NIGHT IN NOIR CITY contest celebrating FNF president Eddie Muller's gig on Thursday, January 17, 2013, as guest programmer and co-host—with the legendary Robert Osborne—of “A Night in Noir City...”

[deedee gauzot]

[Pictured TCM HOST ROBERT OSBORNE AND AUTHOR EDDIE MULLER]

We [THE FILM NOIR FOUNDATION] are loving the responses to our NIGHT IN NOIR CITY contest celebrating FNF president Eddie Muller's gig on Thursday, January 17, 2013, as guest programmer and co-host—with the legendary Robert Osborne—of “A Night in Noir City,” a four-film festival of noir on Turner Classic Movies.

You can enter by posting the four films that YOU would screen on TCM You can enter by posting the four films that YOU would screen on TCM as a comment on this post: http://tinyurl.com/bdp2fgr .

 

The two people who program the best alternative selection of films, as judged by Eddie, will receive a prize. The first winner will receive a copy of the TCM Classic Movie Trivia Book and the second winner, a copy of the NOIR CITY Annual #4.

Overview

 

This is the definitive movie trivia book, from the authority on classic film. Rediscover your favorite films and put your movie knowledge to the test with more than 4,000 questions that draw on a century of landmark cinema.

Questions range from early Hollywood to the 1960s and beyond, including key genres, stars, directors, behind-the-scenes facts, famous quotes, and more all highlighted by spotlight trivia features and hundreds of images and film stills.

A foreword by TCM host Robert Osborne and a challenging Experts Only section round out this ultimate volume for classic film aficionados.

... See more details below

 

 

Eddie will inscribe the book to the winners, who will be contacted through a private message on Facebook. The contest will run until midnight Tuesday, November 27 2012. The winning selections will be re-posted on the FNF Facebook page in December.

TCM will announce Eddie's line-up on November 28 2012 and  feature an essay by Eddie explaining his choices for the line-up on their website.

[deedee gauzot]

[The Picture Of  TCM HOST ROBERT OSBORNE AND AUTHOR EDDIE MULLER] Is Copy-righted@

[deedee gauzot]

The Noir City e-mag contains the finest and most fun writing on film noir in the world. The quarterly publication available as a PDF is available to donors to the Film Noir Foundation dedicated to rescuing and restoring film noir... ...Go to filmnoirfoundation.org... for subscription information.

Memo: Film Noir Foundation...
Check out Michael Kronenberg's fabulous cover for the soon to be published NOIR CITY ANNUAL 4, due out in May. It comprises the best writing of the NOIR CITY e-magazine from the past year (2011).

The book will be over 350 pages and illustrated with stills, posters and graphics. We'll announce here [Over There On Facebook...] when it's available for pre-order on Amazon.com...

[editor's note: It's available and you can also take a look inside... too!

Thanks, ]

[deedee gauzot]

AND THE WINNERS ARE!

Judging this was MUCH harder than I expected it would be. There were so many terrific entries in the "Program YOUR Night in Noir City" contest that picking just TWO was impossible. So I've included an additional six honorary mentions.

The HMs were all great line-ups, but the two winners showed that extra bit of programming cleverness. Here goes:

HONORARY MENTION

MICHAEL WHEELER: The Set-Up / The Asphalt Jungle / Born to Kill / Gun Crazy

MARK WEBER: Criss Cross / Ace in the Hole / Angel Face / Nightmare Alley

MARIO CALANDRELLA: Street of Chance / Pitfall / Alias Nick Beal / One Way Street

PETER LABARA: Act of Violence / The Set-Up / Phantom Lady / A Double Life

DIANDRA RODRIGUEZ: Raw Deal / Act of Violence / Hollow Triumph / The Chase

AMOS PERRINE: Christmas Holiday / Phantom Lady / The Reckless Moment / Pitfall

If you all will send your mailing addresses in a Private Message, I will send you all souvenir programs from the last three NOIR CITY film festivals in San Francisco.

THE WINNERS

MARTIN ARCHER: The Narrow Margin / Deadline at Dawn / Ace in the Hole / Jeopardy ("Race Against Time")

DESPINA VNT: Dark Passage / Stolen Face / The Man with My Face / Strange Impersonation / Hollow Triumph ("Facial Issues")

Again, send mailing addresses in a Private Message and we'll ship you your prizes. One of you gets the huge TCM movie trivia book, one gets the NOIR CITY ANNUAL #4 from the Film Noir Foundation. Please advise if you already have either.

And for those of you who haven't seen what my [author Eddie Muller's] choices are for the actual "Night in Noir City" airing January 17 on TCM, here they are:

CRY DANGER
99 RIVER STREET
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY
THE BREAKING POINT
THE PROWLER (I didn't actually pick this, but TCM added it to the end of the program, for which I am grateful!)

[deedee gauzot]

A Night in Noir City with The Czar Of Film Noir...Eddie Muller

According To Author Eddie Muller

"I was thrilled, of course, to be asked by the good folks at TCM to program and co-host a night of noir with the redoubtable Robert Osborne. My elation was tempered somewhat by the realization that I could only choose four films! Out of the literally hundreds of bold and brooding crime dramas I've screened and written about during the past fourteen years--only FOUR! A challenge, to say the least. In the end, I opted to make "A Night in Noir City" an extension of the "rescue, restoration and revival" work I do as head of the Film Noir Foundation, a grassroots non-profit that raises funds to protect and preserve at-risk exemplars of film noir--which I consider to be Hollywood's only truly organic artistic movement. So rather than present familiar classics of the genre, like Double Indemnity (1944) or Out of the Past (1947), I went with more obscure, but in my opinion no less deserving, choices. It's my hope that prime-time exposure on TCM will shine a fresh light on these terrific, often overlooked, gems.CRY DANGER (1951)
The Film Noir Foundation, along with our colleagues at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, recently restored this Dick Powell thriller. Powell had a special way with a wisecrack, and was also one of the most astute independent producers in the business. Cry Danger was his film all the way, and he showed off his savvy by hiring wondrous wiseacre Bill Bowers to pen the original screenplay, and giving Oscar®-winning editor Robert Parrish his first directing gig. Sure, noir is supposed to be dark and nihilistic, but a great cast spewing Bowers' dynamite dialogue proves it can be incredibly fun as well. I dedicate this showing to the late, great Nancy Mysel, who supervised the restoration of this film, a project we both savored.
99 RIVER STREET (1953)
I'm a huge fan of rugged and razor-sharp 1950's paperback crime fiction--and this is about as close as anyone ever came to hurling it onto the screen, unabashed and undiluted. John Payne is terrific as a bitter ex-boxer turned cabbie Ernie Driscoll, whose wayward wife leads him into all sorts of nefariousness in nocturnal New York. Director Phil Karlson perfected his slam-bang style right here; to me, this is his signature film. The highlight: Evelyn Keyes, typically cast as the good girl, turning up the heat in a pair of jaw-dropping set pieces.

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951)
When I first encountered this exceptional film more than a decade ago, I declared it "Gun Crazy [1950] scripted by John Steinbeck." A minor masterpiece in the filmography of the virtually forgotten Felix Feist, this is one of the best "love on the lam" tales in all noir. Steve Cochran--the Elvis of Noir--is perfect as a vulnerable ex-con who falls hard for bruised "taxi dancer" Ruth Roman (as a blonde! And never better!). Thwarted passions, a dank hotel room, a dirty cop--a gunshot! And suddenly our luckless lovers are fugitives fleeing cross-country. It's high time for this fantastic film to finally come out of hiding and get the recognition it deserves.

THE BREAKING POINT (1950)
Many cineastes point to 1950 as perhaps the finest year ever for American movies (Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, In a Lonely Place, The Asphalt Jungle, and many more)--but this breathtaking adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not stands equally with all those classics. John Garfield gives the most personal and self-revelatory performance of his career as a fishing boat captain who gets in too deep when he bends the law to keep his business afloat. The film was shunned--by its own studio--because of Garfield's troubles with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and in the following years copyright entanglements with the Hemingway estate kept it from earning the reputation is deserves. Insightful script (by Ranald MacDougall), brilliant performances from the entire cast (no one can be singled out, they're all superb), and Michael Curtiz's most compelling direction--and yes, I'm not forgetting Casablanca (1942) and Robin Hood (1938) and Mildred Pierce (1945) and many others. The Breaking Point truly is that good.

 

The Prowler (1951)

Thursday January, 17 2013 at 02:30 AM
Tuesday April, 30 2013 at 01:45 PM

Films in BOLD will Air on TCM *  |   VIEW TCMDb ENTRY
by Eddie Muller
-Eddie Muller produces and hosts NOIR CITY: The San Francisco Film Noir Festival, [Noir City 11...at The Castro Theatre  ] the world's largest noir retrospective. As president of the Film Noir Foundation, he has been instrumental in "rescuing America's noir heritage," restoring and preserving such classics as The Prowler (1951) and Cry Danger (1951). In 2011 he presented a month-long series of rare noir at the Cinematheque Française in Paris.

He's provided commentary for more than two dozen DVDs. His novel, The Distance, earned the Best First Novel Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star, which he cowrote with the actor, was a 2007 national bestseller. He was a guest programmer and presenter at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, and will be again in 2013..."