NOIR IN BRIEF: BOGEY AND WIDMARK INVITE YOU DOWNTOWN

Lily and I are preparing another week of Gothamist interviews (which will start next Monday), and work has been abnormally extremely busy, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write this week, but I absolutely want to keep plugging the magnificent “Essential Noir” series ongoing at Film Forum. Today and tomorrow feature a double bill of Kiss of Death and Pickup on South Street, two films starring the phenomenal (and sadly now mostly forgotten) Richard Widmark. If you’re not that familiar with director Sam Fuller (and especially if you happened to get to the recent reconstruction of The Big Red One), you’ll want to check out Pickup on South Street. Many consider this to be Fuller’s best film, chronologically falling right in the middle of his long career and at the peak of his talents. It’s also often recognized as one of the most typical early 50s noir, placing a heavy emphasis on the nation’s fear of communism at the time. I can’t comment too much because Pickup is one of the few films in this series that I always have managed to miss, but I will be sure to get there today or tomorrow.

Widmark was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars throughout the 50s and 60s, especially in the two most popular American genres of the time, noir and the western. His film debut was in Kiss of Death playing a giggling, psychopathic heavy who seeks revenge on Victor Mature for testifying against him. Widmarks’ performance remains one of the most interesting noir villains of the period, an attempt to portray a person so bad that he receives glee from his evildoings. My introduction to Widmark happened to also be with this film when the Walter Reade screened a whole series of the actor’s movies about three years ago. These two movies screening together are a perfect chance for you to introduce yourself to Widmark as well.

Thursday features two films from the earliest days of noir, really long before the style had even been categorized. In fact, most books and articles about the style consider John Huston’s classic The Maltese Falcon to be the very first film noir. It’s hard to argue otherwise, especially considering Humphrey Bogart’s iconic performance as detective anti-hero Sam Spade, straight from Dasheil Hammett’s phenomenal hard-boiled novel. If you’ve never seen The Maltese Falcon, this is a no brainer — get your ass down to Film Forum on Thursday. In fact, this movie wasn’t only the first noir, but it was also Huston’s directorial debut, and it’s one of the best first movies of all time.

Paired with The Maltese Falcon is This Gun For Hire starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, not to mention a pre-Music Man Robert Preston. Based on a Graham Greene novel, this is another film long near the top of my “to see” list, so hopefully I’ll have more to say at a later date.

Friday starts a series of bills which make up the most famous and important of all noirs starting with two of the sexiest of femme fatales: Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shanghai. Both are worth seeing (the Hall of Mirrors sequence in the latter film is particularly fantastic), and they play Friday and Saturday. I’ll write more later in the week.