Événement

NOIR CITY 13: CLASH BY NIGHT / CRIME OF PASSION

Wednesday, January 21: Stanwyck, the Wayward Wife

The price of admission gets you into the evening double bill.

7:15
CLASH BY NIGHT
(1952, RKO. 105 min.)

Scr. Alfred Hayes. Dir. Fritz Lang.

Mae Doyle returns to her hometown of Monterey a hard and embittered woman. Facing a dim future, she marries a simple, decent fisherman but soon has an affair with local bad boy Earl Pfeiffer. Less a noir than a gritty "kitchen sink" drama, it's a stunning example of a proto-feminist film. Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, and Robert Ryan give performances that rank among their best ever.

9:15
CRIME OF PASSION
(1957, United Artists. 84 min.)

Scr. Jo Eisinger. Dir. Gerd Oswald.

San Francisco newspaper columnist Kathy Ferguson trades her career for marriage to an L.A. cop. With nowhere to channel her talent and ambition, she quickly becomes a dangerous woman. It's a subversive excoriation of women's circumscribed roles in Eisenhower-era America, tailor made for Stanwyck, who pulls out all the stops in her final, riveting performance in a film noir.