit up the Music Box on Wednesday to see it in person, or give it a spin on Tubi and just periodically run face first into your TV screen to reproduce the 3-D effect.

Zero Focus (1961) is a film from prolific Japanese director Yoshitaro Nomura. Its star, Yoshiko Kuga, collaborated with such greats as Akira Kurowsawa, Mikio Naruse, Yasujiro Ozu, and Nagisa Oshima. I’m trying to avoid reading too much about the plot, but at a high level it appears to concern a woman whose husband disappears on a business trip and her quest to figure out what has happened to him. While this is currently available on the Criterion Channel, the chance to see it on the big screen is awfully alluring. It plays on Sunday of the fest.

Cairo Station (1958) will be my first experience with Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine. Drawing inspiration from Italian neorealism as well as film noir, this film includes such key ingredients as a serial killer on the loose, a journalist obsessed with a woman, and some lurid behavior from a loner. It also stars Hind Rostom, aka the Marilyn Monroe of the East. Color me intrigued! This one closes out the fest on Thursday night; you can also stream it (along with several other Chahine joints) on Criterion Channel.

I’ll be sharing a few dispatches from Noir City as the week goes on, and I hope to see you there!