Événement

NOIR CITY 14: THE BITTER STEMS / GIRL WITH HYACINTHS

Saturday, January 23: INTERNATIONAL NOIR

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

7:30
LOS TALLOS AMARGOS | THE BITTER STEMS
(1956, Artistas Argentinos Asociados. 90 min.)

North American Premiere -- Film Noir Foundation 35mm Restoration!

Scr. Sergio Leonardo, from the novel by Adolfo Jasca
Dir. Fernando Ayala

This brilliant noir was lauded in its native country upon release -- yet it remains virtually unknown in the rest of the world. Which is a crime, because Los tallos amargos is one of the best noir-drenched films of the 1950s -- maybe ever. A deep-seated inferiority complex leads a Buenos Aires newspaper reporter (Carlos Cores) into a seemingly innocent correspondence-school scheme with a clever Hungarian ex-pat (Vassili Lambrinos). But as the money flows in, so do suspicions -- driving one man to commit the perfect crime.

Presented in a completely restored 35mm print from UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by the Film Noir Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Charitable Trust (The HFPA Trust)

9:30
FLICKA OCH HYACINTER | GIRL WITH HYACINTHS
(1950, Terrafilm [;;Swedish Film Institute];;. 89 min.)

Scr. and Dir. Hasse Ekman

When beautiful, young Dagmar Brink commits suicide, her next-door neighbors are stunned -- even more so by the note she leaves bequeathing the married couple all her possessions, including an enigmatic portrait of Dagmar. Intrigued, the husband, a writer, begins his own exploration of the mysterious woman's sad, short life. Hasse Ekman once was considered Sweden's greatest film director; this film, starring his wife Eva Henning as Dagmar, is unanimously regarded as his defining achievement.