1949, 20th Century-Fox. 87 min.
Scr. Richard Murphy, Herman Wouk, A. I. Bezzerides (uncredited). Dir. Andre de Toth.

7:30 PM

The rarest film of Richard Widmark’s early rise to stardom is an uncommonly adult story of infidelity and drug smuggling. Will Slattery (Widmark) is a cynical fighter pilot facing possible court-martial, flying suspicious cargo around the Caribbean. Disasters, both human and natural, result when an old flame (Linda Darnell) comes between Slattery and his loyal gal (Veronica Lake), who has secrets of her own. It’s a unique film featuring fresh, innovative direction by the great Andre de Toth.

NOT ON DVD!

TICKETS FOR DOUBLE FEATURE

1953, 20th Century-Fox. 80 min.
Story by Dwight Taylor; screenplay and direction: Samuel Fuller.

9:30 PM

Widmark delivers his signature performance in this exceptionally fast and hardboiled tale of a New York pickpocket caught between the commies and the feds, playing both ends against the middle for his own gain. It is perhaps Fuller’s most perfectly realized film, featuring Oscar-nominated support from Thelma Ritter and a memorable turn by Jean Peters as a blowsy, brazen B girl. Fuller, a former New York crime reporter, magically turns Fox back lots and studio sets into a vivid depiction of his beloved Big Apple.

1946, Universal. 65 min.
Scr. George Bricker, Garrett Ford, Tod Browning. Dir. Jean Yarbrough.

1:00, 4:30 PM

This terse programmer is notable as the final credit of writer-director Tod Browning (Freaks), although he’d written the story years before it was made. Some of his distinctive traits are evident in the tale of newlywed ex-cons (Ann Rutherford and Alan Curtis) forced into a mobster’s plan to rob a downtown department store. It’s a B movie through and through, but one with clever business peppering a plot that consistently zigs when you expect it to zag. Featuring the stalwart Preston Foster as the dapper gangster.

NOT ON DVD!

$10 double feature shows start at 1:00 and 2:30.PM

TICKETS FOR DOUBLE FEATURE

1950, RKO (Warner Bros.) 67 min.
Scr. Earl Felton and Gerald Drayson Adams. Story: Robert Leeds and Robert Angus.
Dir. Richard Fleischer. Prd. Herman Schlom.

2:30 PM

When his veteran partner is shot dead during a daring daylight robbery, LAPD police lieutenant Jim Cordell (Charles McGraw, at his toughest and most taciturn) vows revenge. Yes, it’s that simple. But despite its meager premise Armored Car Robbery is a classic “B” thanks to Earl Fenton’s ultra-hardboiled lingo, director Fleischer’s briskly-paced knockabout tour of 1950 Los Angeles, and a cast of familiar supporting mugs (led by the reptilian William Talman) for once given center-stage. They relish every minute of it, and so do we.

NOT ON DVD!

1954, Columbia. 91 min.
Scr. Alfred Hayes. Dir. Fritz Lang.

7:30 PM

You can’t really call this a redo of The Postman Always Rings Twice because it’s based on Emile Zola’s 1890 novel La Bete Humaine. But then, tales of tortured lovers tempted to commit murder are timeless, aren’t they? Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame rekindle their flame from Lang’s 1953 smash The Big Heat, and Broderick Crawford plays the loutish cuckold they want to be rid of. Do we need to note that things don’t go according to plan? Burnett Guffey supplies the wonderfully atmospheric cinematography.

NOT ON DVD!

TICKETS FOR DOUBLE FEATURE

1959, United Artists. 96 min.
Scr. Abraham Polonsky (uncredited)
Dir. Robert Wise

9:30 PM

Legendary actor-musician-humanitarian Harry Belafonte starred in and produced this incendiary crime classic. He plays jazz musician Johnny Ingram, whose gambling debts lead him to take part in a bank job with surly racist Earle Slater (Robert Ryan, in a performance both ferocious and sad). The film also features a landmark score by jazz greats John Lewis and the Modern Jazz Quartet, bolstering the tight and tense direction of the great Robert Wise.

1945, Columbia. 65 min.
Scr. Aubrey Wisberg
Dir. Oscar “Budd” Boetticher

1:00, 4:50, 7:00 PM

An army nurse (Nina Foch) is terrified by a fog-shrouded dream in which she witnesses a trio of men committing murder on the Golden Gate Bridge. Good thing it’s all a dream . . . until the victim asks her out on a date! Settle in with some popcorn for lots of old-fashioned B-movie skullduggery. Director Boetticher, who’d go on to direct some of the greatest Westerns ever, rides briskly over plot holes, camouflaging lapses in logic with loads of atmosphere, and makes the most of star Nina Foch’s distinctive appeal.

NOT ON DVD!

TICKETS FOR DOUBLE FEATURE

1951, Paramount. 122 min.
Scr. Michael Wilson, Harry Brown
Dir. George Stevens

2:25, 8:30 PM

This sublime adaptation of Theodore Drieser’s An American Tragedy is noir to the core, despite the gloss and glamour Paramount ladled on to make it a huge hit. A blue-collar social climber (Montgomery Clift) falls for a gorgeous society debutante (Elizabeth Taylor, at the peak of her beauty), but his plain, prole, and pregnant girlfriend (Shelley Winters) stands in the way of his personal American Dream. It won Oscars for best costumes, score, editing, cinematography, screenplay, and direction, yet somehow lost best picture to An American in Paris.