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NOIR CITY 14: THE DARK CORNER / CRACK-UP

Saturday, January 23: CURATORS AND CRITICS

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

1:30
THE DARK CORNER
(1946, 20th Century-Fox., 99 min.)

Scr. Jay Dratler, Bernard C. Schoenfeld, from a story by Leo Rosten
Dir. Henry Hathaway

Disgraced San Francisco private eye Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens), sprung from prison and seeking a fresh start, opens an agency in New York only to have trouble relentlessly dog him. He finds himself a fish out of water amidst a coterie of high-society art snobs, and suspects that a treacherous ally from his past is trying to frame him for a murder. Luckily for Galt, his dedicated secretary (Lucille Ball) is both sexy and savvy. This self-aware detective story is both an exemplar of film noir style and one of the first parodies of the genre.

3:30
CRACK-UP
(1946, RKO Radio Pictures [;;Warner Bros.];;. 93 min.)

Scr. John Paxton, Ben Bengal, Ray Spencer, based on a story by Fredric Brown
Dir. Irving Reis

George Steele (Pat O'Brien), esteemed art curator and critic, loses his job at the Contemporary Art Museum after suffering mental trauma from a train crash -- only there's no record anywhere of the accident ever happening. His career ruined, Steele sets out to discover the truth with the aid of his glamorous reporter girlfriend, Terry Cordell (Claire Trevor), and quickly finds himself enmeshed in a shadowy conspiracy involving wartime espionage and sophisticated art forgery.